Perhaps No shot from the Rush website says more than this still from the movie.
Two of our most experience contributors ring in on Rush…
Images from Rush Movie
Thoughts on Rush: Brandes Elitch
Last night I saw the film Rush. To get right to the point, it is an excellent film, and anyone who has even a remote interest in auto racing should not miss it. Don’t wait for the video, because watching it on a small screen will not do it justice. It has to be seen in a theater with a wide screen and a powerful sound system.
As most people know by now, the story follows the rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda during the 1976 Formula One season, although there is a bit of history regarding their initial forays in Formula Three. Since I was not paying attention in 1976, I really didn’t know which of these two drivers would win the championship, and so I can say that the suspense is very real and palpable, and it did actually keep me on the edge of my seat! In 1976, my mindset was that the Golden Age of Grand Prix Racing was over, and that we would never see greats such as Nuvolari, Fangio, Moss, Ascari and their peers again. This movie proved me wrong, at least as far as the driver element is concerned.
As regards the personal details of the drivers lives, I cannot say how accurately they were portrayed, or even if it matters all that much. The story is powerful, well written, well crafted, and well told, and it stands by itself without much need for embellishment. The casting is spot on, and you really do believe you are watching Hunt and Lauda. I am a stickler for period-correct details in film (particularly automotive related material) and I didn’t see anything that looked incorrect. What really struck me was watching the credits and seeing just how many people were involved in the film, and what their job titles were. Literally hundreds of people were involved in a wide variety of very specialized, arcane, and highly technical tasks, many of which probably didn’t even exist back in 1966 when the movie “Grand Prix” was made.
Thinking about the movie, I picked up my copy of “The Racing Driver,” by Denis Jenkinson (Robert Bentley, Cambridge, MA, 1959). Here are some interesting observations which Jenks makes about this subject, which are covered in the film:
-It is an indisputable fact that anyone who wins a motor race must surely have an interesting character (p. 15).
-No doubt if I suggest that driving a car at high speed is an art, along with music, painting, and literature, I should be greeted by some very cutting remarks…but I really do consider fast driving as an art, an essentially twentieth-century art, and one demanding as much theoretical study, natural flair, learning, and practice as any of the classical arts (p. 21).
-The top drivers who spend most of their lives driving to the limit of their car’s ability are highly skilled when conducting a Grand Prix car and it is their skill which interests us (p. 26).
-Even after watching GP drivers at their limits for a number of years, and from close quarters on the edges of most European tracks, I still tend to break out in a cold sweat and have a tickling sensation down my spine when I see Moss, Fangio, or Hawthorn dabbling around nine and a half tenths and sometimes flirting with ten-tenths (p. 41).
-I think it is true to say that a well-balanced, placid man will never make a World Champion; he could be a brilliant driver and strategist but would lack that little bit of dash and daring that would take him to the top (p. 81)
-To reach the ultimate, one must “Dice with Death,” and often Death claims a victim, but when he does so under such circumstances, let us not bewail the fact, but rather salute and admire a man who died doing his utmost in his own specialized sphere (p. 86).
-The racing driver is not immune to fright, so he is not abnormal, but other parts of his mental make-up encourage him to search for greater experience all the time and this, together with his anticipations, reduces the number of unknown quantities he is likely to be faced with ( p 109).
“Let us agree that the racing driver is a freak of the twentieth century, having nothing in common with any freaks of the past (p. 115).
-We have five separate parts to our actions – vision, nervous processes, anticipation, judgment, and response (p. 116).
“We should by now have a certain amount of respect for the racing driver, especially those at the top of the racing world, and we can appreciate that they are not entirely normal average human beings, but highly developed and very sensitive ones ( p. 168).
These two drivers, Hunt and Lauda, are indeed highly developed and sensitive. This is what propels the story quickly forward and makes it compelling, more compelling to me than the more one-dimensional film on Senna last year. There is little discussion of how the race cars were designed or what their technical merits are, but this sort of thing would be of very limited appeal to the general theatre audience, although not perhaps to the readers here. And film is the perfect media to capture the intensity, sights, and sounds of motor racing, although Jenks writing comes pretty close too!
Ron Howard scopes out the scene during the movie.
Thoughts on Rush: John Sexton
As an F1 fan since 1966, a history buff, and life-long competitor in many racing categories, this movie hit the spot.
