The Flying Scot’s great story to tell in entertaining doco
Jackie Stewart (E, 95 mins)
Directed by Patrick Mark
Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett
***½
I’ve watched and reviewed a few documentaries about famous racing drivers over what I laughingly refer to as my career. And I think this is the first time – touch wood – that the bugger the film is about is still alive.
Jackie Stewart was born in a village near Glasgow in 1939. Chronic dyslexia – undiagnosed until he was 43 – scuppered his schooling and he left at the age of 15 with no qualifications.
His parents owned a garage and young Johnnie – as he was known – took to the tools enthusiastically. He had first driven acarwhenhewas9and,asateenager, showed that he might have a talent for it.
Stewart was 20 when a family friend offered to let him test a few racing cars and he repaid him by scoring four first places in his first season. Within a couple of years, Stewart was a professional racer.
He graduated to Formula One (F1) in the 1965 season and, during the next nine years, won 27 Grand Prix, was world champion three times and runner-up twice. After retiring, Stewart became a much-loved TV commentator – on motor racing and many other sports – and is still often behind a microphone today.
Jackie Stewart is a legend of the sport and the only surviving member of a near-mythical generation of drivers.
Writer and director Patrick Mark has made a tidy job of getting Stewart’s life into a watchable and easily digestible film. Mark lets the historical action mostly speak for itself, with Stewart providing the only narration.
The 1970s were a fantastic era for sports cinematography. Affordable zoom lenses were already making American basketball and football matches look like Italian westerns and F1 quickly got on the bandwagon. The style might seem dated now, but it yields a treasure trove of terrific archive – and Mark makes the most of it.
Jackie’s long and very happy marriage to Helen is central to this film. Helen is an intensely reserved and dignified figure, but it is made clear that she is absolutely central to Jackie’s life and wellbeing.
Both the Stewarts talk of the relief they felt when Jackie retired – one race earlier than he had planned – after the death of his protégé and team-mate Francois Cevert.
Motor racing – and especially F1 – is still dangerous. But the improvements to car and track design in the last few decades have made racing a hell of a lot safer than it once was. During the 1960s and 1970s, when Stewart was forging his career, a driver who raced for five years had a 50/50 chance of dying in his car. There were an average of two deaths every season.
Since Ayrton Senna’s fatal crash in 1994, there has been only one death in an F1 race. During his career and in the decades since, Stewart has been an effective and ceaseless campaigner for driver safety and rights. For all his achievements behind the wheel, the crashes and deaths he has helped to prevent might still be his greatest legacy.
Jackie Stewart might not win the sport any new fans, but it is an immersive and affectionate piece of work. Recommended.
Jackie Stewart is in select cinemas nationwide.