Le Mans ‘66, Ford vs. Ferrari - movie

[Jim on the hill]

Bright Halo said:

I haven’t even seen it yet but it sounds like Christian Bale has put in a great performance.
He has to be one of the most underrated actors of our time.
Hostiles was not a very good film but his acting was exceptional and made it worth watching.

An Oscar and a bunch of nominations, underrated by who?

[DBSV8]

cuprabob said:

Halmyre said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're following the car in front closely, you can back off the accelerator a bit and get towed along in its wake (slipstreaming). At an opportune moment you can floor the accelerator, pull out from the slipstream and (hopefully) overtake. Maybe not quite how it's portrayed in the film, though.

As demonstated in "Days of Thunder"

better demonstration here from James Garner aka Pete Aron in Grand Prix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HA71tYl640

3:18

interestingly all the movie cars were Lotus 22 Formula Juniors mocked up as F1 cars

Edit a really good book to read is Go Like Hell

Edited by DBSV8 on Thursday 21st November 22:44

Edited by DBSV8 on Thursday 21st November 22:45

[coppice]

thegreenhell said:

I watched this yesterday on the local Odeon iSense big screen.

Wow, the full compliment of Hollywood racing cliches was deployed in this one:

• Racing at 200mph, but apparently still only on half throttle, so able to floor it to pass rivals.
• Rivals side-by-side at 200mph having an extended staring contest rather than looking where they're going.
• Rubbin' is racin' - ramming another car off the track into a fiery crash and then laughing. But it's okay because he was a German ahole.
• Cars dramatically flipping and exploding instead of just spinning.
• Cars supposedly racing in neat 2x2 formation so that our hero can weave dramatically between them with exaggerated steering movements.

Then I started to slip into pedantic dick mode, and spotted a few other things:

• In the boardroom where Iaccocca was trying to convince them to go racing, he showed a slide of the Goldfinger DB5 as an example of appealing to youth culture, but Goldfinger wasn't released until more than a year after that meeting could have taken place.
• When the suits went to visit Ferrari in early '63, there was a 275 GTB parked outside, again more than two years ahead of its time. Parked nearby was a an obvious 250 California replica kitcar.
• Inside the Ferrari race shop, still in early '63, they were already working on the '66 P3s, while still also working on the 1958 F1 cars. There was also what looked like a Datsun 240Z-based GTO fibreglass replica in there.
• Shelby wasn't immune from the modern replicas either, with at least one Daytona Coupe on show with modern 18 inch wheels and low profile tyres.
• The Ferraris at Le Mans were shown with rear-hinged engine covers, like the GT40s, but they should have been front-hinged.
• What happened to 1965? They built the cars in a hurry in '64 and failed at Le Mans that year, but they skipped the part where they went back in '65 and failed again.

Overall it was more Herbie Goes Bananas than Steve McQueen's Le Mans.

On the positive side, Bale was excellent as the Ken Miles caricature, and now I really want an early narrow-bodied 289 Cobra.

Thank God it isn't just me . I enjoyed Bale and Damon but the racing stuff was so strewn with errors that it was devalued to CBBC level . If I may add a further one - Enzo Ferrari notoriously did not attend races, usually going only to the first day of practice at Monza only. He was certainly not at Le Mans, and if he had been any resemblance the film had to portraying EF's real persona was missing in action.

As the Times put it , the film is 'a daft romp ' .

[Ferodocastrol]

coppice said:

thegreenhell said:

I watched this yesterday on the local Odeon iSense big screen.

Wow, the full compliment of Hollywood racing cliches was deployed in this one:

• Racing at 200mph, but apparently still only on half throttle, so able to floor it to pass rivals.
• Rivals side-by-side at 200mph having an extended staring contest rather than looking where they're going.
• Rubbin' is racin' - ramming another car off the track into a fiery crash and then laughing. But it's okay because he was a German ahole.
• Cars dramatically flipping and exploding instead of just spinning.
• Cars supposedly racing in neat 2x2 formation so that our hero can weave dramatically between them with exaggerated steering movements.

Then I started to slip into pedantic dick mode, and spotted a few other things:

• In the boardroom where Iaccocca was trying to convince them to go racing, he showed a slide of the Goldfinger DB5 as an example of appealing to youth culture, but Goldfinger wasn't released until more than a year after that meeting could have taken place.
• When the suits went to visit Ferrari in early '63, there was a 275 GTB parked outside, again more than two years ahead of its time. Parked nearby was a an obvious 250 California replica kitcar.
• Inside the Ferrari race shop, still in early '63, they were already working on the '66 P3s, while still also working on the 1958 F1 cars. There was also what looked like a Datsun 240Z-based GTO fibreglass replica in there.
• Shelby wasn't immune from the modern replicas either, with at least one Daytona Coupe on show with modern 18 inch wheels and low profile tyres.
• The Ferraris at Le Mans were shown with rear-hinged engine covers, like the GT40s, but they should have been front-hinged.
• What happened to 1965? They built the cars in a hurry in '64 and failed at Le Mans that year, but they skipped the part where they went back in '65 and failed again.

