NEW YORK ā Michael Mann, who gave Crockett a white Ferrari on āMiami Vice,ā pummeled cars with bullets in the shootout in āHeatā and set the thriller āCollateralā in a taxicab, has had an affection for automobiles since growing up in Chicago.
āItās a city in which you drive, you know?ā Mann says. āIt 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 āthe rest of the world just goes away.ā So, the driving instructions that Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) gives in Mannās latest film, āFerrariā ā āBreak later, hold the lineā ā are familiar to him.
āLet me put it this way,ā Mann said, grinning, in a recent interview. āAt 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.
āIf I can have a sense of something, I can project and imagine it pretty fully,ā Mann says. āSo I do truly understand the passion and addiction ā what Jean Behra the race driver described as the ecstasy of when thereās this unity, a harmonic between you and the machine.ā
Mann, the 80-year-old filmmaker of āThe Last of the Mohicans,ā āThe Insiderā and āThief,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.
āHe said to me one time, āItās hard not to get philosophical about an engineā ā which I think is so much who he is,ā says Driver. āSo many things have to be operating down to the millimeter for an engine to work and the timing and all these movable elements. Then thereās the driver. Itās similar to him and the camera.ā
āFerrari,ā which opens in theaters Dec. 25, is Mannās first film since 2015ās āBlackhat.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 āFerrari,ā thatās 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.
āThose torrid passions, almost operatic, and powerful emotional driving forces, thatās why I did the movie. Not because of the cars,ā Mann says before adding with a laugh: āThereās nothing wrong with the cars. I love the cars.ā
āIf you really understand what Ferraris are, the right ones anyway, you go buy one,ā adds Mann, who, for the record, owns a couple. āYou donāt have to go make a movie about them.ā
Death hangs over āFerrari.ā When we encounter Enzo and Laura, they're both still grieving the death of their son, Dino, from the year before. For Enzoās fleet of drivers, the prospect of death on the road is present on every hairpin turn and in every crack in the pavement.
āThereās death all around, and all around this movie,ā says Mann, noting the post-WWII context of Italy. āBut Ferrari is in the present and heās looking for whatās next, whatās next.ā
āHeat,ā which Mann recently revisited in the 2022 bestseller āHeat 2,ā co-written with Meg Gardiner, was a crime epic of causality, in which each character's decisions mark their fate. In āFerrari,ā the price of passionate determination is just as clear. Still, Enzo keeps moving relentlessly forward in āFerrariā even as the movie builds toward catastrophic collision.
āI donāt feel thereās a price to pay for it. I think bad outcomes go with the territory. You donāt win,ā says Mann. āYou 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 canāt accomplish anything.
āI think wanting to accomplish, wanting to exceed limits, thatās an absolutely universal human trait,ā Mann continues. āOur whole history as a species is to run faster, go further, discover what hasnāt been there before, move beyond the limited circumstance we find ourselves in when theyāre 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 itās clear heās overwhelmingly consumed by the psychology of his characters. Driver estimates character psychology was 90% of their conversations.
āHeās not after technical things," Driver says. "The technical things are to support emotion and feeling, which is an intangible thing that he canāt control. Heās always after moments.ā
In playing Enzo, Driver acknowledges he was also to a certain extent playing Mann. āThereās something I stole from him that made its way into the movie that I wonāt give away,ā the actor says.
The two found a connection, Mann says, in their self-critical intensity. āIf somethingās not working right, my first thought is itās my fault,ā the director says. āI think heās the same way. Weāre both, for better or worse, afflicted with that sense of responsibility.ā
Mann is currently developing āHeat 2ā as a film, potentially with Driver playing a young Neil McCauley, the character played by Robert De Niro in the original. (āWeāll see what happens with āHeat 2,āā says Driver. āWho knows.ā)
āI look at Michael and I think, āThank god weāre in the same orbit, relatively,āā says Driver. āI 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. āAnd Michael will just will his film into existence from sheer focus and tenacity," says Driver.
āFerrari,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.
āI make these movies,ā Mann shrugs. āI make the movies I want to make.ā
Even in his 80s, Mann has lost little of his velocity.
āI know for myself, Iām better at doing a picture that has me on the frontier,ā Mann says. āWhere itās something I havenāt done before.ā
In that, itās hard not to hear echoes of Vincent Hanna, Al Pacinoās detective in āHeat.ā āI gotta hold on to my angst,ā Hanna said. āI preserve it because I need it. It keeps me sharp, on the edge, where I gotta be.ā
āIām usually oriented to: Iām 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 āThe Asphalt Jungleā) and a recent favorite (Greta Gerwig's āBarbieā). Then he answers.
āI probably have less patience for slow.ā
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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP