Weekend of a Champion (1972)

[J.D.]

Weekend of a Champion, which is listed as having two release dates, 1972 and 2013, is a documentary which should have a pretty wide appeal among ARSEs. This is Roman Polanski's way of exposing mainstream audiences to the Formula One circus of the early 1970s and spends the entire time sitting on the shoulder of Jackie Stewart as he works his way through a difficult Monaco Grand Prix weekend in 1971.

I first saw this doco in the late 1970s and had I not already been interested in Formula One, I think I would still have liked it. As it happens, my first real exposure to the sport was borrowing a library copy of Automobile Year from the 1971 season, so this film resonated quite strongly. As a film about Formula One, it should keep you entertained but as a piece of documentary making, it is very good in its own right, capturing a bygone era in such intimate detail. In fact, I think it's better than "Senna" - good as that was - by a fair margin. The problems of that era were probably summed up in a single shot, that of a forlorn and recently-widowed Nina Rindt, standing quietly by in the Stewart's hotel room. I'll say no more about this because I'll leave it up to you to find out the rest for yourselves. The DVD is easy to find.

The original runs a bit short of feature length and the new version has a very revealing final bit added 40 years after the original release. It might just be me but I learnt a lot more about Jackie Stewart from this than I previously knew. Though to you aficionados, there will probably be no surprises.

Highly recommended.

9/10

[wabbit]

Thank you, I'll take a look

Sweet, it's on TD.