As detailed on Autoweek magazine's website, Ferrari the Movie premiered in the United States this Christmas (Diamond Films announced that the biopic will premiere in Brazilian theaters on February 8).). However, the feature film cannot be considered a biopic about the most important Italian of the 20th century, because in just two hours it is impossible to summarize the life of a person who has been involved with automobiles and automobile competitions for 70 years.
Therefore, the director and screenwriter chose a dark moment in Ferrari's life, based on the very critical biography published by the American journalist Brock Yates in the early 1990s with the original title “Enzo Ferrari, the man, the cars, the racing, the machine”. . . The plot is based in particular on the period between the days before and after the last and tragic edition of the Mille Miglia road race, which took place on May 12, 1957. The race forms the background for the development of the dramatic plot.
As the American journalist Mark Vaughn defined in a review published in Autoweek: “If conflict is the essence of drama, then Enzo Ferrari had a dramatic life.” Vaughn, a competition specialist, said that he liked the film, noting the highlighted racing scenes that, in his opinion, are among the best Hollywood has ever done, and in contrast mentioned the storyline that combines Ferrari's passion for cars and competition with his personal life, including relationships with his wife, his lover, his children and …pilots.
The choice of the Mille Miglia as the basis for the script must be based on a sentence from the book Yates by the Belgian journalist Jacques Ickx: “A whole life compressed into twelve hours”. The father of the future Formula 1 driver, Jacky Ickx, was a correspondent and reported on the most important races after the Second World War. So in 1957 he was present at the 1,600 kilometer competition, covering the BresciaRome route in less than 12 hours Brescia crosses roads, streets, cities and towns at the maximum possible speed.
Replica of Piero Taruffi's Ferrari 335 S, winner of the 1957 Mille Miglia; At the wheel, actor Patrick Dampsey embodies the Italian driver (Photo: Disclosure Neon Films/autoweek.com)
Nevertheless, says Mark Vaughn, the film reconstructs with a certain precision the chaotic Mille Miglia, which must have been quite complicated as millions of spectators crowded the streets and paths without protective metal barriers. And the plot throws the race into a whirlwind of intrigue in Ferrari's personal life, which is also somewhat condensed for Vaughn and sometimes presented in a completely different order than what actually happened, but still makes sense historically.
But Vaughn disputes the theme used in the plot, that Ferrari was on the verge of bankruptcy and that Enzo was advised that he must try to win the Mille Miglia to sell more cars. And he's right. After all, Ferrari had already won the 1948, 1949, 1950, 1953 and 1956 editions, and as for the possibility of bankruptcy, Ferrari never made a secret of the fact that until the partnership agreement with Fiat was concluded in 1969, the company always did its business with others had to regulate many financial restrictions, but without the risk of bankruptcy.
The journalist also criticizes unnecessary subplots such as Ford and Fiat's maneuvers to control Ferrari, which only took place a few years later, in the late 1960s, and which, in his opinion, had no reason other than to heighten the drama. That was really great. This is because at the time, Ferrari and his wife Laura were still grieving the recent and painful death of their son Alfredo “Dino” at just 26 years old from muscular dystrophy, and the couple's relationship was fraught with conflict.
Movie poster
In addition, Eugenio Castellotti died in an accident on the Modena track a few weeks before the Mille Miglia. The driver, who had won the previous edition of the Mille Miglia for Ferrari, was once again called up to defend the Scuderia. To top it off, another Italian driver in the team, Luigi Musso, fell ill and Ferrari had to rearrange the situation by putting the experienced Piero Taruffi in the car that was supposed to belong to Castellotti and asking the Spaniard Alfonso de Portago to drive Musso's car to drive.
And it was the fatal accident that occurred in competition that killed Portago.It's the car in the opening photo) his copilot and navigator, the American Ed Nelson, and ten other spectators, including five children, turned Ferrari's world upside down. According to Mark Vaughn, the film version of the accident, with all the terrible and, in his opinion, perhaps unnecessary details of the time, impressed all film professionals and cineastes who attended the premiere organized by the Director's Guild in Hollywood.
Vaughn also emphasized the manufacturers' concern to recreate historical cars very accurately. To achieve this, these replicas were carefully crafted based on current chassis from the English sports car brand Caterham and sent to Carrozziere Campagna in Italy, where the bodies were handformed using the traditional Battilamiera system. Three Ferrari 335 S, two Ferrari 335 S, two Maserati 450S and two Formula 1 Ferrari 801 were built.
Watch the movie trailer:
RM