A Michael Mann moment

It’s one year in his life, 1957. That’s the year that, fortuitously, the parts of his life that I most care about in making a human story, all collide. It’s an opera, it’s a family drama, a tragedy, filled with wry humor. It’s a racing film, but it’s not a movie about car racing. It’s a movie about this guy’s life and his passion. He started as a race car driver and then became a racing team manager for Alfa Romeo. His passion was to make the racing team win, so he’s kind of an impresario, conductor or film director, of a race team. He’s an instigator of men, many of whom tragically die young. He’s very close to death and death is very close to him. His father died young, his brother died young. In the year of 1957, of the seven Ferrari drivers, only two were left alive at the end. He is passionate, plenty of libido. There’s part of him that’s like a metronome. As an engineer, he’s precise, like a master draftsman. At the same time, he has passion. There are other women in his life. Sex, food, death. There is a contradiction between chaos on one hand and the precision with which you determine the diameter of an exhaust valve, on the other. Someone in London who really knew the heart of this, who’s Italian, said it sounds like what you’re doing is making something so intensely local that it’s universal. And that’s it. The film is about life, danger, passion, racing with volcanic temperament throughout.

(cf.)

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