Williams review – F1 boss profile a cut above the usual petrolhead documentary | Film
Here is a documentary profile of celebrated Formula One team owner Frank Williams that, while covering all the bases that its petrolhead/motorsport fanbase would expect, also manages to excavate some unexpectedly intense emotional baggage lurking under the surface.
Williams, of course, is one of the greats of British Formula One, a link to the 60s and early 70s era of high-risk, often-fatal daredevil circuit racing; Williams himself lost his first driver Piers Courage in 1970 at the Dutch Grand Prix. This film does a nice job of trying to explain some of the rarefied mechanics of Formula One, and how Williams toiled for years to improve his cars’ performance to top-level standard. As director Morgan Matthews tells it, Williams’ decision to appoint Patrick Head as his technical director in 1977 proved a turning point: improved car design triggered Williams’ ascent up the rankings, culminating in their first world driver’s championship in 1980 for Alan Jones.
Matthews dwells longer â€" entirely understandably â€" on Williams’ career turning point and second life: the horrific road accident in 1986 which left him a quadriplegic and entirely dependent on 24-hour care. (The irony of this speed-freak catastrophe is examined only cursorily; it’s clear that mordant self-inspection is not William’s strong point.) Professionally, the accident came at the height of the rivalry between the team’s two drivers, Nigel Mansell and Nelson Picquet; Williams’ diplomatic skills at managing these two alpha-plus males were sorely missed.
It also had a seismic effect on his marriage; his late wife Ginny ended up writing a book about it, and Matthews makes copious use of tapes she recorded in preparation for publication. What comes out is heavy duty stuff, with many of Williams’ personal shortcomings laid out: inconsiderateness, lack of introspection, total fixation on racing, etc etc. But the basic honesty of the recordings (accompanied, visually, by slightly awkward Alison Jackson-style reconstruction) nudges the film into impressively bared-soul territory. Williams’ daughter Claire â€" in all but name the director of the current team â€" is pretty direct too, about her relationship with her father and, perhaps more guiltily, the rivalry with her older brother that has resulted in a major falling out.
There are gaps in the story: little is said about the Damon Hill years, the steep decline of the sport in the 2000s â€" or the third devastating accident, which claimed the life of Ayrton Senna in 1994. (Presumably the feeling was that had been well covered in the Asif Kapadia documentary, released in 2010.) But it’s Claire’s presence in the film â€" and the ghost-like traces of her mother â€" that make this a cut above your standard motor sport documentary: it possesses a sensitivity and empathy not normally associated with the field, and the talking heads provide a jolt of human connection.
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