"Lamborghini: The Man of Legend"
Robert Moresco's drama "Lamborghini: The Man of Legend" is a biopic about the life of the Italian industrialist who created the world-famous brand of sports cars. The role of Ferruccio Lamborghini, a dreamer and the standard of self-made philosophy, was played by American actor Frank Grillo. The biography of the great Italian is inseparable from the company that bears his name, and this connection, coupled with production hell, plays a cruel joke on Lamborghini, turning a drama about loneliness into a corporate film for showing to automobile enthusiasts.
“Lamborghini: The Man of Legend”: Don’t shy away from a tractor if you buy a sports car
photo: "Lamborghini: The Man of Legend"
Italy, mid-forties. The Second World War has just ended and the country is in ruins. The young son of a farmer, Ferruccio (Romano Reggiani), returns home, charged with thoughts of a new life and imminent success. A crisis is a time of opportunity, and the guy doesn’t want to dig into the ground like his ancestors did. Ferruccio Lamborghini has been interested in all sorts of hardware since childhood, repairing rustic equipment and seeing this as his destiny. He also loves racing cars with passion, and studies with interest the experience of Enzo Ferrari, another great Italian, who immediately after the war began producing his own sports cars. In the future, the idol will become Ferruccio’s main opponent, and here and now the hardware enthusiast is engaged in dismantling military equipment abandoned on the battlefields - there are a lot of units in tanks that are excellent for repairing a tractor. The story of Lamborghini, who put all his family’s savings on the line, but still won worldwide fame, will begin with agricultural machines.
Watch online Robert Moresco's film "Lamborghini: The Man of Legend"
Years later, tractors turn Lamborghini into a big industrialist. The young Italian Reggiani is replaced by the American Frank Grillo - now he will play Ferruccio as the Italian version of Don Draper from Mad Men. It turns out a little cynical, because the businessman’s past contains tragedy. The first woman he loved, the beautiful Clelia Monti (Hannah van der Westhuizen), died in childbirth, and this loss erased the last romantic thoughts from him. He spends almost no time with his son, married for the second time to Annita Borgatti (Mira Sorvino - known to Russian viewers from the TV series “Leningrad”), but this marriage does not bring joy either. Ferruccio has everything in abundance, but there is no order in his soul. He complains that his beloved Ferrari has a simply disgusting clutch - an offensive detail that kills all the pleasure of owning a premium sports car. The industrialist voices his claim to Enzo Ferrari (Gabriel Byrne) himself and receives a humiliating answer: let the uneducated tractor driver not teach the great inventor how to make a car. Italian blood boils, and an enraged Ferruccio throws all his resources into creating the best car of all time. Not for the sake of money, fame or even his eternal love for technology, but in order to rub the nose of an automotive icon. It is only in the second act that the biopic Lamborghini: The Legend finally finds some meaningful direction - and this is the theme of the Carnegian breakthrough, the triumph of ressentiment.
“Lamborghini: The Man of Legend”: Don’t shy away from a tractor if you buy a sports car
photo: "Lamborghini: The Man of Legend"
A strange idea for a film about a legend of the automotive world - to show him as an angry bull, immediately throwing everything away because of the red rag he saw. But this is the path of screenwriter and director Robert Moresco, who remained to finish “Lamborghini: The Man of Legend” after the global downgrade of the film. Several years ago, the biography of the Italian engineer and businessman was seen as a very promising project. It was to be directed by Michael Radford (“Without a Flaw”). Antonio Banderas (Lamborghini) and Alec Baldwin (Ferrari) were invited to play the main roles. Years later, little remained of the original idea - not only the first-rate actors, but also entire pieces of the script disappeared in an unknown direction, leaving behind resentment for missed opportunities. Lamborghini really had a chance to talk not just about beautiful cars, but about an entire era. The end of the forties is the time of revival of the automobile industry. Europe, drained of blood by war, exists in a world clearly captured by Italian neorealism. And suddenly dreamers appear on this scorched field. Ferrari, who launched the production of his cars in an era when the inhabitants of Rome could somehow afford a bicycle. Or Pascal Gallo, who raised the Alfa Romeo plant destroyed by bombing from the ashes. Ferruccio Lamborghini is also on this list, he is from the next generation of those same automotive heroes who managed to create something beautiful in the workshops of a tractor factory. But the film will not go into detail or outline this wildly interesting world. He doesn’t even have enough time to describe one character in detail, let alone talk about what’s happening around him.
