Balanced documentary? - Senna (2011) Discussion

[–] martin_66 13 years ago

I have been a fan of formula 1 since the 1970s and this film summed up what I recall of those times very well.

FISA was run, I believe, by Jean Marie Balestre (the right villain you refer to), and was in dispute with FOCA, run then by Bernie Ecclestone, for some time (the reasons I can't really remember). Balestre never came off very well, I remember anyone I spoke to about F1 absolutely detesting the man!

Senna was the most amazing driver I have ever seen, but he could often do stupid things, as he would do anything to win. He could also rightly be accused of being the bad loser that you say Prost seems to be. I think Prost, good driver though he was, couldn't do anything to beat Senna and he knew it.

I think this documentary, which is basically just a superbly edited collection of tv footage from the era, is a brilliantly made film. It tells it like it was. I believe it was very accurate indeed.

I don't know if there was an Oscar for editing, but if there was this film really should have won it.

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[–] nicver 13 years ago

I do not believe this was very accurate. Senna had antagonized the entire field. He was too agressive and forced his way through where drivers had their line.

Most drivers had two options: keeping their line when he was trying to "take the gape" (I believe he meant gap) as he said, and crashing, which is dangerous (no driver wants to crash, and it is more of an instinctive reaction to avoid the crash at all cost), or letting him go through.

Eventually they thought "screw it" I will stop letting him go through and that's how he ended up crashing so often. Nobody wanted to let Senna bully anybody anymore.

The movie has a "good Senna, bad Prost" angle. In reality, Prost is a class act. It really took a long time for Prost to reject Senna.

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[–] dhydro_lics88 13 years ago

I wouldnt go as far as to say it bends the truth, but they definitely used Prost in order to bring up Senna even higher, which I found a bit excessive. They make a lot of comparison between the two, so every claim in favor of Senna would completely do the opposite for Prost. I understand it was sort of necessary as the two were indeed rivals.. however I feel as if they didnt give Prost enough credit, where its definitely due.

Part of the reason may be due to Senna's strong charisma and ability as a speaker off the track, whereas Prost was not as talented in that area. In a world where presentation is weighted just as much as the real man behind his words, Prost had lost that battle against Senna to convince the crowd. Due to Senna's personality and more importantly, his mentality, I too, happen to be a bigger fan of Senna over Prost. However that shouldnt convince one to believe that Prost was totally inferior to Senna on the racetrack.

I admit I havent been a F1 fan my whole life, but this documentary had inspired me to watch the 1986-1994 seasons to see how it really went down, along with all other drivers during that time. Having seen all of those races, I can conclude that the two were actually quite evenly matched, as both had their relative strengths and weaknesses. Both drivers took themselves over the limit and made many a brave maneuver in order to compete with each other. Their main difference was in their driving style and their attitude towards the sport, which may convince the audience one was superior to the other... truly a subjective matter imho.

What gets me is that many younger folks, who've had no prior knowledge of this feud, judge the two based off of this documentary alone which happens to excessively favor Senna, on and off the track. I dont believe Senna was overrated, but rather, Prost was definitely an underrated figure.

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[–] dporokhniak 12 years ago

It not only bends the truth but there is at least one bit evidence of deliberate manipulation of footage to mislead the audience.

I'm talking about the story about the pole position on the Suzuka starting grid. In the scene where Senna is discussing this issue with a race official (you can hear them). We're led to believe it's taking place after qualifying in Suzuka but a racing enthusiast will recognise the view out of the pits towards turn 1 in Hockenheim, then notice the German advertising and signage on the Opel Vectra course car and circuit commentary in German.

I'd say the makers of the film had an agenda to make a super-hero movie about Senna out of a collection of period footage. They sure have done a fantastic job with it, it's a very moving piece. But I can't call it a documentary, let alone a balanced one!

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[–] psu_eddie 12 years ago

That edit of the race line footage is hardly "manipulating the audience." It was just used to illustrate the issue at hand. Did a discussion similar to that occur? Yes. Was it filmed? No. They simply used another discussion to show the problem.

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[–] LeStratege 12 years ago

>I think Prost, good driver though he was, couldn't do anything to beat Senna and he knew it.

