For whatever reason, today's "car movies" are just lame when you think back to how Hollywood treated motorsports decades earlier. Movies like "Vanishing Point," "Bullitt," "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry," "Smokey and the Bandit," "On Any Sunday," and "Le Mans" just are just leagues ahead of crap-fest pics, "Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift" and "Fastlane." Frankly, we think it's a lack of true racing enthusiast actors and film producers. Back then, we had Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, James Garner, Burt Reynolds and Peter Fonda who championed films like these.
Photography by Laurent Nivalle
What stood out from these early films were their adherence to realism. Wanting to capture
real life and not just over-the-top stunts, these movies put you, the audience, in the driver's seat, or on the asphalt or right above the front bumper. We can't think of a better example of Hollywood wanting to embody the true feel of a race other than "Le Mans" with Steve McQueen. And it was McQueen's 1971 film that came to mind when we saw these at
Crank & Piston.
Believe it or not, these pictures were
not taken a quarter century ago. Actually, these amazing shots were taken only a couple months ago at the 2010 Classic LeMans! Mr. Nivalle simply has a knack at proper coloring, framing and conceptualizing beautiful photography that looks and captures the feel of an event that could, by all visible means, have taken place before many of us were born.
The Le Mans Classic started in 2002 as its own event separate from the main event. An instant success, the inaugural event welcomed over 30,000 spectators the first year and nearly 100,000 in 2008! Undoubtedly proof that the passion for classic motorsports is very much alive!
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Amazing Photography of LeMans Classic
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