Photo: Rossland (Getty Images)
If you held out Schumacher, the new Netflix documentary that follows the life and career of legendary Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher, until you knew it was good, then take that as your mark. Stop what you are doing and turn it on right away. Because it’s not all good. It’s a great story about the myths we build around our heroes.
Schumacher is a 112-minute Netflix documentary about the man in question, and special for a number of reasons. In a world of documentary series and sagas that span countless episodes that delve into the details of the subject’s life, Schumacher keeps it simple. This is a human story, the story of a man who became a myth and was subsequently brought back to the mortal plane by a terrible accident.
Schumacher is not sticking to his success, which in my opinion is the genius thread that really makes this documentary shine. After he won his first world title, the world learned who Michael Schumacher was, and from year to year his legend grew steadily. Each championship has further cemented the legacy that riders will compete with for decades to come. We don’t need that part.
The directors Hanns-Bruno Kammertöns, Vanessa Nöcker and Michael Wech have put Schumacher’s story together in a fantastic way. The documentary begins with shots of Schumacher’s skydiving and then blends in seamlessly with driving shots with a Schumacher quote overlaid.
I’ve read a few Criticisms of this documentary arguing that it never got a deep, curious look into Schumacher’s life like a film like Senna did – but I would argue that this is not the point. Ayrton Senna was a legend in his day, but the rampant myth-making that accompanied his legacy was largely carried out after his death. It’s a whole different story if the subject of your documentary is still alive but unable to stand up for itself.
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“Private is private,” says Corinna, Schumacher’s wife, towards the end of the documentary. “Michael has always protected us, and now we protect Michael.”
The creation of myths at Schumacher comes from this perspective. The man has had controversies and enemies, most of which are addressed in the documentary – but no one is climbing right into shitting Schumacher in front of the camera. Even Senna, a documentary that many other reviewers compare Schumacher to, had its own Senna-heavy spin that portrayed him as flawed but still desirable protagonists and rivals like Prost as old-fashioned antagonists.
The legacy of men like Schumacher or Senna is difficult to untangle. These are men who have made a name for themselves with often unnecessarily aggressive behavior. You could be morons. And I agree that more of these conflicts could be explored at Schumacher because his desire to push the boundaries of sport in order to win at any cost is fascinating. It’s part of his draw. But I also understand the reluctance to poke the sore spots. That wouldn’t leave anyone with a particularly good taste.
I had another sticking point with this film: Schumacher’s accident is only vaguely alluded to. I actually had to rewind the documentary to make sure I wasn’t kidding, that I really hadn’t heard anything about it. But it is very little. Racing fans know that Schumacher sustained a serious brain injury in a skiing accident in Méribel, France on December 29, 2013. Since then, Schumacher has neither run nor spoken. These aren’t morbid details; These are the simple facts of the accident. And yet the place is mentioned, as is an accident. And that’s it.
I understand the desire for delicacy, but I’ve always been an advocate of saying the hard parts out loud. There’s no need to linger, but the audience needs to know the cold, hard facts of what happened to understand the gravity of the situation. New F1 fans – those who might not know a lot about the story – or people who just want to see a good documentary will google what happened, which is exactly what you don’t want your audience to do. This is the climax of the story, the moment when everything changes. You want them to be tied to the screen with a reasonable understanding of what is at stake.
Mainly because it’s the most emotional part of the movie. Because of the accident, the man’s firsthand accounts of Schumacher’s life are withheld from us. We have to rely on stories from his competitors or his family to understand what happened during his career, but we are never privy to what went on inside Michael Schumacher’s head. That was his story.
Now Schumacher’s wife and children are the referees of his story. Schumacher is now most likely to be reflected in them. And it’s hard to see his wife Corinna say, “I never blamed God for what happened. It was just really bad luck, all the bad luck you can have in life. It’s always terrible when you say, ‘Why is this happening to Michael or us?’ But why does it happen to other people then? ”F1 rookie Mick Schumacher hardly ponders:“ I think Papa and I would understand each other differently now. Simply because we speak a similar language, the language of motorsport. And about which we would have a lot more to talk about. That’s where my head is most of the time. To think that would be so cool … I’d give up everything for that. “
These statements are heartbreakers, but they also need context. This context is withheld from viewers.
That review doesn’t make this a bad documentary. On the contrary, Schumacher is excellent – as long as you know that it is not a faithful retelling of a man’s life or a critical examination of the career of an icon in which the bad is just as important as the good.
Schumacher is more about myths. It’s the story of how a boy from a working-class family became an unprecedented seven-time Formula 1 world champion and later lost so much color from his life in an equally unprecedented vacation accident. It’s the story of the boy who built karts from scrap pieces and later rebuilt the Ferrari F1 team from scratch. It touches its lows, but it prioritizes the highs. It notices its flaws, but these are not so much an Achilles’ heel – the kind of flaw that will bring about your downfall – as a blemish that can be turned into a charming feature with the right lighting. It is a story of how a family gathers around their fallen patriarch and further enhances his story when he is unable to do so on his own. And that’s why Schumacher shines.
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