110 newyork| november11–24, 2019
Lucas plays the guy who is every conscien-
tious filmmaker’s nightmare.
Though a mite long, Ford v Ferrari is
so thrillingly well made that only later,
when your pulse slows, do you see how
formulaic it is. But formulas are made
to be overhauled, and this film has some
fascinating upgrades. For example, the
old Westerns had prim wives who
stood at the doors of their home-
steads and said to their upright
husbands, “Be careful.” Miles’s
wife, Mollie (Caitriona Balfe, of
Outlander), forces him to listen
to her “Be careful” by driving the
familysedan at 80 miles per houron one-
laneroads while he shrieks, “Stop! I hear
you!I’ll be careful!” The scenedoesn’t
makea lot of psychological sense, but it
certainly signals that Mollie isn’tan old-
fashioned pillar of feminine stability and
thatshe has a distinct point of view. The
nextstep toward gender equality would be
togivethe wife something to do that isn’t
borderline psychotic. ■to build his own race cars andcrushthe
smug Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone)inthe
24-hour endurance race at Le Mans.Ford
ex ec Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal)reaches
out to Shelby, who reaches outtoMiles,
whose penchant for insulting hiswealthy
but insufficiently auto-sensitive sports-car
customers has brought him to thebrinkof
ruin. With a blank check, the pairge t busy
hammering frames and sheddingscoresof
pounds of engine parts.
It’s the most seductive of premisesfor
an American audience: castingusYanks
as the underdog despite our havingmore
(ill-gotten) wealth than anyoneinthe
world. One of the film’s cannier touchesis
creating a wide gap between thecapitalist
ogre and our working-class heroestomake
it plain that they’re competingfortheir
sacred selves and not their country and
its arrogant, undeserving scions.Letts’s
Ford is a capricious, over-entitledbabynot
unlike the one in the White House.(With
his recent triumph as a symbolofrapa-
cious capitalism in the Broadwayrevival
of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons,Lettsis
cornering the market on venal American
patriarchs while, in his other lifeasa play-
wright, crafting bloody satires of American
family values.)
Mangold’s other brilliant touchis to make
the heroes far more than daredevilgrunts.
Shelby, Miles, and Ray McKinnon’sPhil
Remington are as versed in physicsasany
Star Trek android is. They know thehigher
mathematics of torque, the long-rangetor-
sion of metal. Every third line soundslike
a variation of “If you take out thetechtech
tech, you’ll lose the tech tech inthetech.”
“But we can compensate with the techtech.”
“Only if we vector the tech tech tech.” “Well,
yeah, obviously.” Worked for me.
Taking his cues from SergioLeone,
Mangold photographs his stars as monu-
ments as well as men, pitching his close-
ups into the realm of myth without get-
ting ostentatious about it. These are great
American archetypes—extra great given
that Clint Eastwood had no evident trig.
After Damon in The Martian, all American
heroes must “work the problem.”
Damon has lowered his pitch and sounds
as swaggeringly Texan as George W. Bush
at tempted to, but in vain. It’s hard to con-
nect that baritone to Damon’s still-youthful
face, yet he’s a witty enough actor to bridge
the credibility gap. The dryly macho quips
in the script by Jez Butterworth, John-
Henry Butterworth, and Jason Keller all
land, the dialogue as honed as the race cars
for maximum torque. Damon andBale go
at each other as only marquee titans can,
each without fear of being fired forupstag-
ing the star. Bale brings somethingphysical
to his driving (pun intended!) delivery: His
cheekbones look cut, as if to give Miles an
aerodynamic advantage.
Ford v Ferrari’s true villain is not Ferrari
but the Ford bootlicker Leo Beebe, played
by Josh Lucas. Beebe takes a strong dislike
to Miles and spends the rest of the film
trying either to deep-six him or to field
another Ford Motors racing team that
will cast him into secondorthird
place. For more than halfthefilm,
the rivalry between thesmarmy
suit and the Cockney maverick
works like gangbusters, butaswe
got closer to Le Mans, Ibeganto
flash back on David Tomlinson
throwing monkey wrenchesintothelifeof
Dean Jones and Herbie thelovablysentient
Volkswagen in The LoveBug.Everytime
Miles gets close to winningtheacclaimhe
so richly deserves, there’sBeebetothrow
up another speed bump, tothepointwhere
you have to laugh. That said,I loveTheLove
Bug. Also, Hollywood filmmakersknowas
well as anyone that the enemyis more often
on their own team thanina rivalcamp.newyork’sarchitecturecritic,JustinDavidson, and art
critic,Jerry Saltz,bothspenta lotoftimeconsidering the ex-
pandedMuseumofModernArt. Aftermultiplevisitstothe reopened
museum,theycomparedtheirobservations.
JustinDavidson:Let’sstartwiththearchitecture.Jerry,you’ve made
yourdistasteforDillerScofidio+ Renfro—andyourskepticism of their
MoMAdesign—plain.Didthey liveuptoordowntoyourexpectations?
JerrySaltz:Both.First, I’mgratefulwedidn’t getoneoftheir grandi-
osePharaonicshed-thingsonwheels,oranotheroftheircarnivalesque
corporatenullities.Art dodgeda bullet afterDS+Rannounced its origi-
nalMoMAplansin 20 14.You,I, anda few othershadhissy fits about
whatthestarchitectswere proposing.
J.D.:I didobjecttothedemolitionoftheAmericanFolk Art Mu-
seum, but ... hissy fit?
J.S.: Okay, maybe not you, and as much as I love the Folk Art Mu-
seum, its old building was totally useless for art. As for listening to
what DS+R had in mind for MoMA, I recall cas-
cades of architect argot about micro-galleries,
auto-critique, institutional interfacing withthe
city, surgical interventions, gestures of variation
on the white cube and the black box, socialand
performative space, and “a large new architectur-
ally significant staircase.” Then Liz DilleractuallyART & ARCHITECTURE /
JERRY SALTZ & JUSTIN DAVIDSON
When the Big CityMuseum Gets BiggerTwo critics discussMoMA’s latest renovation.