A racing movie must include a few elements: speed, passion, stakes, and, most importantly, risk. Michael Mann
expertly captures all of this in Ferrari and puts the audience in the driver’s seat, making the devastating ending
sequence depicting Alfonso de Portago’s (Gabriel Leone) collision in the 1957 Mille Miglia all the more frightening.
Mann takes some artistic liberties throughout the film, despite the fact that de Portago’s episode is a generally true
depiction of what happened at the time, including the most heinous consequences: the driver, his navigator, and
nine onlookers, five of whom were children, died. However, incidents like this are frequently the result of multiple
activities, and this tragic tragedy affected motorsport forever.
The 1950s were a paradoxical age for motorsport in general. Racing was romanticized back then (and still is today),
as daring drivers risked their lives in pursuit of eternal glory aboard metal machines that were barely stopped from
taking off. However, the mere risk of driving a race car with no security systems back then was enough to deter many
otherwise competent drivers from the sport.
This was the context in which Scuderia Ferrari rose to prominence and dominated the European racing scene. In
1956, Ferrari had previously won the Mille Miglia, with young rising star Eugenio Castellotti (Marino Franchitti)
taking all four top points. In Ferrari, Castellotti is a skilled but insufficient driver for Enzo Ferrari’s (Adam Driver)
renowned ambitions, failing to break Maserati’s record at the Autodromo di Modena. He was, in reality, one of the
Scuderia’s best drivers and Enzo’s most trusted pilot. His death in March 1957 occurred less than a year after his
victory in the 1956 Mille Miglia, when his Ferrari lost one of its wheels during a test drive in Modena. Castellotti died
several weeks before
It wasn’t Ferrari’s fault, of course, but rather a lack of security procedures to keep drivers and fans safe. For example,
82 spectators were killed in 1955 when a Mercedes crashed during the 24 Hours of Le Mans event. The Mille Miglia
was already considered a perilous event. Six people died and 14 were injured in 1956, including drivers and
spectators. The fact that the race was staged on roughly 1000 miles of open roads in the Italian countryside enticed
people from nearby cities and villages to see the racing cars pass close by their homes, and teams like Ferrari were
Italy’s pride and joy, so who wouldn’t want to take the risk and see them?
