Not to mention that there are ZERO good movies about car racing.

Cars? That was good...

Le mans was alright.

Good story on the filming of "Lemans" in this month's Motorsport.

The writer referred to the film as a two hour film that was an hour and a half too long.

that was a documentary. Like "Talladega nights".

"Driven" (2001) is unequivocally the worst move ever made. It's a pure homage to crap.

The flipping the coins from the cockpit scene, then picking them up as he drove back around...still makes absolutely no sense to this day.

what about the scene driving in that tunnel, and talking to each other...
seriously, when you are trackside watching a GP, you can hardly speak to each other, let alone if YOU are in in a tunnel driving the car..

anyway, can't believe we are actually talking about driven...where's the vomit icon

I was fortunate enough to watch Senna's arrival into F1 (and indeed his whole career), man those were the days. I'm really looking forward to reliving a bit of that on the big screen. The scene right at the start of the trailer, where they back Prost & Tambay out of the way to reveal the JPS and the yellow helmet, with James Hunt's comment, "I think we are watching the arrival of a truly staggering talent." Yeah, it gave me goosebumps. What an amazing time it was...

Watching Senna race on TV was free - watching a GP with him was $150 - Photo with him = Priceless

Picture was taken at the Austrian GP 1984 just 20 minutes prior to Saturday Qualifying. Me on the left, my brother to the right.

OMG..according to this: http://www.launchingfilms.com/releasesched...;startyear=2010 the movie is only going to be launched 3rd of June... probably for Europe..
Japan is exptected in October, BRazil in November...
why wait so long for Europe

I think F1's most fitting subject matter for a feature film is the rise, over the years, of Bernie and/or Max. Such a film would be about business and about empire-building, which are inherently more interesting for a mainstream audience than left foot braking or wet weather driving ability or setups or cornering lines.

Take Martin Scorsese's Casino as a parallel. It is loosely based on the life and times of sports betting ace Frank Rosenthal and Mafia enforcer Anthony Spilotro. I'd never heard of either of them, and have no interest in the technicalities of sports betting or casino operation. But the movie isn't about that. It's about the universal appeal of wealth, crime, greed, power, betrayal, the rise and fall of ambitious but corrupt protagonists. Toss in the sex appeal of Sharon Stone's Ginger character and you have a hit formula.

A movie about Bernie or Max (or both) could have mainstream success because they are both moguls in their own way. Of course, even with Max's News of the World case, their lives aren't as action-packed as Rosenthal's or Spilotro's were. So the movie would have to be dramatised quite a bit and events added/fabricated/exaggerated to spice up the conflict and make them larger than life characters.

It would be a movie about business and empire-building, the racing would just be a backdrop. But it definitely has a lot more mainstream potential than a movie about Senna or any other driver.

Joe Pesci to play Bernie and Mel Gibson to play Max in 'Weekend at Spanky's'.




Cannes film festival is couple weeks before, perfect place for premiere as it's the same weekend (or within 1 week) of Monaco GP. What better time and place to launch?

there is also truth in 24 that is a fantastic documentary/film about the 2008 audi season...amazing..no words for this film
I'm happy to know that there is a film /documenatary on senna's life...i HOPE TO SEE IT IN ITALY

James Hunt the movie. Now that I would pay to watch.

Exactly

What a wonderful photo and awesome experience for you and your brother.

absolutely

Thanks! It was truly an amazing experience. The photo was taken by my dad. Ayrton was talking to Peter War of Lotus when we spotted him behind the Toleman garage.

So you had the inside info on his imminent move to the JPS.

You are absolutely right. As a 13 year old I wasn't thinking about it but later on I realized that I had witnessed just that :-)

Couldn't take my kids to that one. wify said no X rated material

Congrats on this photograph, indeed priceless!

What a wonderful photograph. How young Ayrton looks there!

Senna´s life, from the human being side of the story, is much more appealing than a business movie about F1.

What would u say after a Senna´s life movie? what would u say after a Bernie/Max movie?

That´s what i mean.

F1, and motorsports, neved had a proper mainstream movie, i couldn´t think about a better story than Senna´s.

In some other words, look what "Rocky" achieved, and we are not talking about drama in there, do u think a movie about Don King would attract more public?

