In the summer of 1957, Enzo Ferrari’s world is not of wealth. The former driver is in a battle far greater and far longer than those of any race he’s won before. Ferrari is on the verge of going out of business, his marriage is in flux and the competition has never been fiercer. From his Italian hometown of Modena, he must build a team that will take Ferrari across 1,000 miles of brutal, treacherous open-road racing to the top of the podium at the 1957 Mille Miglia. Pushing his drivers, his relationships and himself to the limit, only this win can save Ferrari.
The movie is shot almost entirely in Modena, Brescia, Maranello and Reggio Emilia, Enzo and Ferrari’s home turf, using sweeping roads that curl around the mountains of the Gran Sasso d'Italia mountain range nearby. The common thread throughout is one of authenticity – to show the real Ferrari, and the real Enzo, in 1957.
As such, Janice Polley, Ferrari’s supervising location manager, worked with director Michael Mann to make the movie’s locations as real as it gets. Having worked on the likes of Heat, Man on Fire, Collateral, Tenet and Pirates of the Caribbean, Polley is highly regarded as one of the industry’s best. Here, she tells us how she recreated Italy’s infamous Mille Miglia on the region’s most incredible roads, used the real locations habitually visited by Enzo Ferrari and how Modena’s community still worship the man himself.
How authentic are the locations in the movie? We’ve heard it was entirely shot in Modena and Brescia…
Polley: "They were very authentic, yes. I wanted everything to be as real as it was in 1957 including, luckily, some of the locations that are still there today. The barbershop is still there, the cemetery and its mausoleum are still there – we were very honoured to be able to use that – Enzo’s house in Modena is still there (we could only shoot the outside of that one), and the opera house is also still there. Enzo was very habitual, he would eat at the same place, go to the same barbershop, get in his car and just drive to the factory. Michael [Mann] wanted those. What was more difficult was the farmhouse, because that was a very specific request from Michael. He wanted the driveway to go downhill, to have Cypress Trees and the geography of the house to work for when young Piero looks out the window. It was a long search to find that, and very old fashioned; knocking on doors or leaving letters, and hoping that they would call back. But we found it, and Michael instantly loved it. He was barely there for 10 seconds and said, ‘this is perfect.’"
How did the authenticity of the locations translate into Ferrari?
“I think they translated into the film quite beautifully. It all gives a sense of what and who Ferrari was, what it was like and what his environment was like. And the one thing that Michael was very insistent about was he didn't want to show wealth, because Ferrari didn't have wealth at that time. Michael constantly told us it [Enzo’s home] had to be small. There are a lot of buildings in Modena that are very grand, with very high ceilings and high windows. It was difficult to find something small. So, we didn't shoot the apartment in Modena, we went to Reggio Emilia. He wanted to show a couple of locations that were grand, however, for the Mille Miglia; like the hotel, because that's what it was like. But Enzo’s world wasn't a wealthy world. One of the first things that Michael said to us was that he didn’t want things to represent money.”
Can you actually stay in the hotel you used for the Mille Miglia scenes?
“No, that was a person’s home that we made into a hotel. However, there were three or four different things that we pieced together. There is a hotel we use – the Phi Hotel Canalgrande – where we used the lobby to shoot the scene where you see Ferrari get a key from Massimo Bottura. That particular lobby is a hotel in Modena, so you can stay there.”
And the original barbershop still exists – you used it in the movie.
“Oh yeah. The barber there is the son and it’s called Da Antonio Modena. He was the actual barber in the movie, Michael hired him, and his father was Enzo’s barber. It is absolutely a proper family business, and it's still there. It was very sweet that the son was there, and in the movie. You can find it at Corso Canalgrande, Modena.”
Were there any other locations in Ferrari that were challenging to find?
“The other one that was very difficult to find was the road where De Portago ends up having the accident. That was a very specific road, it's still there. There’s a memorial where it happened, but that road is very busy and a two-lane highway now. And Michael wanted, again, trees – so that he could get the light to go through the trees, streaming past these cars. He also wanted it poker straight. And the farmhouse had to be exactly where it was in relation to the original route. I actually went to the original memorial, and knocked on the door of the farmhouse; the owner of that home, sadly, his brother was one of the children that was killed. Michael really wanted to show the atmosphere of being in that house and hearing the noise. Because the older gentleman, who watched his brother, said that the town could hear the roar probably 30-40 minutes before, and they all ran out to hear these cars and watch.”
[Spoiler] The scene in which Ferrari driver De Portago crashes (which is true to real-life events) is incredibly sad – but it’s also visceral. You really get a sense for the speed the drivers raced at. How was that to watch on set?
“Well, the road had some bumps in it, so we had to pave it because they [the drivers] were going at such a high speed. But that’s an incredible scene. The way Michael filmed it was most important, of course, but I think the geography and the length of that road really led to the drama in that scene. People will probably think it was just a road, but it was a specific road with 3km, a farmhouse and lined with trees. Not quite as simple as you’d think it is. It was incredible the way that Michael cut it, with the speed and the angles – and, even though I knew what was going to happen, my heart was racing. When I watched it at the premiere, I was gripping the seat because I thought, ‘this is unbelievable.’ The race car scenes for me were the most fascinating, with the sound and how Michael had cut it, it really transported me.”
