The Man, The Car, The Machine: Why Director Michael Mann Chose 'Ferrari' As His Latest Project

Thief, Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans, Miami Vice, The Insider, Ali and Collateral — they're all films brought to life by world-renowned director, screenwriter and four-time Academy Award nominee Michael Mann. His latest feature, Ferrari, is set in Italy in the summer of 1957, and follows ex-racer-turned-carmaker Enzo Ferrari, whose company is in crisis. To keep Ferrari viable, his team must make a treacherous race across Italy.

A still from the new motion picture "Ferrari."

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Eros Hoagland

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Neon

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Based on Brock Yates’ 1991 book Enzo Ferrari: The Man, The Car, The Races, The Machine, Mann’s Ferrari is a character study he says is unlike anything else the director has done on the big screen. The film made its world premiere at the 2023 Venice Film Festival followed by a theatrical release at Christmas and stars Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz.

The dramatic lure of Enzo Ferrari

"The thing that attracted me to [this project] and kept me engaged in the story was purely the drama and operatic nature of this volatile relationship and the tumultuous life that Enzo and Lara and Lina were living in 1957," said Mann in an interview with Larry Mantle on LAist's daily news program AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM.

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Mann said he was not only drawn to this iconic innovator, but also this specific time period in his life. In the three months in which the film takes place, everything that Ferrari had been and built is falling apart around him. He's in a dissolving and tempestuous marriage, his son Dino has just died, and his company is on the edge of bankruptcy.

"All of these elements come together in the period of the film and that's what kept me hooked into it. My friend and fellow director, the late Sydney Pollack and I, both fell in love with this thing, and we developed it together for a number of years and I kept going back to it for that reason."

Bringing Enzo Ferrari and 1950s Italy to life

While Michael Mann began talks around this film in 2000, it would be years before he received a studio offer that felt adequate to the story he wanted to bring to life.

"I could have made it at any time in these past couple of decades if I wanted to reduce it and make it for $35 or $40 million dollars. But I didn't want to do that. I wanted to make the film the right way or not make it at all. Just replicating the race cars is a $5 or $6 million dollar item."

Mann was able to make the film thanks to a substantial tax credit from Italy to the tune of $24 million. He also had two producers worked for zero fees and cut his and Adam Driver's salaries.

The Oscar-nominated director also knew the film wouldn't come to life without the perfect actors to bring these dynamic characters to life.

"After 20 minutes of meeting Adam Driver I knew that he had a certain ferocity inside of him that in his heart, this is Enzo Ferrari," he said.

Mann talks about casting as a core part of filmmaking and one that takes skill, intuition, and artistic projection. Depending on which actor inhabits a character will yield a totally different outcome for the audience.

"That's the mystery of casting and right at the heart of artistic decisions you make as a director," he said.

Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari on set in Modena, Italy.

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The decision to cast Penelope Cruz was one Mann felt similarly about.

"I couldn't have made better choices," Mann said.

Facing the technical challenges

In order to recreate the signature racing scenes in the film, Mann said he had to design operating systems that allowed the camera to move in the way he wanted. But even before these designs began, he started by asking himself two essential questions:

"How do I want this racing to impact upon you?" and "What do I want your experience of the racing to be dramatically?"

These questions, Mann said, were fundamental to the crafting both the scenes and the technology required to shoot them.

Photo from the set of "Ferrari."

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Eros Hoagland

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NEON

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"I could shoot race cars with long lenses and it's quite beautiful and elegant. But that to me distances audiences and makes them into observers. I didn't want you to be observing it. I wanted you to be experientially empathetic to, almost within it."

In the case of Ferrari, Mann said, being "within it" means hurtling with massive agitation down bad Italian roads at 160 mph. As for the cars, all were replicated for the film, except for one Maserati owned by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason.

"All the other ones are mathematically perfect replicas done with 3D scanning. Between the aluminum skin of those cars are tubular chassis and a contemporary drive train. "

Michael Mann said the cars have to be three things:

"They had to be reliable, they had to be very fast and they had to be very safe."

The lasting effect of Mann's stylistic choices

Mann has done films in all different styles and tones, which he said often forces him to push the bounds of filmmaking. To make the world of L.A. come alive at night in Collateral, for example, Mann said he experimented with shooting in high-definition video on film. The result was the first major motion picture to use a high-def camera. To evoke Miami in an exciting way, in Miami Vice, he restored the tropical pastels of South Beach to more strongly and powerfully evoke a sense of place.

"I want the form of the film to deliver an experience of the story and the world that the story is taking you into. It is exciting to be doing a different thing every time," said Mann, adding that he has no interest in repeating his work.

"When people believe the world you're creating than the story and believability increases. That's where the film form comes from. It's exciting to do something that's novel."

Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari (yellow).

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Lorenzo Sisti

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Neon

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