On Cinema: Ford v Ferrari (2019) [Anjana]

On today’s episode of “this movie got 4 Oscar nominations but I still waited until I got the Netflix DVD to watch it, 7 months later…”

I’ll start by saying that this is probably the best film I have seen in a while — its 4 Academy Award nominations and 2 wins for Film Editing and Sound Editing are no doubt very well-deserved (and I don’t usually say that about Oscar wins. Sorry, Academy, I still watch the Oscars religiously).

I actually haven’t seen many of James Mangold’s movies (I mean, I loved Kate & Leopold? From 19 years ago?) but this movie was so beautifully directed. The control he had over the pacing and fluidity of the movie, the way every little detail wrapped up and came full circle — it was masterful to behold. His direction of the actors was equally impressive: the film already contained the iconic Matt Damon, playing smooth southern Carroll Shelby, and the incredible talent of the always-100%-committed Christian Bale, playing fiery underdog Ken Miles, but Mangold really helped bring out the rapport between the two and the underlying emotions and motivations of their characters. I was a big fan of the casting of these two lead roles: Damon and Bale wholeheartedly take on every film, with Bale literally transforming himself for every role (this guy literally played Batman, and now he’s playing a skinny mechanic-turned-racer!) and with both actors nailing the ability to act with their eyes. Indeed, the entire cast lineup, including Miles’ wife, Mollie (played by Caitriona Balfe), who was just as ablaze with her own kind of determination, and Ford vice president Lee Iacocca (played by Jon Bernthal), who started out as an arrogant but ambitious executive and quickly but quietly turned into Miles’ supporter, all did a marvelous job in their own supporting roles.

Now to my personal favorite aspects of the film: the cinematography and editing and the script. Shooting a movie with so many moving parts (quite literally, with race cars, in this case) is definitely its own kind of challenge, but DP Phedon Papamichael pulled it off with almost an enviable ease. We see every subtle exchange between Shelby and Miles, every eager glance from Miles’ son Peter, every look of equal determination and amusement in Miles’ eyes as he speeds down the track. The film instantly transplants you straight into the 1960s with its open skies, sunsets, and delicate balance between the vivid colors of the fancy cars and the muted colors of their operators. Editors Andrew Buckland and Michael McCusker, the latter of whom is known for working with Mangold on movies such as Logan and The Wolverine, along with my personal preference, The Amazing Spider-Man (directed by Marc Preston Webb in 2012), worked beautifully in conjunction with Mangold and Papamichael, delivering a smooth cut that completely absorbs the audience. Again, editing a movie showing race cars going at a couple hundred kilometers per hour, while simultaneously conveying the technical status of the car, the emotions of the driver, the stress of his pit crew, and the exhilaration of the audience, is no easy feat, but the two pulled it off phenomenally, picking up an Oscar in the process.

On to the script! The writers, Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, and Jason Keller, wrote a real kind of masterpiece. After reading up on the real-life racers and the film post-watch, I realized just how well these three actually captured the sentiments of Ken Miles in particular. That Birmingham accent along with his predilection for drinking tea in the middle of a 24-hour race, combined with his fierce, blazing personality, made for a character that you truly want to root for. Christian Bale delivered every classic British swear-word-but-not-really-a-swear-word and internal commentary while racing with hilarity — watching his character speed down the track while cursing out and taunting his competitors literally left me doubling over in laughter.

In addition to the comedic element, the script really strengthened every important relationship and brought the story full-circle. The film starts out with Shelby on the Le Mans track, driving in pitch black in the middle of a downpour, catching on fire in the cockpit at one point, with ever-rising blood pressure (for both him and the audience). We later find out that he actually won that race, but had to retire due to the state of his heart; Shelby takes his medication and swerves recklessly but skillfully onto the roads of old Los Angeles, establishing that the racing spirit in him is anything but gone. We then meet Ken Miles, who is quickly established as a smart-alecky, fierce Englishman with an impressive instinct for the run and feel of a car, as he tells a rich sports car owner at his mechanic’s garage that he isn’t driving his car right. Simultaneously, we see a third story unraveling, with Henry Ford II telling his top executives that the first man to bring him an idea to boost Ford gets to keep his job: this man turns out to be none other than future Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca. Iacocca pitches the idea of building Ford race cars, which is dismissed at first, but quickly picks up more speed. Iacocca and a couple of other Ford executives meet with Enzo Ferrari himself to offer to buy their company, with Ford leading the automobile division and Ferrari leading the racing division. Fiat, however, almost instantly finds out, and Ferrari, who seems to have only taken the Ford meeting to make his company more attractive to Fiat, agrees to sell his company to Fiat. Ford, enraged at Ferrari calling him “Henry Ford II, not the Henry Ford,” pledges to spend as much as is needed to build Ford a race car.

