Filmmaker Michael Mann always makes visceral movies; whether it’s the intensity at the heart of a tricky moral decision, the stakes centered in a high-octane heist drama, or the imperative choices felt by men pushed into dangerous corners with few options, his films are always going full-throttle. Fortunately for Mann, this works two-fold in his latest drama, “Ferrari,” a racing drama where everything is at stake for the characters and far beyond just winning a race for bragging rights or the spoils of victory. No, like every Mann film, the stakes are do or die, from keeping drivers in the car alive to ensuring the legacy of a legendary company can survive.
Set in the summer of 1957, Mann’s “Ferrari,” starring Adam Driver, centers on a period when Enzo Ferrari’s auto empire was in deep crisis, financial, emotional, spiritual, and otherwise.
To keep the company alive, the ex-racer turned entrepreneur pushes himself and his drivers to the edge as they launch into the Mille Miglia, a treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy.
“Ferrari” co-stars Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Sarah Gadon, Gabriel Leone, Jack O’Connell, and Patrick Dempsey. In this exclusive featurette, Mann and some of the cast discuss just how dangerous the Mille Miglia race was at the time; the survival rate for racers may be 50/50 at best.
“I’ve always loved this era in motorsports. It’s the most romantic and the most tragic and dangerous period,” says Patrick Dempsey, who plays driver Piero Taruffi in the picture. “Now we’re accustomed to seeing big crashes and drivers walking away, and in that era, they didn’t. And if they made a mistake, it was usually deadly.”
As one might assume, perhaps no other filmmaker expresses the muscular power and intensity of the cars, the racing, and the crushing personal stakes like Michael Mann.
“This is an era where the cars, particularly the Ferraris, made a tremendous amount of power,” Michael Mann explained. “Everything in the Ferraris was cutting edge, but the racing was lethally dangerous. The mortality rate from the spring team in 1958 was about 50%.”
“Ferrari” opens in theaters on December 25 via Neon. Watch the new featurette, which we present exclusively, below.