Grand Prix

Total fucking car porn. This movie is amazing. Rent it. Buy it. See it. Car porn, design porn, style porn, it's just all round x-rated.

I started watching this and I was hooked from the opening shot. I knew something good was in store. I just didn't realize HOW good it was gonna be. So, the credits start rolling and it looks slick as hell. The editing is just pure class. It's innovative, it's intimate, it's just so well balanced and juxtaposed. Then I see Saul Bass is the man behind it all. Of course. It's only a shame he didn't design an awesome movie poster, too. The one they use is kinda lame. If Bass had done it I might have gotten a freakin back-piece tattooed of it!

Anyway, the movie starts and it's pretty much 20 solid minutes of the 1966 Monaco GP in glorious car porn fashion. Amazing onboard POV shots. Helicopter tracking shots. Heel-toe shifting spliced with two other simultaneous shots for a triptych split screen. Glorious 60's FI cars racing through the Monaco streets. It's just awesome.

The film is 3 hours long. It's about the 1966 F1 season. The attention to detail is second-to-none. Frankenheimer made a car film for car nerds. He was also responsible for the other car  film I watched recently; Ronin. He's a serious car nerd and he really poured his heart and soul into Grand Prix.

You've got a big-name cast including Toshiro Mifune and Eva Marie Saint. It's an international cast that hops from circuit to circuit around Europe. From Monaco to Belgium to Monza to Brands Hatch to wherever. They filmed during the actual racing events. It's all real shit. So, there IS a story, too. It's about racing, love (of course), mortality, fidelity, perseverance, the human spirit, and crap like that. They wrestle with existentialist issues. They get drunk. They race. Some crash. Some die. Some live. And one even breaks up with Francoise Hardy...idiot! 

Before the sponsors, before the money and before the safety there were just bad ass dudes like Phil Hill and Jackie Stewart racing balls-out cuz that's how they fucking rolled. If you call yourself a gear-head, a petrol-head, a car-guy, or even just a fucking Man; you must see this film in all its 60's racing glory.