Overall it was more Herbie Goes Bananas than Steve McQueen's Le Mans.

On the positive side, Bale was excellent as the Ken Miles caricature, and now I really want an early narrow-bodied 289 Cobra.

Thank God it isn't just me . I enjoyed Bale and Damon but the racing stuff was so strewn with errors that it was devalued to CBBC level . If I may add a further one - Enzo Ferrari notoriously did not attend races, usually going only to the first day of practice at Monza only. He was certainly not at Le Mans, and if he had been any resemblance the film had to portraying EF's real persona was missing in action.

As the Times put it , the film is 'a daft romp ' .

fkin hell................... Mangold............ MANGOLD..........HELLO? yea, there you are.... sorry, you need to scrap/pull the film, and then remake it please, sorry about that, make sure you use Ken Miles himself and Shelby for accuracy, what?.....oh I see, my condolences, better just make a TV documentary then, scrub the idea of a Hollywood bullst fairy tail, it won't wash. Crack on ole boy.

[Big Nanas]

coppice said:

If I may add a further one - Enzo Ferrari notoriously did not attend races, usually going only to the first day of practice at Monza only. He was certainly not at Le Mans, and if he had been any resemblance the film had to portraying EF's real persona was missing in action.

I read an interview from the Director who said he knew Enzo didn't attend the race, but for the story telling he just had to add him in. I think it worked from the 'tension' point of view.

I've seen it twice and thoroughly enjoyed it both times, as did the wife. I didn't have too much cause to nit-pick, thankfully, but you always have to go into these things thinking 'It's a movie, not a documentary', and its supposed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. With so many time and money pressures, some things have to slip with accuracy. Overall I think they did a decent job of 'era correct'.

thegreenhell said:

• What happened to 1965? They built the cars in a hurry in '64 and failed at Le Mans that year, but they skipped the part where they went back in '65 and failed again.

I noticed this too, but I suspect as the movie is already 2:20mins plus, this part had been edited out.

At least this thread hasn't gone full on 'Dunkirk' levels of nitpicking (Train seat fabric, anyone?)

[Halmyre]

DBSV8 said:

cuprabob said:

Halmyre said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're following the car in front closely, you can back off the accelerator a bit and get towed along in its wake (slipstreaming). At an opportune moment you can floor the accelerator, pull out from the slipstream and (hopefully) overtake. Maybe not quite how it's portrayed in the film, though.

As demonstated in "Days of Thunder"

better demonstration here from James Garner aka Pete Aron in Grand Prix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HA71tYl640

3:18

interestingly all the movie cars were Lotus 22 Formula Juniors mocked up as F1 cars

I was thinking of Grand Prix as well. Can you imagine the pasting it would have got if PH and the Internet was around in 1966?

At least some of the racing is real though.

[Bahnstormer]

Went to see it with some friends last night.

Superb film !, some absolutely superb cinematography, and the thundering sound of the GT40's was pretty awesome. Bale and Damon were good.

a very enjoyable (if a little 'hollywood') film. I'll be watching it again sometime soon.

[irocfan]

Big Nanas said:

I noticed this too, but I suspect as the movie is already 2:20mins plus, this part had been edited out.

At least this thread hasn't gone full on 'Dunkirk' levels of nitpicking (Train seat fabric, anyone?)

give it time, the wrong seat fabric/composition will be noted...

[coppice]

Ferodocastrol said:

fkin hell................... Mangold............ MANGOLD..........HELLO? yea, there you are.... sorry, you need to scrap/pull the film, and then remake it please, sorry about that, make sure you use Ken Miles himself and Shelby for accuracy, what?.....oh I see, my condolences, better just make a TV documentary then, scrub the idea of a Hollywood bullst fairy tail, it won't wash. Crack on ole boy.

I am nitpicking of course- it's fun. And I'd forgive the film its (many and varied) errors if it had got one thing right - the racing scenes . Only McQueen's Le Mans came close to getting that right - but this effort was sub Fast n' Furious level

[Quickmoose]

Saw it during the day on Wednesday.
Months of hype and ongoing respect for Bale and Damon.
Felt let down.
The actors did fine.
The Hype did me in....for all the reasons already given. Too much Hollywood sparkly fairy dust, too much necessity for 'profit'.
All it's done is make me marvel at the original Le mans film and what it took to get it to the big screen.
Wondering if slow burning cult favourites will ever get to be made again.

I just can't stand the "I've got an extra gear and extra 1000 rpm, whilst staring at you" racing.....takes him seconds to catch up... then minutes side by side to get by. FS.

[Big Robbo]

It's a good film, not a factual documentary FFS! Why not add on the day they arrived at Maranello it was raining and they missed out the ginger tomcat walking across the road in 1966!!