Like Mr. Elitch, I too went to my bookshelf and found four books to review the facts. The movie is based on Tom Rubython’s “Rush to Glory”. It parallels the book exactly right through the epilogue. Favorite detail left out: Hunt is summoned to Marlboro Europe Headquarters in Lucerne to sign his multi-million dollar personal sponsorship agreement prior to his winning season at Marlboro-McLaren, he arrives barefoot and negotiates a deal to keep smoking Rothmans, but always in a Marlboro pack! Best addition in the movie was Lauda hitch-hiking and then exciting Marlene and the Lancia Flavia 2000 Berlina owners with what all racing drivers enjoy, scaring everyone in a road car. Every driver know it only takes about 8/10th the get them screaming!
Alan Henry’s “Niki Lauda” claimed Lauda was a close friend with Hunt, and displays a couple pictures of them smiling together. I do recall some chatter at the time that they did “work” the Press together. But I could find no more pleasant photos together in Lauda’s “tell-all” book “Meine Story” or in the famous motorsports bible “Autocourse 1976-1977”.
The recreation of the old tracks was very well done. Perhaps the computer-generated grandstand fans seemed a bit over-excited watching the cars sitting on the grid. The use of water cannons in Brazil was accurate. Young viewers commented on social media about the plausibility of the Ferrari flying that high over the Ring’s Flugplatz. I have many photos of race cars much higher in the air over that infamous crest!
What makes this movie so personal to me is the 1976 season. In that racing season and the one that followed, my personal racing career reached its zenith. OK, I only sat in three F1 cars, but I did race in some of the period’s faster junior classes: an A/SR Porsche (post-Can-Am), an IMSA GT/O Corvette 7-liter, and my favorite, an injured driver/friend’s March 76B-Cosworth FB/Atlantic in SCCA National competition, a 7/8ths version of the March 761-Cosworths shown throughout the movie. The movie mentions 170 mph, I recall over 40 laps on Riverside’s long course at 164 mph.
I found Mr. Elitch quotes from the legendary “Jenks” about that period’s racing drivers to be accurate. I too would lie awake sweating the night before an important race. I believed that if I died during that race weekend, it was a noble thing to do. My heroes had raced, and some died, on this very track, so it was an honor to follow them. Two of my contemporaries did die during those two seasons, including our SCCA FB/Atlantic posthumous champion Gordon Strom. Steve McQueen’s quote from the movie “LeMans” was affixed to my open race toolbox: “Racing is life…everything else is just waiting!”
Racing the March at this time allowed me to meet many of the day’s top drivers, teams, sponsors, and we used many of the same suppliers. I was lucky enough to swap car magazines in a 16-passenger jet with Lauda and Ferrari personnel.
The racing sounds were so accurate. Throttle blips in the pedal scenes, driveline chatter under initial hard acceleration, that direct clunk of the shifter brought me right back to 1976! No bodywork clatter or helmet buffeting was captured, but my hands were still shaking. I was still talking quickly and loudly 15 minutes after the movie, just like a pit lane debrief in 1976!
The movie accurately captures the spectacular sights, mechanical noise of this free-wheeling era.
First: allow me to say the title of the film is RUSH. Rush is another movie and this is not it.
Agreed, the film needs to be seen on the big screen with a powerful audio system. In my area of the world, today is the final day of showings. Hopefully, it may come back at some point.
Yesterday, I saw the film RUSH for the third time. I am an avid F1 fan and loved the sounds and racing scenes. Two thoughts: it did occur to me that 170 MPH seemed a bit high for the time; the race scenes were beautiful and realistic but it looked as thought it was all in slow motion. That said, the sounds and sights of the races were spectacular.
Daniel Bruhl was brilliant as Niki Lauda. One of my favorite scenes is him in the garage with “his” mechanics, trying to teach them how to make the car faster (lighter). Of course, I loved the scene with the Italian guys who stopped for him and not her – hilarious. The finale of vintage film of Lauda and Hunt was a perfect ending to a very emotional film.
In the end, it was an excellent film, well researched and presented. If some of the facts got a bit condensed in the process, that is okay with me. Basically, it is a true story well told without excess drama.
A very nice review. Thanks for writing it for us, Brandes.
The movie was horrible, A soap opera with a video game mixed in. No real car shots only computer generated shots. Not a racing movie. Ron Howard missed this time.
