In the end, what is life without love?

January 25, 2012 10:23 PM

Motorsport - Love For Life The latest video created by Finn Antti Kalhol, Motorsport - Love For Life is a roughly four and a half minute meditation on auto racing, suffering and love.

"The video covers every decade from the 1950s to present day and includes powerful footage of Dakar, Formula 1, Indycar, Rally and Touring cars."

via motorsportretro.com

posted by basicchannel (25 comments total)

I played "Where's the Senna", but if you want hard core mode, go with "Where in the World is M. Schumacher?"
posted by joelf at 10:45 PM on January 25

"I don't love motorsport because men are risking their lives, I love it because they are living them."

Finall! A youtube comment I can go along with...
posted by adamt at 10:49 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]

The rest of this guy's films on YouTube are also excellent.
posted by gen at 11:07 PM on January 25

Fantastic. This just makes me even more excited for Ron Howard's take on the Lauda-Hunt rivalry.
posted by spiderskull at 11:13 PM on January 25

This just makes me even more excited for Ron Howard's take on the Lauda-Hunt rivalry.

It's really too bad that Ron Howard's name is in this sentence. He's a mostly uninspiring filmmaker. But that said, I do think he nailed it with Apollo 13. So here's hoping another fairly tech-heavy story might bring out the best in him.
posted by philip-random at 11:15 PM on January 25

That was orgasmic.

I feel like a Marlboro...
posted by mhjb at 11:40 PM on January 25

I... meaning no disrespect, but this didn't really do it for me.
Burning rubber, sliding the rear, etc are all very cool and appeal to me with a baffling profundity, but most effectively in context. Of which this is entirely lacking. Races are long and the pivotal moment is sometimes impressive of itself but more often simply the last move that decides the victory. The quote might be pithy but I'm in it for the whole story.
Also, almost no motorcycles?!
Also also, finding Schumi and/or Senna was pretty damn easy. But the bw shot, who was that? Fangio? Moss?
posted by From Bklyn at 12:06 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]

"I... meaning no disrespect, but this didn't really do it for me.
Burning rubber, sliding the rear, etc are all very cool and appeal to me with a baffling profundity, but most effectively in context. Of which this is entirely lacking."

Yeah, I feel the same. The whole first minute annoyed me; I hate any emphasis placed on crashes because that's not what auto racing is about, even with regard to fearing them. The non-racing-fan assumption that the fascination is with crashes makes me want to throw things every time I hear it.

And burning rubber and oversteering and whatnot are cool in, you know, Hollywood car-chases but outside of drag-racing and rallying, that's bad driving or mechanical failure. No feelings of profundity for me.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:47 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]

I find crashes interesting, which might explain why I prefer watching rally.
posted by brokkr at 1:05 AM on January 26

Okay, there's not that much point trying to persuade someone they should like something, but for me....

> Races are long and the pivotal moment is sometimes impressive of itself but more often simply the last move that decides the victory.

I think I know what you mean. Some races you're on the edge of your seat for 40 laps of (apparently) nothing happening, living and dying by the lap times, because you know a long game is in play. But the dramatic moments count too, and well, to be honest they are more exciting to watch after the fact. :)

Take Ayrton's victory in Brazil where his gear box was dying. That was absolutely electric to watch! Could he win at home? Could he hold off Nigel? Could he finish at all? It was one of those quintessential races that all F1 fans remember. But once the checkered fan has fallen, and we know the result, what is there really to look at? From outside the car it just looks like Senna driving kinda slowly. But that moment at the end, the one they included in the video, where he can't get himself out of the car, the ecstasy of victory, the genuine physical agony he is in, it a crystalised moment in time that captures everything that came before it.

So anyway, for me it was that inclusion in the video on the human element of motor racing that meant it struck a chord with me.
posted by adamt at 1:31 AM on January 26

The crashes highlight the stakes the voiceover is implying.
posted by basicchannel at 1:56 AM on January 26

Dakar! Touring cars! Cosworth 190e's! Castrol Alltrac Celicas!

