Michael Mann wreaked havoc (literally) with his 2023 film Ferrari. Based on the life of Enzo Ferrari, the movie depicted the summer of 1957 when the car manufacturer company was at an all-time low and Enzo Ferrari was dealing with problems both personal and professional.
Fans of racing might know what happened during the race of 1957 which Michael Mann had to recreate in his film. Involving a certain crash and a certain car company heavily involved in the investigation, the event in the film was quite brutal to witness but Mann explained his reasons why he had to show that in his film.
Why Michael Mann Chose To Keep That Scene In The Movie
*Major Spoilers For Ferrari*
If you have seen the movie (which you probably did), you know which scene we are talking about. During the final sequence of the movie, the driver Alfonso de Portago is driving a Ferrari car which ends up losing control and crashes into the spectators.
Michael Mann chose to depict the scene as gruesome as he liked as the severed heads and bodies of people were seen during the finale of the film. Since it was a real event, Michael Mann revealed in an interview with EW that he toned down the graphic details by a notch or two out of respect for the real people who were involved in the crash.
“I toned down one or two pieces of what happened. Out of respect, I wanted to shoot it very factually, as if we were a newsreel camera who saw this coming and just followed it. No multiple cuts, which I thought would’ve been gratuitous.”
He further continued,
“There were many different accounts of what happened in that crash. A gentleman at the Ferrari factory named Gabriele Lolli, who’s one of the people who run their restoration division, went to the prefecture and dug up all the police reports. He investigated the accident for three years.”
Michael Mann further talked about how he knew the crash happened exactly the way he depicted it. As per the report investigations by Gabriele Lolli, “the tire got punctured, that it hit a mile marker that launched the car in the air, that it was doing between 140 and 160 when it hit a telephone pole.” One of the bloodiest accidents in history, Michael Mann found a witness of the accident when he went to shoot there and decided to keep his tale in the movie.
Michael Mann Found A Real-Life Witness For The Accident
As the interview further progressed, the director talked about how when he went to shoot the scene at the actual location, an elderly gentleman came out to ask them questions. The interaction that they had revealed that he was one of the witnesses present during the accident of 1957!
“When I went to the site at Guidizzolo where it actually happened, there’s a long straight road and a farmhouse. An elderly gentleman came out of the house and asked what we were doing, in Italian. Through translators, he told us that he was there at the crash,”
Mann further continued,
“He said that he was three years old. They were having a typical Italian Sunday dinner at about 4 o’clock. His older brother, who was faster than him, ran out because the cars were coming and got killed. That’s when I decided I wanted to have the scene with the family and the three-year-old toddler. He would’ve been the three-year-old.”
Having some gratuitous violence alongside the personal and professional life of Enzo Ferrari, the movie received a rating of 6.7/10 on IMDB and an average of 73% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film is currently screening in select theaters around the world.