The Mille Miglia race paves the way for some of the movie’s most beautiful and exhilarating scenes – did you retrace the original route to find the right moments?
“We couldn't go to every location, of course, but I found an original 1957 map from Italy, I still have it. It was hard to find the actual route but when we did, we traced it over a modern map and [with Michael] discussed which pieces we really wanted to show so that we ‘moved’ a few times. We scouted them from a helicopter, and ended up in the Gran Sasso d'Italia and Campo Imperatore mountain ranges for those exquisite scenes for when you see them coming down the mountain. There’s a scene where you see the cars along a stretch of water, which we did out of Ravenna, and then the town of Modena itself has some incredible squares – for example, we used Piazza Grande for Bologna. We picked three or four different looks to be able to represent 1000 miles of the Mille Miglia. When I first got to Italy, I was scouting one road and, all of a sudden, we could hear – well, they call it the ‘music’ – this car coming in. We found out that’s where they tested the Ferraris and I thought, 'wow, Ferrari is such a part of everybody's life.' But I think the shots at Gran Sasso d'Italia are stunning, my mouth dropped when I saw them.”
There’s a scene where Maserati and Ferrari have a fierce battle on a twisting mountain pass. Where can Italian road-trippers go to find it and others in the movie?
“There’s a lot of stunning scenery between Modena and Marinello, and also Reggio Emilia, which has many of the country roads we filmed on. It’s really beautiful. We used a lot of roads along the coast and lake at Ravenna, and of course in the Campo Imperatore mountain range – you could spend days there. Many of the roads we filmed on you can also drive on, for example, the scene with the road cut out of the white stone is filmed on Strada Statale (SS17bis) near the ruin of Chiesa di Sant'Egidio. In fact, if you take the turning up to the ruin and carry on past lake Laghetto Pietranzoni, you’ll reach the scene where the cars ride in convoy through the open, grassy plain among the mountain range. The battle between Ferrari and Maserati takes place on the serpentine zig-zags back on the Strada Statale, just before the turning to Tempietto di Sant'Eusanio.”
The sound – sorry, ‘music’ – must have been something else…
“It was immense. As I had mentioned earlier, the locals actually consider the sound of the cars to be music. They call it ‘music’. I remember, I was scouting a restaurant near the Ferrari factory in Maranello and it was obviously near the test track, and you can hear the noise. I said that I didn’t think we could film here because of the noise. And I was told: “No, no, it’s music, it's music.” I was put in my place immediately – how dare I call this noise?”
It feels as though you were creating a real community atmosphere with the locations in the movie – does Ferrari still feel a part of Modena?
“It felt immense. He's [Enzo] a father to everyone, he really is. Every time I would knock on a door and try to find an apartment (because we couldn’t use Enzo’s apartment in Modena), everyone would invite me in, to sit down for a chat. And then they would ask to show you something, and just unlock this garage containing unbelievable car collections. Ferraris, Maseratis – and it was just locked with one lock, like putting a little lock on a filing cabinet. Enzo is an icon, a father and really protected. I can imagine if there was even one bad comment about Enzo, they would all rally up to protect him. He's revered. He still talked about and people are very proud; they would show me photos of their father or their grandfather with Enzo. There wasn’t one person that didn't want to be a part of this project. Everyone has a connection to Ferrari, everyone.”
And do you think travellers can still feel that community in Modena now too?
“You would absolutely still feel that. Brescia and Bologna or Rome are much bigger cities, but Modena is small enough that you just feel everyone is together. They’re charming and they want to welcome you, and Ferrari will always come up. There's just a beauty about that town, with the community and friendliness that you have in Modena and you could stay there for two or three days on a trip. It’s also incredible for road biking for cars and all sorts of foodies.”
Last one, go on, tell us about the pasta.
"I ate so much tortellini. That's what I love about Italy, it's so regional. After about two months, I asked if it was possible just to get some pasta and with some sauce – the answer was no, tortellini! Everybody wants to go to Osteria Francescana, the [formerly] number one restaurant in the world, but you can't even get into it. But they have a sister restaurant called Franceschetta58, which was near my apartment. I went there every Saturday. Look out for Zelmira too, which was a crew favourite. We’d go for lunch there instead of the on-set caterer, and the crew would have to eat really fast. All of a sudden, we’d hear, “okay, we're back,” on the walkies, and the crew would be eating their last little bit of pasta before running back to set. I would also recommend Mercato Storico Albinelli for the market and the restaurant inside, the tortellini from there is delicious.
It really was a magical movie. I've been very lucky to travel around the world to lots of locations for movies in my life. But it was really magical in Modena, working on Ferrari."
‘Ferrari’ comes roaring into cinemas on 25 December 2023