How 1967's 'Grand Prix' Ran So Brad Pitt's 'F1' Could Race!

Film is a collaborative medium, both on-set and by watching them. It’s an evolving landscape of skills and innovation. You can see the techniques and inspiration one film takes from another constantly. There’s the saying that no story is original, and a similar thing can be said about filmmaking. Take F1 for example. F1 which just came out in cinemas, is about Sonny Hayes coming back to Formula 1 racing in order to save a struggling Formula 1 team alongside the team’s hotshot rookie. F1 takes inspiration from both Top Gun films and Days Of Thunder in that it has the same story as Top Gun: Maverick, the same producing crew as Days Of Thunder and both Top Gun films, and the same director and cinematographer as Top Gun: Maverick, but it doesn't have Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie. This team, especially producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who’s been a part of each of the aforementioned films, has built upon what they did last. So much so that it’s basically a Days Of Thunder legacy sequel.

There is one film, though, that F1 absolutely wouldn’t be here without, and that is Grand Prix, which is director John Frankenheimer’s 1967 Formula 1 film that changed the way cars are shown in cinema forever. 

Grand Prix and F1 both dance this thin line between reality and fiction, not just in their simple naming conventions or the fact they both shot on real tracks and their actors drove with real racers of their respective eras, but because of Grand Prix’s -- and, in turn, F1's -- documentary-like aesthetic. See, in the past, cars were filmed using wide shots, and if they showed the driver, it was entirely via rear-projection in a studio. Grand Prix revolutionized the genre by mounting the cameras to the cars. It wasn’t the first to use camera mounts -- films like The Big Wheel (1949) used an early version that was attached near the tire, and Red Line 7000 (1965) used more dynamic camera movements but still used rear-projection when showing the driver’s seat. In those films, and a couple others that tried to do more, it ultimately felt like we were just watching along the sidelines. 

What director John Frankenheimer and cinematographer Lionel Lindon did to improve upon this was by using a documentary-style approach to add subjectivity to the racing scenes in order for audiences to feel immersed. The actors were actually in the race cars driving the tracks -- no rear-projection was used. Since this was about the lives of Formula 1 drivers, a huge part is the speed and danger of driving these death machines, so this was a critical creative choice by Frankenheimer in order to take this film and, in retrospect, racing filmmaking to a whole new level. 

The biggest aspect of Grand Prix that has influenced racing films in the ensuing decades is how they filmed the racing sequences. The camera is almost always in motion, allowing for speed to translate. The shot that Frankenheimer and Lindon return to repeatedly is the front car POV shot that’s just going forward. For example, this one-minute, uninterrupted shot:

Nothing even close to this at this scale had been done before. This was a huge flex at the time that the film came out. Frankenheimer shows off by not having any music or commentary over it -- only the sound of the engine and tires screeching. It’s a simple shot but one that’s exceptionally impressive even to this day. There are so many more impressive shots, like the front POV on the turn in Autodromo Nazionale Monza, or when the camera faces the driver at the top of the turn and slightly turns to James Garner passing him. They all hold up to this day because Frankenheimer and Lindon did the work to make it look as real as possible. 

Then when you look at F’, it’s clear how much of it would not be on the level it is if not for Grand Prix. Whenever a film is innovating, it’s easy to be impressive, and then it’s diminishing returns until someone builds on that and innovates it further. F1 was in a tricky position as it’s not the first Formula 1 film to use the actual tracks and drivers, not the first Jerry Bruckheimer Films foray into racing films, and not the first Joseph Kosinski film about an older mentor in a field helping the younger generation get their start. It’s coming second in the race. The shot F1 repeats frequently is the rotating onboard rig that spins from facing the racetrack to the driver’s face. It looks great; however, it’s just shy of reaching the heights of Grand Prix or even its opening, except for one moment at the end. During the last race in Abu Dhabi when Brad Pitt is securely in first place and enters his “flying zone”, the film finally pulls out the forward-facing car POV shot. It feels like we're flying with him. The fact they held off paying homage the most iconic shot from Grand Prix until the end is pure bliss. It's able to use what came before and pay respects in its own way by using it in the most powerful moment of the film. 

F1 is in theatres now. Grand Prix is available on VOD/Digital.