We all knew it would be impossible to make a TV series about Ayrton Senna. And our fears turned out to be well-founded... (Pierluigi Mancini)
Published: 01 December 2024
Columns: Opinion
Edgar Allan Poe, one of the most brilliant minds of the 19th century, wrote something that ended up becoming my mantra: believe half of what you see and nothing of what you hear. A sad and disillusioning view of life, but one that protects against lies and mystification to lead to the search for truth, which should ultimately be that illuminating beacon to pursue throughout our existence.
Today there are two truths: the one we should all pursue and the one in television series. We fans were anxiously awaiting the Netflix series on Senna, but I already knew it would be a disappointment for me, like 99 percent of racing-related film productions. I started racing karts when Da Silva was a legend, he was the Martian visiting earth and everything about him had that mystique that only someone like him could instill. Let's say that the director, the production and the lead actor did not capture the essence of Ayrton: his obsession with winning. Obsession, in everything, leads to ruin, and so it did for him.
To criticize the lead actor for not learning from Christian Bale, who, for “The Sleepless Man,” lost 15 kg to play an insane role, would be unfair: not everyone is born to be an actor.
To criticize the production for investing more in the soundtrack than in moving the crew to some more believable track than the one used for all the Formula Ford and Formula 3 filming, clearly South American and not English, would be like shooting on the red cross.
Criticizing the race commentators, in full “Rush” style, would be all too easy as shooting off the karting footage, the thing that was about to make me turn off the TV--with a 15 kg overweight Senna and the wrong DAP.
Unacceptable, however, was to see Senna and Fullerton friends (back in the day they hated each other): there was respect between the two, but friendship never, as unacceptable was to see the Pedrazzani brothers of Novamotor reduced to a country mechanic, complete with a workshop populated with chickens, a Sicilian accent and a mandolin surely hanging somewhere on the wall even if you couldn't see it. Enough! No more of these cheap stereotypes!
Being more introspective was what this production lacked. Analyzing a sometimes complex and sometimes contradictory personality like Ayrton's was a very difficult peak to climb, but one that could not be left undone.
Missed in all of this was the obsession, the self-centeredness, the virtues and flaws of a man who would have deserved to be told with more weight, perhaps by questioning those who really knew him (Achille Parilla?) for who he was. Also his strange relationship with God, whom he often named as his inspiration for a fast lap and then confessed to a friend “...that I could tell reporters, that I took off a wing grade and lowered 3 tenths? No ... I say I saw God's light, it makes more of a scene and they are all contnti.” This, with all its merits and flaws, was the Ayrton man and driver, plagued by the obsession with victory that made him demand, beyond all reason, to drive the car that would kill him.
The thing that makes me sickest is that Netflix's Truth will become the Senna we will feed to posterity, those who did not know him as he really was, with the performance of an actor decidedly not up to the task.
On a personal note, but not too much either: Ayrton's greatest victory was Donington 1993, which the series did not mention. A race in the rain, with a car inferior to the competition ... running a first lap that has in fact entered racing legend. Real racing.
Today there are two truths: the one we should all pursue and the one in television series. We fans were anxiously awaiting the Netflix series on Senna, but I already knew it would be a disappointment for me, like 99 percent of racing-related film productions. I started racing karts when Da Silva was a legend, he was the Martian visiting earth and everything about him had that mystique that only someone like him could instill. Let's say that the director, the production and the lead actor did not capture the essence of Ayrton: his obsession with winning. Obsession, in everything, leads to ruin, and so it did for him.
To criticize the lead actor for not learning from Christian Bale, who, for “The Sleepless Man,” lost 15 kg to play an insane role, would be unfair: not everyone is born to be an actor.
To criticize the production for investing more in the soundtrack than in moving the crew to some more believable track than the one used for all the Formula Ford and Formula 3 filming, clearly South American and not English, would be like shooting on the red cross.
Criticizing the race commentators, in full “Rush” style, would be all too easy as shooting off the karting footage, the thing that was about to make me turn off the TV--with a 15 kg overweight Senna and the wrong DAP.
Unacceptable, however, was to see Senna and Fullerton friends (back in the day they hated each other): there was respect between the two, but friendship never, as unacceptable was to see the Pedrazzani brothers of Novamotor reduced to a country mechanic, complete with a workshop populated with chickens, a Sicilian accent and a mandolin surely hanging somewhere on the wall even if you couldn't see it. Enough! No more of these cheap stereotypes!
Being more introspective was what this production lacked. Analyzing a sometimes complex and sometimes contradictory personality like Ayrton's was a very difficult peak to climb, but one that could not be left undone.
Missed in all of this was the obsession, the self-centeredness, the virtues and flaws of a man who would have deserved to be told with more weight, perhaps by questioning those who really knew him (Achille Parilla?) for who he was. Also his strange relationship with God, whom he often named as his inspiration for a fast lap and then confessed to a friend “...that I could tell reporters, that I took off a wing grade and lowered 3 tenths? No ... I say I saw God's light, it makes more of a scene and they are all contnti.” This, with all its merits and flaws, was the Ayrton man and driver, plagued by the obsession with victory that made him demand, beyond all reason, to drive the car that would kill him.
The thing that makes me sickest is that Netflix's Truth will become the Senna we will feed to posterity, those who did not know him as he really was, with the performance of an actor decidedly not up to the task.
On a personal note, but not too much either: Ayrton's greatest victory was Donington 1993, which the series did not mention. A race in the rain, with a car inferior to the competition ... running a first lap that has in fact entered racing legend. Real racing.
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