The main problem with Lamborghini is its very strange understanding of the biography film genre. No, somewhat Moresque
He is very meticulous, as if from a textbook, he gives a description of important milestones in the formation of a big business, promptly inserts explanatory captions and explains all the advantages of the new engine. But behind these details there is less and less space for the image of the man who gave Lamborghini its name. Inconvenient moments are completely excluded from Ferruccio’s biography (Lamborghini fought in the army of fascist Italy, spent a whole year in British captivity), and the young Italian himself, unexpectedly for the viewer, in the middle of the film turns from a simple-minded guy into an American swindler Grillo - not at all similar to a real historical figure, even if you look from afar. Associated with this transformation is a comical feeling, which reveals the discrepancy between two actors playing the same role. Having matured, Lamborghini seemed to have acquired the features of a stereotypical Italian, as he is seen from across the ocean: gesturing wildly in arguments with his wife, always smoking, unfaithful and flaunting his vices. He visualizes his competence not through actions, but through popular sayings from the collections of business coaches. Lamborghini's talents as a manager are also called into question by the plot itself. If you believe Moresco's script, Ferruccio's only truly indisputable advantage is luck - Fortune brings in the right people who are ready to implement the craziest ideas. All that remains is to give out abstract commands: for example, to want a car that will look like Sophia Loren. And then get a wonderful sports car, which, of course, will immortalize his name forever.
“Lamborghini: The Man of Legend”: Don’t shy away from a tractor if you buy a sports car
photo: "Lamborghini: The Man of Legend"
This is not a screenwriter's fault. Moresco deliberately made his Lamborghini so noisy, short-sighted, and ungrateful. His opposition must end with enlightenment and awareness of the simplest fact: you will not achieve anything alone. To make a dream come true, every hero needs other people who will support the plan and take on a heavy burden. Only Ferruccio, inspired by success, will notice this too late, having lost the last people close to him on the way to greatness. Without support, his life's work will turn to dust, and the industrialist himself will be locked in a luxurious mansion alone with toy cars: a blue Lamborghini and a red Ferrari, as if inviting him to dream about the brightest race of his life. This mental confrontation runs like a thread through the entire film, saving it from final collapse. By the end, “Lamborghini: The Man of Legend” suddenly gives birth to a beautiful (but too bold) rhyme, putting its hero on a par with Charles Foster Kane, played in 1941 by Orson Welles. The poster for the film "Quarto potere" (as "Citizen Kane" is called in Italy) appears at the very beginning of the film, when Ferruccio Lamborghini first tries to become famous in racing. It turns out that at this very moment he chose his path as a loner, unable to truly appreciate people?
Is one solid metaphor enough to forgive other sins: scenario instability, clichés, aphorisms from personal growth training? “Lamborghini: The Man of Legend” seems to be taking on James Mangold’s “Ford v Ferrari,” but just before the start it puts the car into reverse, abandoning the race according to the established rules. This is a movie of a different scale, and it is better to admit it late than not to admit it at all. Not a blockbuster about cars, but a rather expensive and ambitious (in comparison with others) example of the so-called “corporate cinema”, the synergy of a film and a colorful advertising booklet. Schoolboy perseverance in discussions about suspensions and engines will attract the attention of petrolheads to him. The personality of Frank Grillo - fans of his colorful roles as fighters and scoundrels. Well, the world-famous brand, the golden premium calf, will also find its audience. Still, the shiny chrome bumper of the Lamborghini 350 GT in the lens of cameraman Blasco Giurato really makes you cautiously dream about something beautiful.