The storylines of Shelby and Miles merge first — it seems they already know each other, and Miles’ hot temper is quickly shown as he angrily beats down the trunk of his car to match racing regulations and throws a wrench at Shelby in fury, breaking his windshield (a broken windshield is no match for Miles’ racing instinct, however, because he ends up winning the race anyway). Shelby tells his lead crewman to frame that wrench, already indicating to the audience that Miles is destined for something greater. Now, the three storylines merge together: Iacocca approaches Shelby asking him to help build Ford a car that will beat Ferrari’s at Le Mans. Shelby knows it’ll take more than just money and speed to endure such a chaotic and both physically and mentally exhausting race, but knowing of Miles’ talent, he agrees to Iacocca’s deal.

Miles is initially very skeptical of this plan, but after seeing the first test model of Ford’s race car (and, of course, the hefty salary for building and racing the car), begins to consider Shelby’s proposition. His wife Mollie, a fireball in her own right, terrifyingly races their poor old family automobile until he tells her the truth: that he is considering getting back into the racing game. Mollie knows Miles has the talent, and Miles takes the job, deftly creating a race car alongside Shelby.

Now comes the first bump in the road: Ford and his Senior VP Leo Beebe, thinking that Miles is not enough of a team player to represent Ford, decide to send Phil Hill and Bruce McLaren (yeah, that McLaren) to drive the new car to the 1965 Le Mans. Miles, ever the trooper, reluctantly listens to the race on the radio while repairing cars, muttering warnings and hesitations (all correct) about the Ford cars currently on the track. The cars all fail, much to the dismay of Ford, who asks Shelby why he should continue this endeavor with this current team. Shelby deftly explains that the race car GT40, although eventually failing, hit an incredible speed on a stretch of the track, and that this undoubtedly scared Ferrari. Shelby wisely secures control of the racing division, stating that committees and teams upon teams of executives and the wrong racers would never nail this challenge.

Shelby then finds Miles and asks him to drive the updated car, and thus ensues the absolute best part of the film: the two childishly wrestle and call each other names like “bloody car salesman!”, throwing bread and ice cream at each other and using garbage can lids as shields, as Mollie pulls out a lounge chair and watches, amused. The two collapse in exhaustion, with Miles asking Mollie to bring him (No! Not Shelby, he can get his own!) a “fizzy pop.” This whole scene was when I truly saw the friendship that ran through their entire working relationship: Shelby, the cunning but cool-headed businessman, and Miles, the fiery but talented driver, working in perfect tandem to make sure that neither Ford, Beebe, nor Ferrari could get in the way of Miles exhibiting his pure racing skill on the track.

Miles’ fiery personality, unfortunately, meets reality during their resumed test runs, when his car’s braking system malfunctions and the car itself explodes in flames. Miles is safely pulled out, but his son Peter, who basically idolizes his father’s racing talents, worriedly asks Phil, the lead crewman, about racers catching fire. Phil awkwardly assures him that all racers have fire-resistant suits on and will survive as long as they don’t get stuck in the car, which Miles did not… but I did say this movie ties up all the loose ends…

As Shelby predicted, Beebe finds a way to retake control of the racing division and wants Miles off the driving team, but Shelby, true to his character, locks Beebe in his office and takes Ford out for a spin, devising a plan to convince Ford himself to let Miles race. We once again see that Shelby never lost an ounce of his racing instinct, and he thunders down the track with the shell-shocked Ford riding shotgun; Phil comments about halfway through the ride that that was the point where the “uninitiated soil themselves.” Upon stopping, Ford finally understands the exhilaration, freedom, fear, and pure adrenaline that courses through the veins of every professional driver, and breaks down in tears with Shelby uncomfortably watching, much to the audience’s amusement. Shelby proposes a final deal with Ford: if Miles races and wins the 24 Hours of Daytona, he gets to race at Le Mans for Ford, but if he loses, Ford will gain full control of Shelby’s famed company, Shelby American. Ford, obviously, agrees, much to Beebe’s dismay. And Miles, obviously, wins Daytona, after Shelby casually strolls up to the track with a sign riskily telling Miles “7000+ [RPM], Go Like Hell.”

