Ferrari- the Movie

sorry to hear that. VERY disappointing.

 

After watching last week the absolutely catastrophic Napoleon from Ridley Scott I was hoping for a good movie about Ferrari with Mann as a director.
No more hope now after reading the first post..
A shame..

 

Mods: I believe there are 3 threads in different forums about this topic. Can they be combined?

 

Yes Napoleon was a disapointment
Do not waste time. It seems to me Movies attempting to tell the story of remarcable human beings in 90 minutes are destined to failure.

 

AARGH!!! Napoleon too? Given his fascinating story, they almost had to TRY to make a poor movie regarding his life....

 

The Napoleon movie has been roundly panned. It seems like biopics are in a period of screenwriters, directors and actors all wanting to “interpret” the character their own way. It’s insulting to viewers in my opinion. I understand that the Oppenheimer movie may be an exception.

 

Exactly my thoughts.
As a big fan of Ridley Scott, I still can’t understand his laziness about this movie.
Everything sounds fake ( Phoenix too)
Of course you can’t summarize such history in a three hours movie but again that wasn’t the point.
At least Gladiator was a very good movie in comparison.

 

I don't know much about Enzo's personal life. Don't really care. What he built and created and did is enough for me to admire. I haven't seen this movie. Have no real interest to other than seeing Penelope Cruz and some pretty cars. Not enough for me to buy a ticket and spend 2 hours in a movie theater.

I don't think you can judge people of his era by today. If he was a jerk, there were a lot of them around in those days. And death and gore wasn't something unusual in post war European racing. Hard for us to imagine and accept today. We live in a different world.

I wouldn't judge the man too harshly and I wouldn't give him a break. He was a person of his era and this movie just "entertainment".

 

Much like the Lambo movie the interpretive lens is one based too far forward in our time.

 

Disappointing but this isnt the first time Hollywood gets it totally wrong, you would have thought the USA won the Battle of Britain in some movies or Ben Affleck shot down the entire Japanese air force!!

However they do have a duty to make films as accurately has possible given the time, some people who no nothing about the "character" get a false impression of the subject and that rewrites history!

 

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

 

I will take the contrary view that that Ferrari movie is brilliant as the Lamborghini movie was atrocious. The Lamborghini movie was shockingly bad and was fraught with inaccuracies which went far beyond Hollywood taking artistic license. In addition the story was terribly told through actors that had ZERO on camera chemistry. Throw in horrible story telling and audio and you are left with an all round bad movie.

Conversely the Ferrari movie was brilliant in its execution. The actors did a fantastic job and Penelope Cruz was just spectacular with her performance (a very pleasant surprise). That said I think the Ferrari film will not be a widespread success. The film in no way a biographical pic (as most people would expect) and is set entirely in 1957. It captures a moment in time which is a very daring way of approaching this story. Personally I think it is an outstanding approach that was very well done. While thoroughly researched I think it requires a lot of detailed historical knowledge that is not outlined for the uninitiated. This leaves most viewers left out and combine that with the 'moment in time' approach and you will be left with most viewers confused and or disappointed. In my case I have a deep knowledge of the history and background surrounding that period so I appreciated where Michael Mann was coming from. He is a superb film maker and this production is no exception.

 

As I said in the begging post, I liked the movie immensely. Mr. Nuvolari and I were not disappointed. I found the focus on just one year...a very difficult year... proved to be a perfect choice to tell the story of Ferrari the man. I found Mr. Driver's performance anything but wooden...it was brimming with the emotions that Ferrari tried so hard to contain. I was disappointed in the choice to have the actors speak in English...and yet I understand the reasons Mann had to go that way. The accents rarely disturbed me. This is not the story about an automotive legend, but about the man before he became a ledgend. And it is the story of a man and his love for his two sons, and for two women, their mothers. Yes, the cars are here, but thankfully not to excess...like good sweets, they are given to us sparingly so that we always want more. The racing scenes are reserved...again, thankfully...without the excessive CGI and over editing and deafening sound effects that corrupt so many car movies. If the drivers in the movie seemed two dimentional and at arms distance, it made sense because that is how Ferrari kept them. The first death in the film illustrates it perfectly. Some of you have already made up your minds without even seeing the film. I urge those who are willing to put aside their expectations, and even their desires, to experIence that movie without preconceptions. I have trouble going to any movie theatre today, but seeing a movie properly does demand that you give it that sort of undivided attention. Even at home, don't answer the phone or put it on pause while you go take a pee...treat it with the simple respect you would want the audience of your own work.

 

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/ferrari-by-michael-mann.685979/

 

Thoughtful remarks John, very well expressed. Thank you.
But about the peeing part . . .

 

John your comments are very well presented and I agree wholeheartedly. I was lucky enough to watch the film in a theater and I am a firm believer in dressing well and being engaged in a film as a sign of respect to the people involved. My parents instilled this in me early and it is unfortunately lost on most of today's generation. But I digress.

As it happens two of the characters in the movie are old friends of mine from many years back. Eugenio Castellotti is played by Marino Franchitti (brother to Dario) and Jean Behra was played by Derek Hill (son of Phil Hill). Both were initially hired to be just stunt drivers and were brilliantly cast by Michael Mann to have roles in the film. Also if you look closely ex F1 driver and long time Ferrari test driver Marc Gene has a small roll too. This is in addition of course to Ben Collins (ie. The Stig) who played Stirling Moss is Le Mans podium finisher (but first an actor) Patrick Dempsey who did a great job playing Piero Taruffi. The film was just filled with these little gems from the real racing world.

 

Awesome insight, thank you.

 

Playing real people in movies is a lot harder than playing totally fictional characters. In "Ford v. Ferrari", I thought that Christian Bale played a marvelous Ken Miles, but I was not impressed with Matt Damon's portrayal of Carroll Shelby. His acting was okay, but as Matt Damon, not as Carroll Shelby.

 

i had high hopess for napoleon

 

So did his mother but he came up short.

 

Lol !

 

Regardless I'm still going to see the Ferrari movie. I saw the preview and thought it looked absolutely stunning.

As for Napoleon: I'm relieved to see that others were disappointed too. I had such great hopes on this and it came out so flat. A great story completely wasted on a boring barely existing plot. Total waste of time. Ridley Scott could have done so much better.

 

The King Hussein scene made no sense to me.