22 January 2016 | Michael_Elliott

Great Documentary

Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman (2015)



**** (out of 4)



Robert Redford, Robert Wagner, Michael and Mario Andretti, Jay Leno, John Morton and countless others are interviewed about the racing career of Paul Newman. Many people seem to forget that the Oscar- winning actor preferred being on the race track over being in front of the camera and this documentary shows how he got into doing it and the various races that he was in.



I was really surprised at how wonderful this documentary is for a number of reasons. For starters, there really hasn't been any good documentaries on Newman so it was rather refreshing getting to hear about his love for racing and how he got into it during the training for his film WINNING. We get to hear from Robert Wagner and how the training just hit it and we also hear from Newman's friend Redford about what he was like when it came to racing. We also get archival interviews with Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward.



Some of the best interviews come from Newman's racing buddies and partners and they give a terrific look at what the actor was like away from the cameras. The documentary also covers other subjects including Newman understanding the risk of dying, the various issues caused by the paparazzi who came to races to film the star and his involvement in the movie CARS, which would turn out to be his final feature.



WINNING: THE RACING LIFE OF PAUL NEWMAN is going to appear to racing fans as well as Newman's fans. It's an extremely interesting documentary and a highly entertaining one.