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Michael Mann still has another gear. At 80, he's driving 'Ferrari'

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2023 Invision

Adam Driver, left, and director Michael Mann pose for a portrait to promote "Ferrari" on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023, in New York. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)

NEW YORK ā€“ Michael Mann, who gave Crockett a white Ferrari on ā€œMiami Vice,ā€ pummeled cars with bullets in the shootout in ā€œHeatā€ and set the thriller ā€œCollateralā€ in a taxicab, has had an affection for automobiles since growing up in Chicago.

ā€œItā€™s a city in which you drive, you know?ā€ Mann says. ā€œIt rains and things get quite beautiful. The streets get black and the cars get reflective. I like motion. I like speed.ā€

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Mann has also been a racing hobbyist. Off and on for years, he competed in the Ferrari Challenge ā€” a four-day race, he fondly recalls, during which ā€œthe rest of the world just goes away.ā€ So, the driving instructions that Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) gives in Mannā€™s latest film, ā€œFerrariā€ ā€” ā€œBreak later, hold the lineā€ ā€” are familiar to him.

ā€œLet me put it this way,ā€ Mann said, grinning, in a recent interview. ā€œAt one point I was practicing on a road in Atlanta and I did 75 laps without stopping.ā€

But what Mann remembers from those laps ā€” or at least the four of five good ones he strung together ā€” is the taste of what real mastery of the car might feel like.

ā€œIf I can have a sense of something, I can project and imagine it pretty fully,ā€ Mann says. ā€œSo I do truly understand the passion and addiction ā€” what Jean Behra the race driver described as the ecstasy of when thereā€™s this unity, a harmonic between you and the machine.ā€

Mann, the 80-year-old filmmaker of ā€œThe Last of the Mohicans,ā€ ā€œThe Insiderā€ and ā€œThief,ā€ has himself long exhibited a rare harmony with the machinations of filmmaking. He makes fine-grained, visceral dramas that thrum with existentialism. The fervor of his obsession, the rigor of his research, the intensity of his drive has often mirrored the compulsions of his single-minded protagonists.

ā€œHe said to me one time, ā€˜Itā€™s hard not to get philosophical about an engineā€™ ā€” which I think is so much who he is,ā€ says Driver. ā€œSo many things have to be operating down to the millimeter for an engine to work and the timing and all these movable elements. Then thereā€™s the driver. Itā€™s similar to him and the camera.ā€

ā€œFerrari,ā€ which opens in theaters Dec. 25, is Mannā€™s first film since 2015ā€™s ā€œBlackhat.ā€ He's wanted to make it for three decades. Its script, based on Brock Yatesā€™ 1991 Ferrari biography, was written by Troy Kennedy Martin, who died 14 years ago.

But while you will find plenty of speed and gorgeous, rosso corsa-colored cars in ā€œFerrari,ā€ thatā€™s not what compelled Mann, for so many years, to make the movie. The film, set in 1957 Modena, Italy, captures Ferrari in the tumultuous lead-up to the Mille Miglia, a 1,000-mile cross-country race. He's struggling to keep his troubled business afloat while splitting his personal life between wife Laura (PenĆ©lope Cruz) and another woman, Linda Lardi (Shailene Woodley), with whom he has a young son, Piero.

ā€œThose torrid passions, almost operatic, and powerful emotional driving forces, thatā€™s why I did the movie. Not because of the cars,ā€ Mann says before adding with a laugh: ā€œThereā€™s nothing wrong with the cars. I love the cars.ā€

ā€œIf you really understand what Ferraris are, the right ones anyway, you go buy one,ā€ adds Mann, who, for the record, owns a couple. ā€œYou donā€™t have to go make a movie about them.ā€

Death hangs over ā€œFerrari.ā€ When we encounter Enzo and Laura, they're both still grieving the death of their son, Dino, from the year before. For Enzoā€™s fleet of drivers, the prospect of death on the road is present on every hairpin turn and in every crack in the pavement.

