As a car person (that is, a person who likes cars, not a person who is part car) I’m thrilled to see F1: The Movie was nominated in four Oscar categories: Best Picture, Visual Effects, Sound and Film Editing.
The film stars Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes, a washed-up F1 prodigy from the 1990s looking for redemption. In a sense, F1: The Movie is also a comeback for car movies; we haven’t seen an “automobile-forward” film nominated for Best Picture since 2019’s Ford v Ferrari.
That’s a shame because cars and movies belong together. Both technologies changed the way we experience speed, time and distance, and both came of age in the same era. In 1895, the Lumière brothers held the world’s first public film screening at Grand Cafe in Paris. In 1885, Karl Benz introduced the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, the world’s first practical automobile. By the 1920s, both movies and the automobile were mass market.
Which leads to the eternal question: What is the greatest car movie of all time?
Easy. Il Sorpasso. This 1962 road movie directed by comedic virtuoso Dino Risi is the greatest car movie of all time. Those living in the Toronto area can experience it in the cinema. On February 22, the Toronto Film Society presents it at the Paradise Theatre. My plan, obviously, is to be there.
Before I argue my case, allow me to acknowledge that, while lists of any kind summon outrage, lists of the best car movies summon maelstroms of venom. Take, for instance, Vulture’s list of “The 40 Greatest Car Movies Ever Made” which was first published in 2017 and is updated whenever another car classic arrives. Vulture has Taxi Driver as the greatest car movie ever made, followed by Mad Max Fury Road and Ferrari.
Conspicuously missing is Steve McQueen’s 1968 masterpiece Bullitt, which featured McQueen’s legendary Highland Green 1968 Ford Mustang GT fastback and some of the best driving ever filmed. Taxi Driver is a masterpiece but it’s a car movie in the same way that Titanic is a movie about boats. Mad Max: Fury Road should not be in the top 400 car movies. Ferrari was (and remains) tedious.
Il Sorpasso is a car movie that succeeds as a buddy comedy and searing social satire. The name comes from the verb “sorpassare” (to pass with an automobile) but has broader connotations of “besting” or leaving someone behind. It was titled “The Easy Life” when released in North America to play on the earlier success of La Dolce Vita.
Il Sorpasso stars Vittorio Gassman as Bruno Cortona, a wayward lothario brimming with braggadocio driving a beat-up 1958 Lancia Aurelia B24 convertible. Desperate to find a telephone during the August 15 Ferragosto holiday, Bruno encounters bookish law student Roberto Mariani (Jean-Louis Trintignant). Bruno takes Roberto (who neither drinks nor smokes) for a cocktail, which turns into a two-day road trip up the Via Aurelia from Rome toward the holiday villas of Tuscany.
Film critic Phillip Lopate notes that Il Sorpasso “testifies to the Italian love affair with the car, during the boom years, as a way to satisfy restless nervous energy and provide the illusion of getting ahead.”
The film is powered by magnetic performances. Gassman plays Bruno’s rapacious appetite for women, food and sensation as cover for an uneasy spiritual dread. The Lancia Aurelia B24 convertible, meanwhile, becomes Roberto’s cocoon. “I could spend my whole life here,” he says. “Or at least two hours.”
In fact, the Lancia Aurelia B24 convertible is the film’s other star. Bruno and Roberto spend almost half the movie driving. Bruno drives like he lives, recklessly and scornfully. They push forward, driving to the next sensation, never staying long enough for real feeling to set in.
“I like nothing more than driving,” Bruno says. “It relaxes me. I’ll go anywhere, as long as I’m driving.” The automobile helps Roberto emerge from his introversion. He says, “Bruno, I’ve spent the two best days of my life with you.” The pair are infatuated, in separate ways, by the illusion that driving creates; that by speeding forward, by pursuing and overtaking what’s in front of us, we are stopping time.
Ultimately, we see that no matter how fast you drive, there are some forces you can never overtake.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to state the film Il Sorpasso will be screened on February 22.