As a child of the 80's it feels like they just don't make cars properly any more. It took a certain madness to drive those cars at the edge and it really showed.
posted by tmt at 1:57 AM on January 26

"I find crashes interesting, which might explain why I prefer watching rally."

I like rally racing and if I'd raced, I think that's what I'd most have wanted to do.

But I guess that I have to admit that maybe there's a big personal element in this for me. You know, like an identity thing, even. My dad's family were/are all avid race fans, my dad raced some, we know the Unsers, stuff like that. My whole family (paternal side) are sports nuts in general, but the Indy 500 was bigger than the Super Bowl for us.

And so, you know, I grew up watching these races with my dad and other people I looked up to and every time there was a crash, in a room full of people, everyone would get real quiet and solemn. There was nothing exciting or interesting about crashes just like there's nothing exciting or interesting about injured players being taken off the field in football.

But especially with Indycar and NASCAR, non-fans will say how it's so boring that people are just driving in circles and that, obviously, the only reason anyone watches oval racing, or probably racing in general, is because of the excitement of crashes. That really bothers me because of both how ignorant it is of what is really happening in racing, oval or otherwise, and it's damn insulting, too. And morally offensive.

For me, what I love about auto racing is that it's the unique intersection of some really cool stuff. The speed, the precision, the individual talent and experience and calculation of the driver, the collective talent and experience and calculation of the team and crew.

And just, well, ineffable skill. I love to drive, I love whatever it is that happens when you sort of partly merge with the car and, well, I don't know how to describe it. As a teen and thereabouts, I could outdrive all my peers and everyone else in my family...except my dad. I only ever raced directly against my dad in go-carts and he'd deliberately pick a slower cart to spot me an advantage. And although I'm pretty good, Dad would without fail effortlessly find the line and keep it and beat me every damn time. Every time. And that's not burning rubber or anything flashy, it's a deeply intuitive finesse, something that is hard to even see happening as it happens. Auto racing is loud and fast and flashy and because of that its true nature is often obscured.

Its true nature is, like all sport, about an almost mystical physicality, a harmony between an individual and environment that allows perfection to be approached in tiny increments of increasingly unquantifiable skill.

"The crashes highlight the stakes the voiceover is implying."

Yeah, but I don't think racing would be diminished in any way that's important were those stakes—injury and death—to be entirely eliminated. They should be eliminated. Romanticizing those stakes is perverse.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:15 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]

I understand the thrill of driving and watching (I've even been a lowly gofer and dead man on a race team for a couple of races), but environmentally motor sports are nasty. They're dirty and loud and they promote what we don't need: more cars, faster cars, more dependence on internal combustion engines burning huge amounts of fuel. If they have to race dinosaur burners, I wish they'd at least switch to a fuel limit (during this race, you can use no more than X amount of fuel) and make sure the fuel used is approved for normal street vehicles (able to be sold as is at commercial pumps).

But the bw shot [at 0:22], who was that? Fangio? Moss?

It doesn't look like Moss to me. Maybe Fangio. Does that look like a Mercedes?

Where the hell are they driving at 3:33?
posted by pracowity at 4:50 AM on January 26

> Where the hell are they driving at 3:33?

That's the Pikes Peak hill climb. The clip is from Climb Dance which is well worth a watch.
posted by adamt at 5:26 AM on January 26

> Where the hell are they driving at 3:33?

That's the Pikes Peak hill climb. The clip is from Climb Dance which is well worth a watch.

*sigh* cut and paste fail on the first post
posted by adamt at 5:29 AM on January 26

Yeah, but I don't think racing would be diminished in any way that's important were those stakes—injury and death—to be entirely eliminated. They should be eliminated. Romanticizing those stakes is perverse.

