Grand Prix: "The Godfather" of Racing movies
This shot says it all:
It's 1966. Real Formula cars. Real formula one drivers (Brabham, Clarke, Rendt...all legends). Filmed on 65mm Panavision at the real racetracks.
In my opinion, they should never make another racing flick. None could be better than John Frankenheimer's 3-hour epic Grand Prix. I got the DVD for Christmas, putting it on my list purely by reputation--this is the same instinct that I used in buying "Grand Turismo" for Playstation.
I watched it over an afternoon and night on Tuesday, and was drooling--ask Whitney--from the first shot to the last. I actually don't remember much about what was happening while I watched the film; I even forgot if I ate on Wednesday morning...
The movie itself follows the 1966 season of Formula One, the pinnacle of open-wheeled racing, from the first Grand Prix, at Monaco, to the last at Monza in Italy. We find our larger-than-life heros in maverick American Pete Aron (James Garner), all penis-and-ego Nino Barlini, old salt Jean-Pierre Sarti, and the brilliant legacy driver Scott Stoddard. Initially, Aron and Stoddard are both BRM drivers, while Barlini and Sarti drive Ferraris.
This all changes after Stoddard has a crippling crash at Monaco, caused when he and Aron collide in the dogleg by the sea.
This is where the movie diverges from being a well-shot technicolor racing extravaganza like Steve McQueen's Le Mans to being a great movie in general. All the characters presented--the philandering wife, the doe-eyed groupie, the "other woman"--transcend stereotypes to become likable heroes and anti-heroes.
Grand Prix amazes on many levels: It's not even car lust--it's car pornography. These were the most beautiful, well proportioned, best sounding race cars ever designed. Furthermore, it's a snapshot of mid-1960's culture that's just weird to modern eyes--the collapse of marriage and the rise of the sexual revolution.
Just as The Godfather is an archetypal story of honor, loyalty, obligation, and unforgivable sins, Grand Prix evokes skill, bravery, and more than a little Nihilism: Skilled drivers tempt death, rationalizing it as a way to transcend the mundane. Yet, they ask throughout the movie, "Is this all that there is? What's the point?"
It's 1966. Real Formula cars. Real formula one drivers (Brabham, Clarke, Rendt...all legends). Filmed on 65mm Panavision at the real racetracks.
In my opinion, they should never make another racing flick. None could be better than John Frankenheimer's 3-hour epic Grand Prix. I got the DVD for Christmas, putting it on my list purely by reputation--this is the same instinct that I used in buying "Grand Turismo" for Playstation.
I watched it over an afternoon and night on Tuesday, and was drooling--ask Whitney--from the first shot to the last. I actually don't remember much about what was happening while I watched the film; I even forgot if I ate on Wednesday morning...
The movie itself follows the 1966 season of Formula One, the pinnacle of open-wheeled racing, from the first Grand Prix, at Monaco, to the last at Monza in Italy. We find our larger-than-life heros in maverick American Pete Aron (James Garner), all penis-and-ego Nino Barlini, old salt Jean-Pierre Sarti, and the brilliant legacy driver Scott Stoddard. Initially, Aron and Stoddard are both BRM drivers, while Barlini and Sarti drive Ferraris.
This all changes after Stoddard has a crippling crash at Monaco, caused when he and Aron collide in the dogleg by the sea.
This is where the movie diverges from being a well-shot technicolor racing extravaganza like Steve McQueen's Le Mans to being a great movie in general. All the characters presented--the philandering wife, the doe-eyed groupie, the "other woman"--transcend stereotypes to become likable heroes and anti-heroes.
Grand Prix amazes on many levels: It's not even car lust--it's car pornography. These were the most beautiful, well proportioned, best sounding race cars ever designed. Furthermore, it's a snapshot of mid-1960's culture that's just weird to modern eyes--the collapse of marriage and the rise of the sexual revolution.
Just as The Godfather is an archetypal story of honor, loyalty, obligation, and unforgivable sins, Grand Prix evokes skill, bravery, and more than a little Nihilism: Skilled drivers tempt death, rationalizing it as a way to transcend the mundane. Yet, they ask throughout the movie, "Is this all that there is? What's the point?"
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