Except every year the were teammates, Prost won more points than Senna. Senna got away with a World Championship because of the FISA rules at that time. Were the point system the same as now, Prost would have had one more World crown and Senna one less.

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[–] emvan 13 years ago

I don't think Prost ultimately comes across badly at all, just human. And that is part of what made the film great.

First, these guys are incredibly competitive and it's almost inevitable that they will end up as rivals. Then, Prost was probably right when he spoke of Senna being too much of a risk taker. Finally, they seemed to have healed their rift when they appeared together on the podium after Senna won the 1993 Japanese Grand Prix, Prost in the archival footage seems as shaken up as anybody after the crash, he's one of the lead pallbearers at the funeral, and -- the very last thing the doc tells us -- he is on the board of directors of the Ayrton Senna foundation.

Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

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[–] thomas-147-89750 13 years ago

This documentary does not bend the truth at all. It was just like you saw it. Whatever truth bend might arise is minor and that is because they fit a story of so many years in a couple of hours. There is endless footage around senna, but the main idea is there.

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[–] martin_66 13 years ago

Exactly.

This film captured what happened back then very well indeed.

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[–] Prismark10 13 years ago

Prost and Senna had great rivalry at the time and Prost the Professor was regarded as being manipulative.

Its that man again!!

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[–] Terzastella 13 years ago

I was a teenager in those years, and I remember that the F1 press liked to spin the same narrative this (wonderful, amazing but also incomplete) documentary tries to spin.
That Prost was The Professor, a Machiavellian winning machine, whereas Senna was the starry-eyed romantic Brazilian who lived to give the people what they wanted to see.
I'm sure it wasn't that simple, but that's how the zeitgeist digested the whole thing, and therefore that's how it went down in history.

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[–] Prismark10 13 years ago

If you were from the UK, Senna was the racer, naturally gifted, took risks, found speed from somewhere but also arrogant and aloof. This was a great contrast with Prost.

There was also Nigel Mansell, solid, stoic and never destined to have the luck to become a world champion which he did become when Williams got the best car in the early 90s allowing him to dominate the season.

Its that man again!!

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[–] jrv-3 13 years ago

Of course its an extremely unbalanced representation of what went on.

Of course many documentaries are dogmatic, polemic, propaganda pieces, etc

Does that matter?
In the ong run probably not... people will object to one side being portrayed above the other, people who accept a certain position will try and claim it as the unadulterated truth, its always like that

In the scheme of things it probably doesnt matter, Senna fans will acclaim it, Prost fansdeplore it, those with no backgroud will accept it, those neutral at the time will say 'well thats not exactly right' and then either another documentarty will redress it, or people will forget , in the end it was only a game, albeit one that men have given their lives for over the decades.

SO in the end

Its a propaganda piece

but a fairly good one

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[–] rtogami 13 years ago

Hi! IMHO this documentary is as accurate as any good and solid documentary could be, specially because it didn't try to "discover" or reinvent history, it only compiled what's already common knowledge in the F1 world. I think the only flaw is it portraits Prost more as a villain than a great driver. In the end we are all humans and, after Prost retired from F1 they even became friends (sort of... I was a kid at the time, but I remember Senna shaking hands with Prost and asking his help to create some organization to improve security on the tracks and in a recent interview Prost said Senna and him used to phone each other from time to time). Prost may not always play clean and was very quick to point fingers blaming everyone and everything around him, but he sure was a fast driver (and smart enough to realize how better Senna was than him). And this is being written by a Brazilian (I actually live near where Senna's parents used to live, in north region of São Paulo city).

To you who desn't really know about him, believe it or not, this documentary doesn't get even close about what we Brazilians felt (and still feel) about Senna. To us he's really a hero, a symbol. He was the reason many of us used to watch the TV on sundays, he was the one who made as feel proud of something in this crappy country. Rich or poor, old or young, we all had something in common, we all had something to chat with each other on the next monday.

Personaly I admire him for the passion he had for doing something, for giving all his heart doing what he did, for his pursue of perfection, never giving up, always trying to be better, always managing to overcame all odds with his own strench. I think he wasn't just a champion... he was something more than a champion. The "something more" is what I admire.

The man you saw on this documentary means a lot to this country (almost 200 million people) and many others in other places.

