Plot, cast, true story 1957 – The Wom

THATIn competition for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival ferrari Michael Mann focuses on 1957, a particularly treacherous year professionally and personally for the legendary Enzo Ferrari.

ferrari new film by master Michael Mann, presented at the competition Venice Film Festival 2023. Starring Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz and Shailene Woodley. ferrari brings the real story of Enzo Ferrari to Venice, taking us to Modena in the summer of 1957.

Enzo Ferrari (The Driver), a former driver and builder of the most famous cars in the world, is going through a personal and professional crisis. The company he created ten years ago out of thin air is in serious trouble, and even the marriage to his wife Laura Garello (Cruz) becomes increasingly turbulent after the death of their only son, Dino, and the discovery of the existence of a son, Piero. that Ferrari had an extramarital affair with Lina Lardy (Woodley). In search of redemption, “Drake” makes risky decisions at one of the most crucial moments of his life and decides to bet everything on a high-speed race held in Italy: the legendary Mille Miglia.

Poetic and breathtaking wonder

Michael Mann brings his mastery of technique and storytelling to an emotional and elegant drama recreated in film. ferrari, at the competition in Venice and from November 30 in Italian cinemas thanks to 01 Distribution, the life of the legendary carmaker and entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari. Focusing on both his professional and private career, he begins at a defining moment in a man’s existence: 1957, the year in which Enzo and Laura’s marriage begins to crack irreversibly due to the man’s passion for women and the recent tragic death of their son.

The unstable relationship in the house of Ferrari is at odds with Enzo’s work environment, which has some important decisions to make: above all, financial pressure to increase productivity. This means that Enzo will have to go against his own desire to produce only racing cars. But to this we must also add preparation for the treacherous Mille Miglia and its open road route.

Intertwining various narrative lines, Mann creates with ferrari a film, at times elegiac, at times breathtaking, culminating, as Venetian audiences will see it, in a ride as exhilarating as it is terrifying through the landscapes of Northern Italy (with an unusual visual and sound montage that focuses on the noise of cars in the background) a little bucolic to say the least).

The director is assisted by a cast in a state of finesse that, in addition to Driver, Cruise and Woodley, draws on the likes of Gabriel Leone, Patrick Dempsey and Jack O’Connall, as well as exterior shots taken in Modena, home country. Ferrari himself.

“Long before the execution ferrari, I happened to walk through the rooms of Enzo’s house. See her diaries, learn about her habits, admire the wallpaper in the bedroom where Laura spent the last years of her life, ask doctors questions, meet Lina’s niece, understand her lifestyle and its modernity, sitting in Enzo’s barber chair, walking along the sidewalks of your neighborhood and living there, examining the shiny mechanical parts of the Lampredi V12 engine and the sculptures of racing models from the 1950s. And most importantly, communication with the son of Enzo Piero, from whom I learned and absorbed so much, ”commented Mann.

“I tried to revive Enzo’s passion and charm, his sharp wit, the devastating loss of his son, the theatrical impulses, the need for emotional refuge, the tragedy, the monumental bet on one race and the struggle for survival: all elements that collided in the four months of 1957.”

Terrible Ferrari year

1957 was a special year for Enzo Ferrari, as chronicled in Michael Mann’s film racing in Venice 80. Ferrari was already a leading figure in the world of racing cars and competitions, where good and talented drivers preferred to drive a Ferrari for only one purpose. mean: win.

However, that year was one of the worst in Enzo’s life. During the Mille Miglia, in which he decided to take part, there was a very serious accident (the tragedy of Guidizzolo), as a result of which the passengers of the Ferrari 335 n died. 531 people and nine spectators: the authorities therefore accused Ferrari of committing unsafe acts during the race. This meant that Enzo got into trouble with both the law and the organizers of motor racing, so much so that, in the end, he decided to close the racing team he created, but he did not stop building fantastic and successful cars.

Even on a personal level, 1957 can be considered a terrible year for Enzo. He was married to Laura, a woman with a not always easy character and always involved in the affairs of the company, and from her he had a son, Dino. However, on June 30, 1956, Dino died at the age of only 24 due to Duchenne dystrophy. The loss of his boyfriend was a hard blow for Enzo, who loved him so much that he even gave his name to the Ferrari engine series.

But the mockery of fate led to the fact that in 1957 it turned out that Enzo was the father of another son, Pietro, from Lina Lardi, the one who will go down in history as the greatest love of his life. Enzo and Lina met in 1924 when she was only fourteen. They met again a few years later, in 1929, when Lina was hired as a clerk at the Carrozzeria Orlandi office in Modena, where Ferrari brought the chassis to be restored. At the time, Enzo was 31 years old and had been married to Laura for six years, but Lina won him over immediately with her cheerful and reserved demeanor, bringing a carefree life to his life, marked at the time by a marriage that was already in crisis. .

In 1945, their son Piero was born, whom Lina grew up away from the limelight and never looked for anything. And only after the death of Laura in 1978, Enzo invited Lina and Piero, now the head of Ferrari, to live with him in his house in Modena.