Now for the real race to begin: the 1966 Le Mans. This race, in my opinion, is absolutely brutal: not only does each pair of racers have to drive for 24 hours, switching off every few hours, but they have to endure nighttime, pouring rain, rough natural tracks, and to top it all off, they have to run to their cars from across the track and somehow make it out of the Hunger Games-esque chaos of the initial stretch. (Speaking of racing in the rain, I was really reminded me of another racing film I watched recently and absolutely loved, called The Art of Racing in the Rain, featuring Milo Ventimiglia and Amanda Seyfried, and a cute dog actually named Enzo — I recommend giving this a watch). Miles gets a slow start, with his car door, of all things, not properly shutting; Phil promptly fixes this issue by hammering it in and sending him on his way, just as Miles did earlier in the film with his trunk. Miles swiftly laps his competitors, while Shelby pranks the Ferrari crewmen and fights off Beebe’s sabotaging moves in the pit. Miles quickly beats out all the racing Ferrari cars (who actually end up breaking down and leaving the race, much to Ferrari’s chagrin). However, Ferrari is seen muttering “Bellissimo” to himself as he turns away, clearly also in awe of Ford’s sudden racing prowess. Beebe deceptively tells Ford that Miles should slow down so that all three Ford cars can simultaneously cross the finish line, making for a perfect photo finish. Shelby vehemently disagrees but tells Miles that the ultimate decision is up to him: it’s his car. Miles, with all his passion, beats out his own personal record in the upcoming lap, but we can see in his eyes that he is struggling with his orders and Shelby’s sacrifices on his behalf. He decides to slow down and join together with the other two Ford cars on the track, with him leading the pack. The crowd, the crew, Miles’ family, and the audience are overwhelmed as he seems to win the race, being one of the few to win Sebring, Daytona, and Le Mans all in the same year. But, on a technicality (that clearly Beebe was aware of), McLaren wins the race. Ever the example of good sportsmanship, Miles walks off the track arm-in-arm with Shelby, discussing plans to make the car even faster so they can win Le Mans the next year. A personal favorite moment here was seeing Ferrari himself tip his cap to Miles: truly the highest accomplishment he could have earned.

Miles and Shelby are later testing the new J-car, based on Miles’ design suggestions, at Riverside (the location, coincidentally, where Miles and Shelby had jokingly mentioned as being the site of their previous wrestling match). To the crew and Peter’s (and the audience’s) absolute shock, the car is seen crashing and exploding from a distance, and Miles is killed.

Six months later, Shelby arrives at Peter and Mollie’s home but stops across the street, holding the wrench from the beginning of the film. He runs into Peter and for the first time acknowledges that Miles was his friend. He passes off the wrench to Peter, pauses in his car, and recklessly drives off just as he did in the beginning, his racing spirit intact despite this devastating loss.

The emotions underlying this movie were nothing short of eloquent. The friendship between Shelby and Miles, so strong that words were often not necessary; the father-son bond between Miles and Peter, as Miles took Peter out for regular spins in the race cars, pointed out his indicators on the track, and showed Peter his path on the Le Mans race track model that Peter built; the relationship between Miles and Mollie, a complete trust in his abilities to race and undoubtedly win.

The score of this film deserves a section all to itself. Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders, frequent collaborators with Mangold, truly outdid themselves on this one. The deep cello strums and the rapid drum sequences reflect a racer’s instinct and exhilaration all in one and build up the audience’s heartbeat in a way that I haven’t felt in a while. These bars are perfectly balanced with the slow guitar strums and twinkling sounds underlying the scenes where you might think all hope is lost… but then you quickly realize that hope is not lost as long as Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles are around to do something about it. This score was groovy, inspirational, bouncy, dramatic, and filled with sheer determination. I was already a fan of Beltrami from his stunning work on Soul Surfer, another one of my favorite uplifting movies, and he once again did not fail to deliver.

The thing I really carried away from this film was the sense of freedom. I think this is the closest thing I’ll ever get to feeling what a racer feels: the wide view that Miles describes, the exhilaration, the rush, the pinpoint focus, and above all, the joy of racing. I read more about the real Ken Miles and learned that he really just considered himself a mechanic: he raced because he loved it, describing the thought of potentially racing a Formula One car as “jolly good fun,” not because he wanted to win a medal. This film was just filled with the boldness of Miles and Shelby; as Shelby says, “we’re lighter, we’re faster, and if that don’t work, we’re nastier.” Now that’s one to make into an inspirational poster for the wall above your desk.

What really hooked me into the film and brought me into the eyes and mind of a racer was this singular line, narrated by Shelby both during his Le Mans race and as we see Miles’ car go up in flames for the last time:

There’s a point at 7,000 RPM… where everything fades. The machine becomes weightless. Just disappears. And all that’s left is a body moving through space and time. 7,000 RPM. That’s where you meet it. You feel it coming. It creeps up on you, close in your ear. Asks you a question. The only question that matters. Who are you?

It doesn’t matter if you’re a NASCAR racer or you just like zooming down a hill on your bicycle. That freedom that you feel is all just in your head. If your mind is free, you are free. If you have an itch to do something, something that makes you feel free and alive, an itch that will not leave you alone until you just do it, then just go do it. Go forward like Shelby fighting for Miles to be a driver, or like Ken Miles getting into a race car and just driving for hours until he understands the car: without hesitation, and above all, without fear. Find that wider view, and do not let something as trivial as failure stop you. Take that risk, learn from it, then get back in that car, and keep going, onwards and upwards.