Well written and by my estimate, an accurate review. I became a big fan of F1 during the 70’s and was a huge Lauda fan. It struck me as odd that Hunt died at such a you age too… Rothmans I guess.
Fair comments but as a former colleague of Alan Henry’s I would think nobody outside the Austrian & specialist German press knew as much about Lauda as Alan. I had some personal experience of Hunt & Lauda in the day (touring cars & media) and I think we must accept that Ron Howard could not have sold the basic story without cutting the basic truth that Hunt & Lauda were respectful friends, not enemies, although Hunt was (justifiably) angry over some Ferrari tactics that Lauda naturally supported in the cheating / appeals part of the saga.
I found the reviews of the movies to be self serving and the movie a disappointment.
I guess it was the first Ron Howard movie where I had some knowledge and experience 0f the subject. The film quality seem poor and the sound of the cars to have been doctored with bass. Why keep referring to Lauda’s rat like appearance with an actor that is not, what did it have to do with his driving? I was in the pits at Watkins Glenn when Lauda came back. I couldn’t bring myself to take his picture he looked so horrible, not “rat faced”. I believe “Grand Prix” and “Le Mans” were better racing films without the computer abilities of today.
Well, no matter how much we admire the unearthly skills of the drivers who live at the “whistling blue pointed peak” (Ken Purdy) of World Championship achievements, and the unimaginable, mind boggling courage and “triumph of will” Lauda demonstrated after his accident, Jenks’ contention that driving is high art does not hold up. Mozart vs. Moss? Caruso vs. Clark? Faulkner vs. Fangio? Picasso vs. Piquet? Rembrandt vs. Reutemann? Shakespeare vs. Schumaker? Bach vs. anyone? Indeed, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” and driving can truly be sublimely beautiful, but as for time transcending artistic content … not quite.
A good movie. I enjoyed it. It was a little obvious that almost all of the paddock and staright shots were from the same track and Ron Howard had to use a lot of close shots to keep the incorrect backgroud out. I was 16 when this was going on. In the US, I recall ABC ran Monaco on Wide World of Sports, and then CBS got into the game and we got to see an occasional race besides Monaco (Villeneuve – Arnoux battle at Dijon 1979!!). Unfortunately, I feel like I missed this rivarly even though I’ve always cheered for Ferrari. I was surprised to learn that Lauda and Hunt were flatmates in London in the early days. Definitely a movie worth seeing. Hope it does better in the rest of the world. I hear it’s not doing so well in the States.
I usually don’t go to theaters to see movies but on your review I thought it might be worth it to see it on the big screen.
Although the story line was ok, the visual effects were not as good as I had hoped.
Too many scenes were the cars are just flashing back and forth instead of nice racing shots.
On the plus side I was proud of my 14 year old for being able to identify so many of the cars in the background scenes.
The most heart stopping moment for me was when the Abarth almost got crushed by the flying wheel.
Comments all over the map, which is interesting. My husband and I enjoyed the film on a big screen very much, and considering all,Ron Howard did an excellent job. For the severe critics, a movie on racing is to a real race what a Civil War re-enactment is to a real battle, and as a professional historian, I dislike re-enactments. However RUSH did bring back the sense of a dangerous and thankfully lost era and a respectful and compelling rivalry between two very different men.
It was not a box office smash here in Georgia, only 8 folks in the theater. A friend who used to race around this time loved it and told me I needed to see it and I am glad I did, although I hated watching the scene of Lauda’s crash even tho I knew it was not really happening.
Another major film featuring this era of F1 was “Bobby Deerfield, ” a 1977 “block-buster” directed by Sidney Pollack, starring Al Pacino that featured the 1977 F1 season. Three reasons to rent/buy it: gorgeous Brabham-Alfas ( Eccelstone reportedly consulted stylists, not just aerodynamicists during design), the Euro travelogue segment in an Alfa tipo 116 Alfetta GT, and a believable struggle with racing driver’s control issues.. Critics’ reviews were all over the map, but some of us loved it.
Sorry, Ronnie strikes out on this one. Without ever taking the bat off his shoulder.
I could have done something interesting with my 95 or so minutes. like clean out my basement, sit on a park bench and watch the pigeons. Probably my fault. I expected a Racing Movie. Not a morality play. Shook my respect for Opie.