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[–] Jason_Radley 13 years ago

I thought some Brazilians might have been a bit pissed because just about every Brazilian kept saying that life in Brazil was pretty *beep* apart from Ayrton.

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[–] fpsqt 13 years ago

I'm from Brazil and yes, somtimes the documentary tends to tell us that Prost was Balestre's darling while Senna suffered prejudice from the FIA president. One thing that I could not understand very well is the part where the documentary (and Senna himself) found unfair that in Japan '90, the pole position would get the dirty part of the track, and that was moved for political reasons, to help Prost. And that was what got Senna so angry that he told "I have been *beep* by the system so many times, but today it's gonna be my way". Well, if you check the past GPs in Suzuka, in 88 AND 89 ... Senna was the pole and he also was to the right part of the track, with Prost in 2nd, in the left part of the track. And in both occasions, Prost jumped in front at the first corner. Ok, in 88 Senna had problems starting his car and dropped a bunch of positions, but not in 89. In 89 it was a clear better start from Prost. So I feel that in 90, there they were again, Senna 1st, Prost 2nd, Ayrton got some bad memories from 88 and 89 and blamed those memories in the grid position. And when he didnt get what he wanted, he got mad.

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[–] shaneuk-1 13 years ago

The reason he got mad was because there was a flaw in the development of the track as the fastest qualifier had a disadvantage at the start.

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[–] The-ManWithNoName 13 years ago

I enjoy them when they are balanced. I thought they did a great job on this.

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[–] welshNick 13 years ago

The documentary was about Senna, made with the obvious cooperation of his family, who I am sure were able to view it before it got released. It did concerntrate on Prost's bad points and Senna'a good points. To put ia all into context the big incident at the chicane where Prost left the track and went to the Stewards, the rules, rightly of wrongly were in Prost's favour and he exploited them in the stewards room. How many of us given the chance of winning the F1 title would not do that. Secondly as Jackie Stewart brought up, Senna did have a reputation for pushing past people and if you did not get out the way he would shove you off the track. I also have to say if Senna had any doubts about the safety of the car at Imola he would not have driven it. It was probably clear even by then that the Williams was not going to be the winning car that year.

What we really need is someone to make a documentary entitled 'Prost' so we can compare the two. I don't suppose that will happen though.

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[–] jd-276 13 years ago

Interesting and thus far, an admirably rational discussion.

Senna was a bit of a lightning rod for criticism and perhaps some of it was deserved. But to make a film about him in which his immediate family is involved would be extremely difficult without running at least a semi-sympathetic line.

However, for all that I came away from it not liking the man any more than I did prior to seeing it, I think the film does admirably well. Yes; it is polemicised in its attitudes to Prost and Balestre but to be honest, I expected no different. Oddly enough, a lot of people who maligned Balestre are equally scathing about Bernie Ecclestone. A dictator was replaced by another dictator. Who'da thunk it?

I thought the interview with Jackie Stewart was extremely revealing and for me, summed up Senna's flaws. He pushed too hard. It's not that you shouldn't do your best but discretion is the better part of valour. You have to calculate the risk. When he ran Prost off the road in Japan the second time, I thought it showed a marked lack of maturity. Others might have done the same thing but there are probably at least as many who would say to themselves, "No. Now is not the time because the risk is too great. If I do it now it will not work and I will look stupid. I know I'm at least as fast so I will do it on the next lap or the one after, when I am warmed up and in the racing groove."

Senna did not take this criticism well and came out with the quote along the lines of "If you see a gap and don't go for it, you're no longer a racing driver." There are gaps and there are gaps but if you can't trust the man next to you at 200mph because you think he would run you off the road then something has to give.

For me - in film terms - the best sequence by far is the weekend at Imola. It's not that I cheered when he died: far from it. You know what's coming, you almost can't bear to watch it but it's so well done that you get stuck in a vortex of voyeurism. You can see the stress he's under and if you're anything like me, you just hope that people don't start reading fate messages into it. They didn't and that bit of restraint really makes the film.

On a medical note, it has been revealed that Senna suffered no fewer than three fatal head injuries and despite the penetration of a suspension part, the cause of death was actually listed as a basilar skull fracture, the same as Roland Ratzenberger. The comment that he had no broken bones is a fantasy.