ā€œThereā€™s death all around, and all around this movie,ā€ says Mann, noting the post-WWII context of Italy. ā€œBut Ferrari is in the present and heā€™s looking for whatā€™s next, whatā€™s next.ā€

ā€œHeat,ā€ which Mann recently revisited in the 2022 bestseller ā€œHeat 2,ā€ co-written with Meg Gardiner, was a crime epic of causality, in which each character's decisions mark their fate. In ā€œFerrari,ā€ the price of passionate determination is just as clear. Still, Enzo keeps moving relentlessly forward in ā€œFerrariā€ even as the movie builds toward catastrophic collision.

ā€œI donā€™t feel thereā€™s a price to pay for it. I think bad outcomes go with the territory. You donā€™t win,ā€ says Mann. ā€œYou have to be able to overcome adversity and setbacks and soul-destroying disappointments. You have to be able to find the means to overcome that or you canā€™t accomplish anything.

ā€œI think wanting to accomplish, wanting to exceed limits, thatā€™s an absolutely universal human trait,ā€ Mann continues. ā€œOur whole history as a species is to run faster, go further, discover what hasnā€™t been there before, move beyond the limited circumstance we find ourselves in when theyā€™re terrorizing us or limiting us or even just boring us.ā€

It can be tempting to see Mann as a technical stylist, a movie engineer. But spend five minutes with him and itā€™s clear heā€™s overwhelmingly consumed by the psychology of his characters. Driver estimates character psychology was 90% of their conversations.

ā€œHeā€™s not after technical things," Driver says. "The technical things are to support emotion and feeling, which is an intangible thing that he canā€™t control. Heā€™s always after moments.ā€

In playing Enzo, Driver acknowledges he was also to a certain extent playing Mann. ā€œThereā€™s something I stole from him that made its way into the movie that I wonā€™t give away,ā€ the actor says.

The two found a connection, Mann says, in their self-critical intensity. ā€œIf somethingā€™s not working right, my first thought is itā€™s my fault,ā€ the director says. ā€œI think heā€™s the same way. Weā€™re both, for better or worse, afflicted with that sense of responsibility.ā€

Mann is currently developing ā€œHeat 2ā€ as a film, potentially with Driver playing a young Neil McCauley, the character played by Robert De Niro in the original. (ā€œWeā€™ll see what happens with ā€˜Heat 2,ā€™ā€ says Driver. ā€œWho knows.ā€)

ā€œI look at Michael and I think, ā€˜Thank god weā€™re in the same orbit, relatively,ā€™ā€ says Driver. ā€œI feel very emotional about Michael, that he exists.ā€

On set in Modena, Driver witnessed Mann deal with all kinds of setbacks ā€” waning time, location issues, distracted extras. ā€œAnd Michael will just will his film into existence from sheer focus and tenacity," says Driver.

ā€œFerrari,ā€ with a reported production budget of $95 million, was financed independently. The indie distributor Neon is releasing it. The movie is, by any measure, an exception. It's a film about racing devoted to character, a big-budget original movie in a film industry that usually devotes such resources to sequels or reboots.

ā€œI make these movies,ā€ Mann shrugs. ā€œI make the movies I want to make.ā€

Even in his 80s, Mann has lost little of his velocity.

ā€œI know for myself, Iā€™m better at doing a picture that has me on the frontier,ā€ Mann says. ā€œWhere itā€™s something I havenā€™t done before.ā€

In that, itā€™s hard not to hear echoes of Vincent Hanna, Al Pacinoā€™s detective in ā€œHeat.ā€ ā€œI gotta hold on to my angst,ā€ Hanna said. ā€œI preserve it because I need it. It keeps me sharp, on the edge, where I gotta be.ā€

ā€œIā€™m usually oriented to: Iā€™m totally f---ed. What am I going to do next?" Mann says. "That tortures me.ā€

Has anything changed in Mann's taste in movies over the years, either those he makes or watches? He ponders the question, mentioning an oft-returned-to favorite (John Huston's ā€œThe Asphalt Jungleā€) and a recent favorite (Greta Gerwig's ā€œBarbieā€). Then he answers.

ā€œI probably have less patience for slow.ā€

___

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP


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