Matt Damon and Christian Bale’s fight in Ford v Ferrari the ultimate dad-fight
Who would win in a fight – Jason Bourne or Batman – is often speculated in a crazy corner of the internet. While we wait for a studio brave enough to make that film, Ford v Ferrari gives us the next best thing.
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When Matt Damon’s buddy Ben Affleck was cast as the Caped Crusader a few years back, certain corners of the internet started to speculate – who would win a fight between Jason Bourne and Batman?
Unless some crazy-brave studio greenlights a truly bizarre mash-up that would see the two action heroes square off, audiences will sadly never know the answer.
But the racing biopic Ford v Ferrari has the next best thing, when Damon and Christian Bale – Affleck’s predecessor as the Dark Knight – go toe-to-toe in what might be the best, worst fight filmed in recent years.
Playing a slick, savvy race team owner and a brilliant but difficult driver respectively, the two Oscar-winners flail hilariously at each other using groceries for weapons in a bust up that looks like a couple of middle-aged dads coming to blows in the street.
“Thank you for that,” says Damon, with a laugh.
“That’s what we were aiming for. Christian likes to say that’s what a fight between us would actually look like. Usually we’re asked to look so capable and the fights require weeks of work and training and some very patient stunt people working with us on every single move and this was choreography we learned in about 20 minutes as we went out and shot it. It was a lot of fun – the big challenge in that scene was to keep from laughing.”
Ford v Ferrari tells the true story of the historic 1966 Le Mans motor race when the American automobile giant spared no expense to end the dominance of the revered Italian racing team.
Damon plays Carrol Shelby, who became a car designer and entrepreneur (best known for his work on the Mustang and the Cobra) when a heart condition ended his own racing career. Bale is his partner in crime as Ken Miles, a fearless and ingenious driver whose prickly personality and combative nature sidelined his career and put him at odds with the cynical Ford marketing men who were more interested in promotion than the podium.
Damon says neither he nor director James Mangold are particularly car people and although he fell in love with some of the ‘60s era sports cars such as the revered GT40 used in the movie, their outsider status ultimately worked to their advantage.
“They are works of art,” says Damon, who’s more likely to be found in a Prius or a Tesla. “They are so beautiful – they really are gorgeous cars. But I think it did help that our director, Jim Mangold, also wasn’t a car person because he never fetishises the cars. There aren’t those lingering, one-minute shots of a bumper with the sun glistening off it. The cars are really there to tell the story without derailing it and I think he did a great job with that.”
Damon says he also wanted to shine a light on a purer era of sport, which was only starting to be affected by money and marketing, and when drivers risked their lives more for the joy of the sport rather than the prospect of huge rewards.
“The sport is still dangerous – we just had an F2 driver last month – but back then it was incredibly dangerous,” he says.
“So many of these guys died. The weakest system on the cars back then was the brakes. These guys would do 230m/ph down the Mulsanne Straight not knowing if they could stop. It takes a specific type of person to be able to do that and I think all of them were a little bit mad.”
Just as money, marketing and technology transformed the racing industry, Damon says the same things have rendered the movie business unrecognisable from the one he broke into in the 1990s with films such as School Ties, Courage Under Fire, The Rainmaker and Good Will Hunting.
The rise of streaming services and the subsequent collapse of the DVD market, he says, have fundamentally changed the film landscape as filmmakers struggle to make their money back on mid-level dramas, while superhero and well-worn action franchises break box office records.
“That’s why you are seeing the nature of movies change so much because what it’s being replaced by is the international market and particularly China,” he says.
“So you are seeing movies get made that can play in America, in China, in Australia, in Korea, in Europe – and oftentimes the movies that play the best are the movies that have the least cultural confusion. So superhero movies fit that bill perfectly because it’s very clear what they are. There are good guys and bad guys and no matter where you are from you know who they are.”
As such, Damon says he understands the recent comments by his director in The Departed, Martin Scorsese, who argued that Marvel movies weren’t cinema.
While Damon, who is regarded as one of the most bankable actors in the business and has been nominated for three acting Oscars and a producing Oscar in addition to the one he won for writing Good Will Hunting, says that while Star Wars changed his life when it was released, he fears that some of the same era’s great dramas such as Dog Day Afternoon, just wouldn’t get made today.
“I think there is some lamenting of what’s past and also what’s the danger of kids acculturated into thinking that cinema is only those simpler movies,” he says.
“I think he was referring to the nuance of human experience and how that’s a big part of what cinema should be, that it should challenge us and make us think and reflect on our own lives and the lives of others and build some empathy.
“But I think there is a reality, which is that technology is changing the movie business in ways that is really jarring for everybody and I am just starting to believe that movies aren’t going to mean to my kids what they meant to me. It’s sad to think of giving up that experience of going into a dark room with people in your local community and switching everything off and having this communal experience.”
Ford v Ferrari marks Damon’s first major role since the George Clooney directed black comedy Suburbicon was released more than two years ago.
He says he is planning to work less in the future and is becoming choosier about the roles that will take him away from his wife Luciana and their daughters Alexia, Isabella, Gia and Stella.
“I am really enjoying my time with my kids and that’s finite too,” he says.
“I have a 21-year-old now – she’s in college – and it just goes so fast and so with my younger three I am very conscious of that. I’m trying to find my moment to work and my moment to really enjoy not working.”
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There a couple more projects in the pipeline though – he’s just shot a drama with Spotlight director Tom McCarthy, due for release in November, and will reunite with both his Martian director Ridley Scott and Affleck in The Last Duel, which will shoot this year.
He’s also looking for a film to make with his Aussie mate, Chris Hemsworth, whom he regularly visits at his Byron Bay home.
Fans of the Bourne franchise shouldn’t hold their breath for a fifth chapter any time soon though – not only is it getting harder and harder to get into the right shape to play the super-spy, but it feels like the movies might have run their course, even though the last chapter made more than $600 million at the box office.
“Maybe that’s the role I should just give to Chris and I can just play a supporting role,” he ponders.
“But if you have an idea for Bourne, please send it to Universal because we don’t know where to go with it at this point.”
Ford v Ferrari is available on Foxtel store.