[wsn03]

Quickmoose said:

Saw it during the day on Wednesday.
Months of hype and ongoing respect for Bale and Damon.
Felt let down.
The actors did fine.
The Hype did me in....for all the reasons already given. Too much Hollywood sparkly fairy dust, too much necessity for 'profit'.
All it's done is make me marvel at the original Le mans film and what it took to get it to the big screen.
Wondering if slow burning cult favourites will ever get to be made again.

I just can't stand the "I've got an extra gear and extra 1000 rpm, whilst staring at you" racing.....takes him seconds to catch up... then minutes side by side to get by. FS.

It did a job for the vast majority who want the Disney type film. It really does make me appreciate McQueen's film a lot more.

I read the Go Like Hell book, and the sad part for me is the real story (the one where sheer company arrogance and incompetence lost Ford 2 Le Mans, and then Ferrari threw it away in 66) is a far more interesting story - no one had an issue with Ken Miles, Ford had an issue with themselves.

No where is John Surtees mentioned, but if you read the book its pretty clear that Ford had no answer for him, he was quicker than everyone. His fallout with Ferrari cost them Le Mans and the F1 world championship.

Still, good that Ken Miles will now have the recognition he deserves. I don't think the Italians will like this film though, as someone said earlier it doesn't paint them in a very good light. They were the underdogs in real life, so all a bit of a God Bless the USA fairy tale. Love the comment about Enzo being wrongly portrayed as the villain, noting that in real life he was far far worse :-)

[P5BNij]

Haven't seen it yet but will give it a go, there just aren't enough racing films made.

OT but related to the above mentions of Enzo, he made an appearance at Monza in '66 during the filming of 'Grand Prix' to meet Adolfo Celi who played the Commandatore character based on him...

[prand]

Big Robbo said:

It's a good film, not a factual documentary FFS! Why not add on the day they arrived at Maranello it was raining and they missed out the ginger tomcat walking across the road in 1966!!

Even factual documentaries are not immune either. I remember being gently roasted by Eric Mc on here after saying how much I enjoyed Senna, even though it almost totally ignores Nigel Mansell's part in the real drama, and really over-eggs Prost's role as the baddie protagonist.

I like that another sporting docudrama, Invictus, also has the 5ft 10inch Matt Damon, this time improbably playing the 6ft 4 Flanker South African Captain Francois Pienaar. Morgan Freeman is a much more natural Nelson Mandela, and the player/actor being Jonah Lomu isn't far off either.

Invictus has some dodgy moments, but at the end, SA still win the final (sorry for spoilers) and like all these films, you just have to go with it and let the artistic license take you.

[butaclor]

Big Robbo said:

It's a good film, not a factual documentary FFS! Why not add on the day they arrived at Maranello it was raining and they missed out the ginger tomcat walking across the road in 1966!!

I think your find it was a tabby and so also not a Tom .

[CrossMember]

Absolutely strewn with errors and cliches, yes. I agree. It was.

But very enjoyable. A film about a great racing story for people who don't know much about racing. Which is fine. Because racing films for geeks don't get budgets like that.

Loved it, and happy to put up with the half-throttle-at-200-mph so a diverse audience can love it too.

[Elderly]

prand said:

Big Robbo said:

It's a good film, ......!

...... how much I enjoyed .......

I've read many posts saying that it is a good film.

I suspect that when most people say that it was a good film, what they really mean is that they enjoyed it.

There's all kinds of things in this world that people can genuinely enjoy, but which are not good;
likewise there's plenty of stuff that's good, which people don't enjoy. They are both valid.

On the whole it was not a well made film (some aspects were) but I quite enjoyed a lot of it .

[magpie215]

I enjoyed it.

I Went to see it with my son and nephew
(20 &19).

They both enjoyed it too even though its massively historic from their pov.

If you go into it to be entertained and not full car bore you should be ok.

[coppice]

Big Robbo said:

It's a good film, not a factual documentary FFS! Why not add on the day they arrived at Maranello it was raining and they missed out the ginger tomcat walking across the road in 1966!!

The only issue I have is that when films purport to show historical events, they start to lose credibility (and quality)when they have a veneer of truth , but are riddled with errors -many deliberate . Anyone watching the film about Alan Turing , for example , would have seen events in his life which simply didn't happen . In this film I am relaxed about the Bale and Damon roles - I thought both were excellent - but the racing scenes were utter tosh , and fell victim to the same lazy tropes that nealry every racing film includes .

The Henry Ford 2 scene , with the blubbing and hysteria , did not ring even a tiny bit true and as for panto villain Enzo Ferrari, spare me ...

[ukaskew]

Surely you should be more annoyed with the mundane factual errors (such as cars from the wrong period). They probably employed an expert to keep an eye on such things , although some may simply have been due to availability of period items to come in on budget.

The Enzo at the race thing, the skipping of a year, those are understandable, intentional story concessions.