McLaren

A documentary about Bruce McLaren. McLaren was born in New Zealand and had a hip disease as a child; he spent two years in bed and one leg stayed shorter than the other. He became a racing driver anyway and won a Formula One race at twenty-two. But the film's real subject is not his driving, it is the team he built. McLaren wanted to design his own cars and put together his own crew. The documentary describes how that crew worked: a small workshop, a few people who knew each other, and constant experiment. The narrative also shows how lethal racing was in that period. Safety in the 1960s barely existed; the number of drivers killed was high and everyone knew it. McLaren died on a test run in 1970. He was thirty-two. The documentary is built on interviews with former crew members and drivers of the period, and uses extensive archive footage. Roger Donaldson directed. A tight record for anyone who likes motorsport and portraits from life. For a viewer wanting the excitement of racing, the film weights engineering and people; the track footage is only one part.