The Big Picture

Michael Mann’s “Ferrari” is not just about deadly races and luxury sports cars, but also delves into the internal struggles and complex love life of Enzo Ferrari. The film centers around Enzo’s empire and his obsession with winning the dangerous 1957 Mille Miglia race, while also exploring his troubled marriage and passionate affair. Mann emphasizes the true complexity of Enzo Ferrari’s life, showcasing unresolved conflicts and dramatic events that occurred during a critical period in 1957.

Deadly races and luxury sports cars are only the glossy surface of Michael Mann’s Ferrari, starring Adam Driver. In fact, when talking with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, the acclaimed filmmaker rarely mentions the high-octane race Enzo Ferrari’s (Driver) business hinged on, but rather the internal struggles of the man, and the tragedies and complexities that drew Mann to this script.

In Ferrari, Enzo’s empire is riding on his team coming out successful in the 1957 Mille Miglia, a dangerous “1,000-mile race across all of Italy,” that will prove his cars are the fastest, yet the former race car driver also has his eyes set on winning for the “deadly passion” of it all. What really makes Ferrari stand out as a biopic, however, is Mann’s focus on Enzo’s troubled love life, and the way he can’t let go of his furious wife in mourning, Laura (Penélope Cruz), and how he can’t seem to live without his other love, Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley).

Check out the interview in the video above or in the transcript below to find out what it was about Troy Kennedy Martin’s screenplay and the legend of Enzo Ferrari that made this Mann’s next film. He also shares his filmmaking process from the shooting to editing, and puts the famous Heat coffee shop scene rumors to bed.

Ferrari Set in the summer of 1957, with Enzo Ferrari’s auto empire in crisis, 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. Release Date December 25, 2023 Director Michael Mann Runtime 130 minutes Main Genre Biography Writers Troy Kennedy Martin , Brock Yates

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COLLIDER: Sir, I am a huge fan of your work. I am absolutely thrilled to be talking with you today. I just wish I had more time. So there’s gonna be people out there that have never seen one of your movies. If they haven’t, what is the first film you would like them watching and why?

MICHAEL MANN: Wow. Well, they could start with Ferrari then maybe they should go to Heat, then from that they go to The Last of the Mohicans, and then they should go to The Insider, and then they should come back to Ferrari and see it the second time.

Michael Mann Puts the ‘Heat’ Coffee Shop Rumors to Rest
Image via Warner Bros.

How do you feel when a journalist sitting across from you at a junket is wearing a bootleg shirt from one of your movies?

MANN: I think it’s very ironic because I’ve been asked a whole bunch of questions about Heat and the coffee shop scene, which by the way is an event that really occurred in real life. When Al [Pacino] and Bob [De Niro] were facing each other, for some reason there was some rumor that they weren’t actually there at the same time. I don’t know why everybody thought that. What it was, there’s actually three cameras and what you’re wearing on your chest is what the third camera was shooting, which is the profile two-shot, but I never used it because every time I went to that shot it removed us and made us observers of the two men instead of being empathetically, subjectively inside that dialogue. So, I always only use the two overs because everything we did was simultaneous. I had two cameras set up just out of reach, just out of sight of each other, shooting that scene.

I could ask you literally an hour’s worth of questions about this movie, but I’m fascinated by the editing process because it’s where it all comes together. Which of your films changed the most in the editing room in ways you didn’t expect going?

MANN: None of them. What the film is supposed to do to you by the end, and what the end of the third act is supposed to do to set up the end, and the end of the second act to set up the third act — that’s engraved in stone. So, the editing is to realize that overall writing objective. I’m a big believer in story structure. If you could take the totally organic subjective experience of seeing a movie and put it under an X-ray machine, you’ll see the bones of the structure like a skeleton. If that’s broken, then the movie is not gonna work. So the objective is how I want you to feel — do I want you to feel suspense? Do I want you to feel the irresolution like in Ferrari? What the hell is gonna happen? The Mille Miglia, this 1,000-mile race across all of Italy across all kinds of crazy roads, through cities, through towns, is Ferrari gonna win or not win? Then there’s a double ending to that, there’s a tragedy and a triumph simultaneously. He may be ruined, and he’s got a confrontation with his wife, and so that sense of a resolution, that absolutely has to be achieved. So when I shoot it, I’m trying to achieve it in the shooting and make sure I have it there, but everything comes together ultimately in the editing room and that’s where we try to deliver it. And then again, when I’m mixing the sounds – the music and effects and everything else.

‘Ferrari’ Isn’t Your Typical Biopic

I have so many questions about Ferrari, but I guess ultimately, what was it about this material and this story that said, “I absolutely need to make this?”

MANN: The real people, and that it resonated so strongly. This is how life really is. It’s complex. It’s complicated. It’s a man with a wife who’s in mourning because they both lost their son, Dino, a year ago; meanwhile, he has a complete second family that most of Modena knows about, but his wife doesn’t, and that happened during the chaos of the end of the Second World War. He has a 12-year-old illegitimate son. He’s bound, and has a connection to his wife. They’re inseparable, but they can’t live together and they can’t live apart, and he also only is at home with Lina Lardi and his son, Piero. These kinds of unresolved conflicts, the movie is filled with that, so it was so atypical of the kind of formulaic way characters are sometimes built and dramas play out.

So it was that quality about it. And it’s all true. It all happened to collide in these three or four intense months in 1957 where the future of the factory is riding on this race, drivers he’s close to are killed, the death rate during that period of time was horrendous, it was about 50%. But all of those. It’s a unique story. Basically, it’s a deep dive behind the iconic and screwball facade of Enzo Ferrari into all of the technicolor and melodrama that was really going on in his life.

Ferrari is in theaters on December 25.

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