No effort was made to find the cause of the crash - usually attributed to a steering column failure but I suppose that's not very useful in a film about the man.

In the end I felt sorry for the Brazilian people more than anyone else. The Formula 1 circus is so cosseted, courted and eternally fêted that IMHO, they have a pretty distorted view of their own significance. I couldn't find it in me to feel particularly sorry for them. But the Brazilian people at least had someone to cheer for and you could understand their distress when he died.

So...balanced? Not really. But the film is a definite success, even for someone like me who didn't like Ayrton Senna and can no longer stomach motorsport.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] jd-276 13 years ago

The Williams team was actually put on trail in Italy charged with manslaughter!

True but no one of any significance appeared.

That trial focussed on the Williams' steering column as the cause of the crash and Senna's death.

That's because everything else was taken back to the UK instead of being impounded. In the end there was nothing left to examine and as I understand it, the wreck no longer exists.

Williams and designer Patrick Head were actually found guilty.

In absentia...This was a bad joke. If there was any real intent to nail those people they would have been extradited to Italy.

Officially, steering column altered by the Williams team was the cause of the crash.

This is quite correct but there was so little examination done that the verdict was never going to be a particularly accurate one. Even the black boxes, which should have been impounded immediately, were allowed to go back to the UK. When they were returned, they were too badly damaged and nothing of any consequence could be learnt from them.

Does this ring alarm bells? It should.

The trial was a shame and actually very distasteful.

What do you mean by this? What was distasteful about it and why should that matter? Formula 1 is not above the law. If criminal negligence or incompetence can be proved then it should be addressed exactly as it would be for any other person appearing before the court.

In practice, it's actually quite different. Formula 1 is above the law.

On the surface of it, you are quite right. Looking deeper though, there are so many holes in that trial that it is not worthy of the name, no matter how long it took.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] jd-276 13 years ago

No, I'm talking of engineering incompetence, not just on the part of the team but the rule-making body. Formula 1 cars are demonstrably unsafe, not because they can crash - that can happen to any vehicle - but because there are design flaws in them which have never been addressed. I can prove this. If someone dies as a result of design flaws, that is criminal negligence.

If a building falls down because of design flaws and people die, you expect the architects, engineers and builders to be prosecuted. That is the law in many countries, not just Italy. Why should Formula 1 be any different? Italy was right to take a stand on the matter. The fact that Williams and Head were found guilty but never sentenced shows what they can get away with but when the major industrial base for Formula 1 is in England or Italy, it's very hard to convince anyone that prosecution was the proper legal thing to do.

The sport pushes and pushes and pushes the envelope. The idea that we make a car that can travel at 200mph and then send it down a track with twists and turns is negligent in itself. The very nature of the sport is entirely based on negligence.

I agree that it comes close to what test pilots used to do and that was a risky business. People do occasionally die in that business but that doesn't mean that we should just accept it or we might as well go back to the 60s when a driver died at nearly every race. When basic engineering principles are ignored then negligence becomes a major issue. Again, I can prove this.

Bottom line is what happened to Senna was not criminal in anyway.

Then why were Williams and Head found guilty? Don't tell me it was for political purposes. If politics had anything to do with it, there would never have been a trial in the first place. There are too many politicians with vested interests or blood on their hands to call Formula 1 to account.

The evidence was there or the verdict could not be supported and the clue is in the stability of the Williams FW16 design.

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[–] gmc262 12 years ago

"In the end I felt sorry for the Brazilian people more than anyone else. The Formula 1 circus is so cosseted, courted and eternally fêted that IMHO, they have a pretty distorted view of their own significance."

There's no way anyone can know that about a diverse nation of 200 million people. Certainly one doesn't have to be a fan of Senna, but why prejudge the entire nation of Brazil?

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[–] jd-276 12 years ago

I wasn't.

Read it again.

I was judging the F1 circus, not Brazil. :facepalm:

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[–] hoodmeister 12 years ago

Definitely not fair and balanced. I have been an F1 fan for 40 years and thought it unfairly portrayed Prost as the villian. A lot of fans did not like Senna for his off track behavior. We all respected his unbelievable talent behind the wheel, but he came across as arrogant. I did love the movie, but thought Prost was treated unfairly.

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