In the midst of a strike in Hollywood, American star Adam Driver offered himself a rare lap at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday, for Michael Mann’s Ferrari, while ensuring support for the social movement. Kylo Ren from Star Wars, who has seduced Ridley Scott, Jim Jarmusch and Leos Carax in recent years, is one of the few American stars to walk the red carpet this year.
This historic movement, which paralyzes the American film industry and is felt beyond, prohibits the promotion of films, except for exemption for certain independent productions, as is precisely the case for Ferrari. But no question for Michael Mann, 80, figure of American cinema (Heat, Collateral), nor for Adam Driver, to pass for strikebreakers.
“I am here in solidarity” with the screenwriters’ and actors’ unions, engaged in a fight to obtain better remuneration, particularly in relation to platforms, and to regulate the use of artificial intelligence, declared Adam Driver at a conference of press. He particularly attacked the position of Netflix and Amazon in the face of the social movement. “Individually and collectively, we are in complete solidarity,” continued Michael Mann. “Ferrari was able to happen because the people who worked on it gave up a significant portion of their salaries, as far as Adam and I are concerned (…) No major studio wrote us a check.”
So far, no dissonant voice has been raised in Venice, the first festival hit hard by the strike: the president of the jury, Damien Chazelle, showed up on the first day of the Festival with a T-Shirt of support for the movement and said he hoped “something good” could come out of it.
In addition to these positions, the race for the Golden Lion entered the heart of the matter on Thursday. Ferrari, officially presented today, is considered a serious candidate. Driver embodies Enzo Ferrari, the founder of the car brand of the same name, nicknamed “il Commendatore” (“the Commander”). Michael Mann, who had already co-produced Le Mans 66 on the famous car race, chose to return to a key year, 1957, in the tormented life of the couple formed by Enzo Ferrari and his wife Laura, played by Penelope Cruz.
“His story is deeply human” and has a “universal” dimension, said Adam Driver on the Lido. “So many things are opposed in him, his life has resonated with me”. The feature film, shot in Italy in English, will not be released in theaters in France, but directly on the Amazon Prime Video platform in 2024.
The other highlight of the day is the return of a major cinema burn, the Frenchman Luc Besson, 64, with Dogman, also in competition. The director and producer, author of popular successes like The Fifth Element, The Big Blue or Lucy, who dreamed of a Hollywood destiny, has chained the insults.
The commercial failures almost had the skin of EuropaCorp, the company he dreamed of seeing compete with the major American studios. On the judicial level, in 2018 he had to face rape charges brought by actress Sand van Roy, definitively dismissed by the Court of Cassation in June. “Something I’m particularly proud of today is my freedom,” said Luc Besson about his work as a director. “Nobody can stop me from writing (the film) that I want,” he added.
Dogman, which fits in the dark vein of the filmmaker like Subway, Nikita or Léon, tells the story of a bruised child who finds his salvation in the love of dogs. In the main role, one of the hopes of American independent cinema, Caleb Landry Jones, seen in Get Out and prize for interpretation at Cannes in 2021 for Nitram, also presented in Venice.