Epic.

Credit where credit is due, I think a film about Bernie has the potential to be a movie that is actually good. Have you watched "There Will Be Blood" with Daniel Day Lewis? That film is about ruthless empire building and the characters behind it, and it is one of the best I have ever seen.

How quickly I had to correct myself:

http://www.jochen-rindt.at/Main/Rindt_Doku..._cinecraft.html

This is the feature length movie on Jochen Rindt - fittingly released in Vienna on his 40th death anniversary.
It will be available as DVD as well, and is being played in Vienna in the Metrokino from end of September 2010 onwards.

It contains original never before shown materials and also several nice passages with Jackie Stewart speaking on Jochen. Contrary to the Senna movie it is more in the style of a traditional documentary.

Incidentally, Jochen was my first real F1 hero, before Lauda, Pironi, Villeneuve and Senna. You can imagine that, having had to deal with Jochen´s, Villeneuve´s and Senna´s death as well as the accidents of Lauda and Pironi (and later the death of Pironi in the Speedboat) I nearly dropped all my interest in following the sport in 1994.

With Jacques Villeneuve I started to regain some enthusiasm for F1.

So coincidentally, like a movie on Senna, Rindt is an ideal driver to have a movie about, and I am looking forward to see the Rindt movie as well as the Senna movie.
Let us hope that indeed these two movies are at the forefront of a number of F1 driver movies, so it will be great to have a James Hunt, a Gilles Villeneuve and a Didier Pironi (whose fates are intertwined anyway) movie as well.

At least about Gilles there could be some realistic hopes after Ayrton and Jochen.

RIP Jochen 40 years ago

I watched the full length (1h24min.) documentory of Jo Siffert's life recently, it's called 'Live Fast, Die Young', the language was mostly German, it features mainly interviews with people who were close to him and with his wife. I was a bit dissapointed with the amount of race footage but it's certainly worth watching.
http://www.josiffert-film.ch/

So there are more full length driver movies, excellent - thank you so much for the link. Hopefully the Hunt movie, the Villeneuve movie and the Pironi movie will follow suit - sad to say it is always the heros who have died that are candidates for a movie. Well, the Muhammad Ali movie came in his lifetime.

Thanks, William, for the link

What people with only a passing to a moderate interest (or those who are guided by the mainstream British journalistic view of Senna immediately before his death, in i.e. challenging the great British champion Nigel Mansell) miss is that Senna was one of those few people in life who lived by certain principles and congruety.

He knew that to succeed on the track he would have to be the hardest around. Yet he never drove into opponents on purpose (a la Schumacher). When it happened it was always in revenge or in a racing accident. This is the key difference, it was a line that Senna never crossed in his will to win.

Yet in this full life dedication to winning he maintained a level of personal humility. You could hear it in the way he spoke, completely devoid of ego. No one jumps out of a car and runs across the track to help an injured driver with cars racing by. No one physically and publically sheds tears, cries in the pitlane after the death of a novice driver. No one secretly donates millions to childrens charities without wanting anyone to know.

Such a contrast to drivers today saying yeah baby it feels so good on the radio after a win. In my mind the onboard footage of Senna just having won the 1991 Brazilian GP still plays. Screaming unintelligibly at the top of his lungs for a full 3 minutes.

To me the man Ayrton Senna was like no other. and of all men, racing drivers, for this life to be taken in the way that it did some still struggle to understand.

It was like on that day the universe split into a parallel tangential dimension, taking the rest of us with it. And we are still in this parallel world to this day.

The problem with doing a movie on Bernie is you'd never be able to tell the truth, he'd have lawyers on your back pretty sharpish if you went anywhere near the slightly more dubious times and things he's done..

Maybe this Senna movie will use bits and pieces we've all seen before, but it will be worth watching to find out.

So he never drove into people on purpose except when he did it on purpose......

Regards Mike

Exactly, Senna was just as ruthless as Schumacher, and vice versa, now that Senna is gone tho, people dont like to see that

Pfft, I always wondered why the great MS can't even be a bad ass on his own account, always Senna has to be brought in to justify him.

I'm really looking forward to this Senna documentary. And I'd love a movie based on the story of The Piranha Club, too.

