Ayrton Senna - the greatest driver of all time...
Killed in a crash, aged just 34, while leading the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, he is the last driver to die at the wheel of a Formula One car, with an estimated three million people lining the streets for his funeral in his hometown of São Paulo.
The documentary film, ‘Senna’ (2011), released in June received huge critical acclaim, with a 92% critical consensus on Rottentomatoes.com . Charles Gant, film critic for The Guardian wrote about the film’s success:
“Meanwhile, Senna continues its assault on the all-time documentaries chart, having expanded at the weekend to an astonishing (and presumably unsustainable) 338 screens. Thanks in part to a big push on “Senna day” last Tuesday, the film has added a handy £780,000 in the past seven days, taking its total so far to £2.54m, just £100,000 behind Touching the Void. Kevin MacDonald’s mountain-climbing disaster film is the third highest-grossing doc of all time in the UK, behind Fahrenheit 9/11 and March of the Penguins, not counting concert flicks”.
Add this to the fact the film has recently won the audience award for the Best International Feature at the 17th Annual Los Angeles Film Festival, it looks as though despite it being nearly 20 years after his death, interest in Ayrton Senna’s life and career continues worldwide.
With the DVD release set for October, Paddock Magazine explores the great film based on such a great man’s life.
By Zen-Nyo Platt
Life is filled with moments… these intricate variations and fractions create emotions. These will stay with us… if we allow ourselves to accept them. As humans in this era, we need all of our senses functioning, to reach the full potential of being the best…
1978…an innocent, talented, handsome young man travelled from his loving Brazilian family across the seas to race his passions on the roads he only imagined.
For Senna, it did not seem to differ where he played and challenged his skills…or who his rivals/challengers were…He existed to win. It was not of his nature to collect points but to WIN.
Time…losing it or as we say…is in our favour…time ...will always be challenged, changed and perhaps one day forgotten...
As a graduate in 2001, for our “fieldwork” as Anthropologists, we chose various practical methods and produced our own personal projects to show how we could reflect and interpret what would otherwise be considered unknown. Although only fifteen minutes long, this piece of work was credited by various influential persons in media who specialise in the Visual and the production/broadcasting/ release of documentaries and films. These fifteen minutes of which was titled ‘Naked I...’ took myself and four other students of Anthropology a little over two weeks to fully edit, cut, subtitle and release. My understanding and use of time had never been so important to me until then.
Of course in school, at home and travelling we need to be aware of time and being at the right place at the right time or even having to change what we do with this time to conform to the needs of our loved ones when we think too much about past time, wasted time and the wrong place at the wrong time, again, we are giving too much value to spaces moments in our life that could be time well spent.
After three near fatal strokes, my father’s obsession with time (a whole 79 years) became irrelevant. The most important few hours of his week have been and are the hours watching the Grand Prix. He has met several of the past couple decades of Formula 1 drivers, been helicoptered to Monaco, put in the VIP “box’’ ... Been given all sorts of Limited signed memorabilia, sponsored the sport endlessly in his life.
I remember him saying during the game, and other moments “If I were Schumachers age, I would beat him any day”. His reference to racing in former Rhodesia, wining medals and trophies in the 50’s /60’s and the evaluation of his driving “time” in competition kept me in the belief that had he been in the right place at the right time, I would be the daughter of a racing champion.
This weekend, I will sit and feel his energy of his days when he were in the driving seat…Like Stirling Moss, a former acquaintance.
What we as consumerist humans, groups, social beings in the developed world have consciously done with time on this planet will never be fully acknowledged or understood by any one individual, academically, philosophically or the first day of spring...of the equinox....somewhere in Brazil, two loving parents laid the path for their son to win the hearts of not only fanatical fans of Formula 1 within their own fellowship ...but also globally....This is also the day of my father’s birth....(decades previously) Ayrton Senna is now a figure in my life, like an imaginary friend, a hero, a guru...
I have had many heros in my life...figures of idyllic state. I have also encountered and been in the presence of what the present Post-X-Generation would call worship/ obsession, belief. I never imagined my father’s love for racing would become my own.
After watching the documentary, Senna three times now, a flashback to my life in the United States emerged. I recalled my father announcing his shock and sadness about a drivers death. He died one week before I was to turn 14 years old…A year before I had to leave for the UK, fatherland, schooling and “proper education”.
His age, 35…which I will be in 5 years…The documentary and this review was not to turn so personal, selfish almost…But, like Senna, we have to do the best in what we think is our innate passion and skill in this world. I could die this weekend on the drive down to see my father…an accident, they happen, like children born unwanted…
I wish I could understand why persons so innocent, so skilled and talented as Senna push further than nature intended capable for beings.. Survival of the fittest?
He survives in our thoughts, dreams and died still a champion..
By Charlotte Prior
‘Senna’ is director, Asif Kapadia’s, fourth feature film, and begins with Senna’s arrival into Formula One during the 1984 season. The feature created both from unseen home videos provided by the Senna family and from interviews with those that knew him, paints Ayrton Senna as a fiercely patriotic man who was incredibly competitive yet humble, and who donated millions to charities that provide educational opportunities to Brazil’s deprived children.
Written by Manish Pandey and produced by James Gay Rees, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, the film briefly covers Senna’s time at Toleman and Lotus before concentrating on his career that brought him fame at McLaren.
The film brings to light both his career and his personal life including his rivalry with team mate, Alain Prost, and his political struggles with the then head of FISA, Jean-Marie Balestre.
The producers did not want the film to focus solely on Senna’s tragic death in 1994; they wanted to explore his extraordinary, multi-faceted life and his achievements both on and off the race track.
Senna’s story is certainly no rags-to-riches tale; he was born into an affluent family.
But it is a dazzling tale nonetheless, marked by Senna’s singular approach to life, his genius behind the wheel, and his own deeply entrenched spiritual beliefs.
“It is this spiritual thing that grabs a lot of people,” says James Gay Rees, one of the producers. “Because great sportsmen do operate in a zone that is slightly above that of mere mortals, and it is almost like they are channelling something when they are at the peak of their power”.
The film was also a labour of love.
“I used to be a fan like a lot of people and then lapsed, but from this period in the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, I was absolutely fascinated and intrigued by Formula One,” says Eric Fellner, also a producer for the documentary film.
When the producers brought director Asif Kapadia on board, they knew they were hiring an incredibly talented filmmaker. The director of BAFTA winning feature ‘The Warrior’ and the thriller ‘Far North’, Kapadia is a graduate of the Royal College of Art.
Kapadia, while a sports fan, was not an F1 enthusiast and proved to have a completely dispassionate approach to the producers’ subject matter.
“Before the film I had never read a book on Senna, never looked at one website and never read a book on Formula One,” begins the director. “I had never been to a race. So that’s where I came in to it. I felt very much the outsider at the beginning of the process. But having this fresh set of eyes is what brought the most out of the material.
“I could see that Senna was an amazing driver and had this deep spiritual side, which was really fascinating, and it became all about paring the film down to the bare minimum so that somebody who doesn’t like Formula One, or a person who has never heard of Senna, will get the film, understand the character and actually be moved by his story,” he explains rightfully.
The conclusion of the film shows Senna’s family and his close friends mourning his loss at his funeral, highlighting what the world had lost with his demise.
Gay-Rees points out: “The great thing about this movie is the structure. You could not ask for a better structure. The rise and fall. Ultimately, it is the only possible outcome you could have”.
