The Price of a Record

In 2002 Donald Campbell was voted the 89th greatest Briton of all time in a BBC poll, ahead of actor Richard Burton and Tim Berners-Lee, the internet pioneer. As the *only* man to break both the World Land and Water Speed records in the same year (1964, an achievement which is unlikely ever to be equalled) he certainly deserved this recognition.

This short film shows us the preparations for Campbell's fatal attempt to raise his own water speed record to over 300mph. Incidentally it gives a picture of his reputation at the time and the sort of pressure he was facing. The interviewer asks Campbell about his motivation, whether record breaking serves any real purpose, and his problems with money and raising financial backing. In 1966, British Petroleum - one of the country's biggest corporations, if not *the* biggest - wouldn't even donate fuel and lubricants to the team.

Campbell is truly going it alone, working in appalling conditions, and having to face hostility from the press and even his own family: one journalist feels Campbell is now too old for record attempts, while his wife Tonia Bern comes close to saying she is bored with record breaking and feels this effort is ill-fated.

With the benefit of hindsight the viewer feels like telling everyone to lay off Campbell. The man is risking his life to show Britain can lead the world both in advanced engineering and sheer guts. By the end of the film the man looks completely hounded.

Nostalgia lends a glow to Donald Campbell's life and achievements, this film is a reminder that he was subjected to harsh scrutiny in his lifetime, national hero or not.

No British person (of a certain era) will forget the footage of Campbell's boat backflipping to his death on Lake Coniston as he sought to break the world water speed record. Campbell had already gone faster than any man before, but the regulations required him to do it a second time to claim the title - and that was when Lake Coniston sent Bluebird to the bottom. These images from the documentary passed into history, and occasionally reemerge - most recently in Wired Magazine - as a testimony to the price paid to achieve the near impossible. But it is also Douglas Hurn' patient and compassionate direction, and the way he gives people time to open up their emotions in front of the camera make this a documentary classic and Hurn a great Director.