I think ruthlessness is part of his appeal, I feel many would agree with me. Suzuka has all the romanticism and drama of teammate rivalry and revenge. While every time Schumacher crashed into someone, he did it out of desperation, he had a panic attack of the fear of losing. It's just more mundane.

Documentary is probably the safer approach, but I'd want to have a feature film too. If done right, it would be greater than a well-researched documentary.

Hey listen, im not knocking Senna, i just dont know why people cant appreciate him and the like of being the best of the best

Especially to the underlined. It's bad, it's wrong, it's archaic, it's dangerous, it's uncivilized... yet still it has all the appeal of a blockbuster ending when the hero finally get's even with the bad guy. Only problem in this case that people can't agree who between Prost and Senna was the good and the bad guy.

The fact that people would argue about it would make it a even more compelling story. It's generally true of everything about Senna, he's controversial, contradictory, people have opposing views about him. Perfect material for a biopic.

Here's my cheesy Hollywood version of an Ayrton Senna movie based on Suzuka 88 to Suzuka 90. Of course, the hero driver is now American and the ending is different to reality, but I think that'd be more to Hollywood's tastes ...

Suzuka 89 and our hero is in the hunt for the title but running behind his evil rival at a circuit that's incredibly difficult to pass on. He manages to pull a passing move but is deliberately taken out by the evil rival. Fortunately, he manages to keep going, and triumphantly makes his way back to win the race. Only to discover that the corrupt racing authority unfairly DQ's him.

Fast forward one year and the two rivals are at it again. Our hero superbly qualifies on pole, only for the corrupt racing authority to renage on a pre-race agreement and keep pole on the dirty side making it a disadvantage. On top of that, at the driver briefing our hero is effectively told by the corrupt racing authorities that his DQ the previous year was unfair.

The night before the race, our hero imagines the start, losing the lead but lowering himself to his rival's level from the previous year and deliberately taking him out to secure himself the title. Some event happens where he decides against this (we're talking a Dodgeball, Lance Armstrong scene here, but obviously more subtle as this is a serious movie).

The next day, the race starts just as in our hero's imagined scene the night before. Only, rather than take out his rival at T1, he slots in behind him. They race line astern until the last lap where our hero puts a move on his rival at the final chicane. Just like the previous year, the evil rival tries to take our hero out only this time he doesn't suceed and our hero goes on to take the championship.

Believe it or not, my immediate reaction at the time was anger and disappointment, to no small amount directed at Senna - because he had screwed that perfect ending you just described. Oh well, I was younger and probably still believed movie endings are somehow related to real life...

I was younger and so I believed ... there was a gap!

Well, initially Senna managed to convince many people of that, as only he could. Just imagine how different the discussions since, had he not told everyone what really happened a year later

(I mean, there really WAS a gap as Prost took the racing line - just that Senna would never have reached it had he braked to actually make the corner)

Talladega Nights? You mean, Talladega Nights, right? What is this "Driven" you speak of? Does that have something to do with cars? Talladega Nights is a movie, but what is this "Driven" thing? Talladega Nights is a documentary about WDC Jean Girard and his partner, what is Driven about? Is it a book? Driven, driven what?

/ dain bramage from exposure to said "movie"

Really? I've taken his speaking style as didactic. He is there to teach a lesson and command attention. I think he thought very highly of himself and didn't care if he had to get people killed to win. This doesn't make him less of a person. But I certainly don't think he was humble. Maybe in outward appearance, yes. He was a certainly a character, but not a caricature. I don't think he was as simple as that.

In 89 ? Maybe there wasn't a big gap, but Prost never took the line. He simply closed that little gap what he opened then blamed Senna for being a racer.

Perhaps Senna just did it the "Latin" way, i.e. building a romantic struggle that required personal sacrifice to succeed.

Whereas Schumacher just went about it the no-nonsense German way, i.e. 'ok, he must not finish so i can win. done.'

Senna was a master off track.

I think the Germans would disagree that's particularly German. It's just the Schumacher way. If he came out and said "Yes, I did it. I had to, I could not lose." ok then it's straight forward, and no-nonsense, but he denied it. He cheated then he lied, that's full of nonsense.

We were talking about 1990!

aditya-now, William Hunt; - two great movies, oft forgotten...