Ford vs Ferrari (dir. James Mangold) tells the story of the epic battle between Ford and Ferrari for victory in the gruelling 24 hours Le Mans race in 1966. Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) is a genius designer and is tasked with the turning Ford, who is known for mass-producing boring cars, into an organisation that can compete in the glamours world of race cars. To help him in this Sisyphean task Shelby enlists Ken Miles (Christian Bale) who is a mercurial race car driver and engineer but has a cantankerous personality.
Even though the film is called Ford vs Ferrari it could be described as any number of This vs That. The premise of the film is that the supposed external conflict is between these two carmakers, but, like most films the real conflict is internal.
The film constantly sets up opposing themes and could have been called USA vs Italy as the whole drama starts out because Ford wanted to buy Ferrari but the crafty Italians used that knowledge to leverage a better deal with FIAT. This caused a fit of rage in the bullish and brash American, Henry Ford II, and he wanted to use his vast resources to show up and destroy the Great Old Man Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone).
The film could very well have been called Insiders vs Outsiders. Ford was an outsider in the global racing scene despite its gigantic size and scale. Shelby was an outsider in the car business despite the quality of the cars he made. Miles struggled to get driving opportunities despite the skill he had behind the wheel.
What this film is really about is Passion vs Ego. Shelby and Miles took the task because above everything they wanted to compete, they wanted to win. Members of Ford wanted to get a promotion and constantly were sacrificing the success of the programme for their own personal gain.
As someone that has never really fitted in in New Zealand, both in stature and philosophically, I really got hooked by Shelby and Miles’ drive and passion opposing the forces that were trying to undermine them or sometimes straight sabotage them. They were doing what was right for the programme and the team. They knew if they did the work the reward would come in the end. Most of all they didn’t let fear guide them.
I think this film would be great to take kids to as a teaching tool of what it means to be true to your ideals, to act with integrity, to speak truth to power, to push back when you know what is happening is wrong. All of these things take courage and although this film is meant to be a big racing car extravaganza the most meaningful moments are in the quiet moment between the racing.
At one point when chaos was happening all around Miles, he looked up and saw Enzo Ferrari who looked down and simply nodded at Miles, Miles nodded back. As we say in basketball circles, game respects game. These men respected each other for doing the right things for the right reasons regardless of the outcome, they didn’t debase themselves for a chance at a hollow victory.
By Luke McMeeken-Ruscoe
10 November 2019