I appreciate that some people can’t help but look for faults, and find it hard to grasp that a movie is primarily for entertainment rather than a factual history lesson and is aimed at a far wider audience than just a few who might be interested in the minute details of some long ago races.
I rarely bother to go to the cinema, lazily preferring to wait until I can watch a dvd in the comfort of my own home, but I made an exception for RUSH.
Having said that, I did have an added interest both as a Formula One fan of fifty years, and as a former employee of Jaguar Racing which included a spell under Niki Lauda’s leadership. I well remember the ’76 season and the Hunt/Lauda rivalry and it seemed to me that RUSH told the story very well. Apart from well deserved praise for the leading actors, I would also applaud Mr Howard for using an excellent supporting cast, well designed sets and the recreations of old circuits – last time I was at Monza it had not changed much since the sixties, but the old pits and control tower at Brands Hatch have long gone.
If anybody reading this has picky complaints about the accuracy of the racing scenes then I respectfully suggest they either relax and treat it as a work of fiction, or go and watch real racing.
On the subject of the rivalry which was the core of the story, I suspect the film kept a balanced view of the differences between, and mutual respect of, the two main characters; it trod a fine line and could have easily exaggerated the arguments and become a farcical showdown worthy of the old Ewing clan of Dallas.
While James Hunt is no longer around to have his say, Howard did have the cooperation of many F1 insiders as well as Mr Lauda and even if my memory of the period is only that of a race fan I do not doubt he had excellent advice from many who were closer to the action.
The scene where Niki is telling James that flying is good for the discipline, you have to obey the rules etc, brought back a particular memory of the day at Jaguar about ten years ago when Niki gave chief designer Malcom Oastler a major telling off for landing his helicopter outside his office window and too close to the building. My last memories of James were of the vaguely disinterested BBC race commentator who gave colleague Murray Walker a hard time live on air, and did rather have the spoiled air of a faded pop star who could no longer attract the girls.
In both cases the real life future of the two ’76 rivals comes as no surprise, and fits perfectly the calculating businessman and the carefree party animal as they were portrayed.
Finally, back to my first statement – I think it also succeeded as a movie for entertainment. Everyone I know who has seen it, many of whom are not race fans, enjoyed it too. Sure someone may have a gripe about some quote or scene that was not to their liking, or something left out, but as a full race season (plus the early years leading up to ’76) story told in two hours it kept moving forward without having time to get boring and kept the audience interested from start to finish.
Excellent depiction of a bygone era of a lethal sport. The wastrel aristocrat Hunt and the even richer child of privilege Nicki Lauda contest the 1976 world championship.
It was a bit artificial , as always F1 was not an even playing field and only those with super cosworths Hunt, Andretti and Scheckter and the Ferrari team had competitive cars. And Andretti was hobbled with a car the Lotus 77 was really a test bed for the future Lotus ground effects and Scheckter was saddled with an even more experimental six wheel car. It could be argued the Hunt and Lauda were the most intelligent drivers that year but in equal cars both would have been completly outclassed by the Swede Ronnie Peterson and Argentine Carlos Reutemann.
Hunt got the McLaren drive at the last minute after Emerson Fittipaldi walked away from the team for the Brazilian sugar millions of copersurcar and Marlboro ,McLarens main sponsor refused to accept the team’s main choice Jackie Ickx. Both Ickx and Hunt were legends in the other playfield, the bedroom , Ickx being a notorious gigilo and goer and Hunt favouring well bred 18 yr old debutantes with flat chests. The McLaren team prefering to guard the sanctiny of their own offsprings ,prefered Ickx. However Hunts massive public attraction and sexual preferences meant he could always offload a choice selection of bimbos to the kiwi mechanics who prepared his car and wound him with against the wall prep talks to guarantee victory and the spoils for them, which left Hunt shaking with anger in the cockpit as he awaited flagfall,
An interesting cross section of opinions. I would have to go more with negative side. Maybe partly because they didnt have the access to real F1 cars (many were F3 cars), tracks and events like they did in the days of Grand Prix and le Mans. I saw the film at the World Premier at the Toronto Film Festival in Sept. All the actors, Ron Howard and Nicki Lauda were there for a Q&A after the film. What impressed me most was how charming Nicki was, in spite of his common image of being cold hearted. He did confirm that he and Hunt were friends away from the race course.
Surely they could have come up with a better name then Rush!