“Stewart”: feature-length documentary reviewed
Whether you’re a veteran motorsport enthusiast or a recent convert to Formula 1, chances are you don’t need to be told who Jackie Stewart is. As a three-time world champion who is rightly heralded for spearheading major advances of safety in Formula 1, later became a race-winning team principal and is still a regular figure in the paddock even today, Stewart is one of F1’s true living legends.
But more than 50 years since his first world championship triumph in 1969, it’s also the case that the majority of those who follow Formula 1 in 2022 were not around to see Stewart when he was at the peak of his powers as a driver. While many of us know who he was and what he achieved, a large proportion of those who now faithfully watch every grand prix will know little about Jackie Stewart the man.
Enter film maker Patrick Mark and his 90-minute documentary ‘Stewart’, currently airing exclusively on Sky television in the UK. Much like ‘Senna’ and Netflix’s ‘Schumacher’ attempted to chronicle the sporting lives of two of the most successful drivers motorsport has ever seen, ‘Stewart’ does much the same for the 83-year-old’s career.
But while the film is a celebration of the life of a champion, it is also as much a stark and, at times, brutal chronicle of death during Formula 1’s most dangerous era. “I don’t know anyone who’s seen it who hasn’t had a weep,” Stewart told the Mirror after watching the completed film for the first time. “It’s been beautifully done. I think it will be the best motor racing film ever made – and I had nothing to do with it.”
High praise indeed – but does ‘Stewart’ truly live up to such plaudits? Narrated entirely by Stewart himself, with contributions from the likes of Emerson Fittipaldi and the late Murray Walker, ‘Stewart’ is a documentary where you can tell the thought and effort that has been put into every frame. From luxurious shots of the dramatic Dunbartonshire countryside Stewart hails from to interspersing archive footage with more modern shots of Stewart in the paddock filmed in 2019, the film rips along at a surprising pace. There is not a single shot of anyone sat in a chair talking into a camera to be found in this documentary.
Naturally, the film focuses on Stewart’s career in racing. But ‘Stewart’ is not a documentary about a racing driver as it is about the life of a boy from Scotland living with severe dyslexia. From being berated as “stupid, dumb and thick” by his teachers to carefully hiding his functional illiteracy from the world well into superstardom, Stewart’s struggles navigating a world so heavily reliant on written communication becomes a central theme of the film.
So too does his marriage to wife Helen, who the documentary makes evidently clear was not simply a companion to Stewart and a mother to their children but someone absolutely integral to everything Stewart achieved both in his racing career and beyond. Various clips of Helen Stewart’s musings on her husband, her family and the nature of being a motorsport spouse recorded at the time help to provide a poignant perspective on Stewart’s career.
In fact, the film makers have dived deep into the archives to ensure that every aspect of the subject matter is illustrated with rich, vibrant and authentic footage from the era. Every clip so perfectly preserved, it’s hard to imagine it was possible to find analogue footage any clearer than this.
Naturally, safety – or the lack of in Formula 1’s “killer years” of the Sixties and Seventies – forms a major part of the narrative. In Stewart’s era, the cold reality of death hung heavy over each driver who climbed into the cramped, unprotected cockpits of their cars and it’s a reality that the film confronts head on.
It is important to warn that the film contains genuine footage of multiple fatal accidents which claimed the lives many of Stewart’s colleagues and friends: Lorenzo Bandini, Jochen Rindt, Piers Courage, Roger Williamson. Placed in and around more wholesome images of the Stewart family playing together in their Swiss home and of lavish award ceremonies bestowing honours to Stewart, the graphic images of his peers having their own lives cut short feels like a tonal whiplash, but it also conveys the harsh realities of the time so effectively.
As next-door neighbour to the Stewarts, the sequence covering Rindt’s death and how Jackie and Helen Stewart supported Rindt’s widow Nina is particularly moving. Later, watching Stewart receive the distressful news of Williamson’s death first-hand after winning the race in Zandvoort feels almost voyeuristic, that this is a moment we as viewers have no right to be eavesdropping on.
Eventually, of course, the spotlight falls on Stewart’s relationship with his younger Tyrrell team mate, Francois Cevert. The tapestry of the friendship between the Stewarts and Cevert is woven together beautifully through candid clips of the two drivers playing games as Helen Stewart hauntingly recalls a strikingly prescient conversation she shared with Cevert just weeks before the final round of the 1973 world championship at Watkins Glen. When the inevitable finally occurs, it is truly a gut punch.
As well presented a film as ‘Stewart’ is, it is by no means free from criticism. While the film makes excellent use of historic footage, keen enthusiasts will spot when footage of the Nordschleife is mislabelled as ‘Spa-Francorchamps’. While the film is very deliberate in focussing on Stewart’s career in Formula 1, virtually all of his life after racing is entirely overlooked. It is also hard to ignore the prominent logos of a certain beer brand during any of the modern footage shown in the film.
But those are all minor gripes. At a feature-length run time of 90 minutes, ‘Stewart’ ultimately succeeds in providing an enthralling, informative and, at times, confronting film that is also inherently watchable. Whether you are a new fan, a lifelong F1 fanatic born after Stewart’s time or if you were even there to see these men race with your own eyes, this moving documentary is worth your time.
[Stewart’ is available to watch in the UK on Sky Documentaries & NOW TV from today, I'll post a link when I find it online]
Oh that didn't take long
I think this is it here, clearly haven't had time to watch it yet but I flicked through it and it is the documentary