I don't see this as romanticizing the crashes, though. Any piece on racing has to include some sense of the cost...crashes, injuries, deaths...or else the piece becomes a lie. Or a fluff bit of fanboyism. It would be a bit like writing a history book and leaving out wars.

I think he showed great restraint in emphasizing the emotional aftermath of the crashes, rather than the violence of the crash itself. Lord knows there's plenty of horrifying footage out there he could have used.

It's a nice, personal meditation, I think. A good, digestible length, too. Part of me, though, didn't want to watch it. I'm still coming to terms with the loss of Weldon, and was fearful a clip of that mess might have been in it. So, I'm grateful for the author's restraint, again, in focusing on the aftermath and not the event itself. Grateful, too for the heavy use of rally clips. Being stuck in the US, we almost never see rally on tv, save for the rare highlight clip.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:51 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]

Sorry..Wheldon. *sigh* I always get that wrong
posted by Thorzdad at 5:53 AM on January 26

Eurosport carries the 2012 WRC in HD. Monte Carlo just finished recently. If you can find it, it's still awesome. Great helicopter camera work too.
posted by gen at 6:54 AM on January 26

My favourite motor sports film with Ari Vatanen climbing Pikes Peak, CO in a Peugeot 405. As of 2011 they paved the road all the way to the top - boo.
posted by brokkr at 8:23 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]

My favourite motor sports film

That looks like the Climb Dance film adamt is talking about.
posted by pracowity at 8:28 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]

There is no romance whatsoever in the crashes I think, but I suppose that is up to the viewer. Like others I agree it just shows the risk, which would be perverse to dismiss or forget. Now burnouts and the like aren't really great in certain forms of racing such as open wheel where destroying your tires by sliding, locking, spinning, etc. is going to cost you, showing footage of a smooth Alain Prost like drive in a short film like this just isn't going to work for many.

I've been in two significant competitive crashes. The second has basically put my neck in pain (well it causes the headaches) every day for the rest of my life and I'm not supposed to race. I was in full lock and got t-boned. I miss it terribly. The feeling you get when you know the lap you just did was your fastest, the challenge of recovering from a bad lap (you can feel yourself losing time sliding a touch where you shouldn't have), seeing the rubber fly off the tyres almost like a myst, and of course dicing with others on course is great. I would laugh aloud during a great battle.

The first significant crash, I was coming down a steep part of the course and got nicked from behind, went airborne and landed on the car behind that nicked me. No injuries for either party. That one I can't really remember though. I only remember feeling a slight touch and then suddenly I was on top of the other car.
posted by juiceCake at 9:38 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]

It's really too bad that Ron Howard's name is in this sentence. He's a mostly uninspiring filmmaker. But that said, I do think he nailed it with Apollo 13. So here's hoping another fairly tech-heavy story might bring out the best in him.

I quite enjoyed AP13. For auto racing I much prefer documentaries so I don't believe we'll have a good film no matter who directed it, but the the Senna documentary was nonsense so my auto racing on film expectations are at an all time low.
posted by juiceCake at 11:45 AM on January 26

but the the Senna documentary was nonsense

I wouldn't go that far but it did underwhelm me a bit. I think it works best for folks who don't already know the Senna story.

For auto racing I much prefer documentaries

I'm curious. Which docs would you recommend?

My fave Motorsports film would have to be Le Mans, mainly because it keeps the plot where it belongs. ON THE TRACK.
posted by philip-random at 6:17 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]

Ivan Fyodorovich: "... I don't think racing would be diminished in any way that's important were those stakes—injury and death—to be entirely eliminated. They should be eliminated. Romanticizing those stakes is perverse."

I'm not so sure - I've lost far too many friends to motorsport and wish that those (and many other) accidents hadn't happened at all. But I think part of the attraction (for competitors) is the risk that an accident could happen at any time. Without that knowledge, I don't think there was be the same level of attraction for most. I'm not saying the risks should be romanticised, just that they are part of what makes motorsport exciting.
posted by dg at 9:22 PM on January 26