This week we will focus on the movie Rush, the recent release that based on the rivalry between Formula 1 drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda back in the Seventies. More than that, though, we're going to look at the genre of auto racing movies in general and where Rush might rank in the grand scheme of things.
I saw Rush in the UltraAVX format and if you plan to go, that's exactly the format you'll want to see it. There's a lot of racing action and that crash-and-burn scene in which Lauda's car was wrecked, so the best way to experience that thrilling action is to see it in the biggest-screen format possible.
Auto racing movies are certainly a memorable genre in movie history, but few from the genre stand out as true classics. There are really two that are considered at that level. One is Grand Prix, directed by John Frankenheimer and starring James Garner and Yves Montand as competing Formula 1 race-car drivers in a fictionalized depiction of the sport.
Grand Prix, which was one of the top grossing movies of 1966, really does capture the look and feel of mid-Sixties Formula 1 racing, with lots of race sequences and great cinematography. Many of the racing sequences came from actual Formula 1 race footage from tracks such as Monaco, Monza, Brands Hatch and elsewhere, giving the movie an authentic look and feel to it. Also notable is that it was shot in Super Panavision 70 and shown in the Cinerama format that was popular at the time.
Another racing movie widely considered a classic is Le Mans, starring Steve McQueen. Like Grand Prix this movie again has an authentic look and feel to it due largely to footage shot at the Le Mans race track during their 24-hour race in 1970. The movie is less spectacular in its look and feel as Grand Prix is, but is particular strong when it doesn't get bogged down with a lot of talking or storylines. This movie lets the racing do the talking. That's the way a racing movie ought to be done.
When race fans point to auto racing movies and how they ought to be done, they inevitably point to these two as the standard. There are plenty of examples, however, of movies that are either run of the mill or a complete misfire.
To me, a big disappointment was Driven, produced by and starring Sylvester Stallone and featuring a cast that included Burt Reynolds, Gina Gershon and others.
This movie is notable because of its focus on the CART racing championship --- which, of course, is now defunct. It was shot at the height of the infamous CART-IRL split that was well on its way towards ruining the sport in North America.
Driven suffers by being associated with CART and its decidedly dull venues. They weren't depicting racing in Monaco, Monza or Le Mans, but in places like Chicago, Detroit and Toronto.
Part of the reason I wanted to see Driven was because they had shot some race sequences in Toronto, and I had actually seen some of the filming take place there live. In fact, the race scenes set in the streets of Chicago were actually filmed in Toronto. Unfortunately, when I saw the finished product several months later in 2001, it proved a letdown.
Certainly the filmmakers were aiming high with the crash sequences. The most memorable scene in the movie was the one in which Max Papis's car crashes and goes flying through the air. The crashes were entertaining, but unfortunately soap-opera-level writing dragged down the entire effort.
The NASCAR circuit has been depicted many times, on the other hand, with varying levels of success. In fact, way back in the Sixties they made a movie about stock-car racing called Speedway in which Elvis Presley portrayed a racing driver and was paired with Nancy Sinatra.
Other efforts over the years included Days of Thunder starring Tom Cruise, the Pixar animated Cars and Cars 2, and the hilarious Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby starring Will Ferrell.
No question about it, there have been plenty of NASCAR movies, but that series is still waiting for a director to come along that will put material on the screen that gives it the definitive, seminal, stand-alone treatment it deserves -- something on the level of what Grand Prix and Le Mans aspired to do. I truly believe the ultimate NASCAR movie has yet to be made.
Now a few thoughts on Rush and director Ron Howard. A lot of people are probably surprised that Howard would do a movie about auto racing, given his recent history (A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, Apollo 13, and so on). It seems so out of character. On closer reflection, though, it really isn't: back in his Happy Days days when Howard was just starting out as a movie director, his first low-budget efforts were automobile themed ones. He made Grand Theft Auto, and then later directed the more racing-themed Eat My Dust!
So with Rush, Ron Howard is really returning to familiar territory in a lot of ways -- except with a much bigger budget to work with, obviously.
The movie certainly aspires to a return to the more visual look and feel of the racing movies that we saw in the late Sixties and early Seventies. Grand Prix and Le Mans did not really focus heavily on plotlines or heavy conversations -- they focused on action and cinematography.
This is where Rush really delivers -- showing the sights and sounds on and off the track. Its main drawing card is its setting in the 1976 Formula 1 season. The look and feel of the season seems to be depicted to the last detail, right down to the cigarette ads.
Set in the disco decade, you have scenes depicting the racers living the high-life associated with that era. Because James Hunt (played by Chris Hemsworth) was such a notorious playboy-type who loved the ladies, there are quite a few sex scenes thrown in as well.
Director Howard doesn't sugarcoat the way things were; he didn't clean this depiction up for family audiences. Rush showed the sex scenes, and the gory on-track violence.
The Seventies were a time when Formula 1 was only beginning to get serious about the safety of its drivers. Jackie Stewart had just retired over safety concerns, and the sport was reeling in the wake of all the various on-track incidents that had gone on. But the old attitudes towards staring death in the face remained, and that growing tension is shown here.
The scenes in which Niki Lauda (played by Daniel Bruhl) expresses concerns about track safety -- as well as his own fiery car wreck and its aftermath with Lauda suffering in the hospital, watching Hunt win race after race on television -- are stark reminders that those "good old days" of Formula 1 really were not all that great at all.
These days, there is far less death in Formula 1 and elsewhere due to the focus on safety both in the design of the cars and the tracks themselves. Had race driver Dario Franchitti gotten in the same sort of car wreck in 1976 that he suffered in Houston just this month, he surely would have died. The sport has come a long way since those dangerous days.
The most obvious thing I take away from the movie was the memorable contrast between the hard-living, hard-partying Hunt, who lived every day as if it was his last, with the no-nonsense, down-to-business style of Lauda.
The contrast couldn't have been more stark between these two men. Director Howard hammered that home so completely that by the end of the movie I just wanted to say "Okay! These guys are totally different personalities! I get it, already!"
Somehow, though, it all works. At the end of the day Rush rises close to, if not to the level of Grand Prix and Le Mans.
Really, I think whether or not you will enjoy Rush at the cinemas really comes down to whether or not you like the excitement, sights and sounds of auto racing -- particularly Formula 1 racing. Fans of F1 surely won't want to miss it.
It's worthwhile nostalgia for those wishing to relive the excitement of the old days of Formula 1 auto racing -- and for that matter, the old days of auto racing movies. But it is a good history lesson, too, on why those "glory days" deserve to remain right there in the past.
