It’s been 13 years since ‘Senna’ graced the theatres and captured the imagination of a new generation of Formula One fans.
The BAFTA-winning documentary also reminded those lucky enough to watch the Brazilian racer live what an iconic talent he was behind the wheel, as well as such as lovable character away from the track.
Director Asif Kapadia worked tirelessly trying to capture and portray what made the late Ayrton Senna so unforgettable, managing to shrink his story down to around 100 minutes of pure drama.
The project took six years from when Asif was first brought on board in 2004 to when it was released, largely due to the amount of archive footage that had to be meticulously scanned through. It proved worthwhile, though, as still to this day, it truly touches many of those who are either watching it for the first time knowing nothing about F1 and Senna’s story, or those who have reached double figures for viewings.
READ MORE: 'There was a darker side to Michael Schumacher – we didn't always see eye-to-eye'
While ‘Senna’ was told in chronological form without narration or modern-day interviews, unlike how many documentaries are done now, the film ‘Schumacher’ from 2021, which was released on Netflix, did move between periods of time in telling the German’s story.
Crucially, Michael Schumacher’s tale remains unfinished, and the privacy surrounding his battle with ill-health since his skiing accident back in 2013 makes it all the more fascinating for fans to know behind-the-scenes details – such as rare interviews with his wife, Corrina.
The documentary gained plenty of praise, but wasn’t hailed as much as a masterpiece as Senna – with Asif later going on to direct the Oscar-winning Amy, which told the life of troubled singer Amy Winehouse, and then returning to sport with Maradona, who died after its release.
Who was the better Formula One racer – Ayrton Senna or Michael Schumacher? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
While the story around Schumacher – very much to this day – is no doubt a fascinating one, it’s not necessarily something Asif has an interest in exploring, despite his love for F1 and, in particular, another former Ferrari icon in Senna.
Asif admitted he still has not seen the Netflix-distributed documentary, and while attending a recent screening of Senna at The Garden Cinema in London, Asif revealed he could have been at the very heart of that project – in which case we may have seen a whole other side to Schumacher’s past and present life.
He told Daily Star Sport: “They did contact me. I know Jean Todt, I know quite a few people that were in Ferrari at the time.
"I kind of had a little nudge from Jean Todd’s partner Michelle Yeoh. I’d done a film with her before. I did get a little message saying ‘would you be interested?’ I should be honest, I wasn’t. I, I have to be honest.
“What I like about this era is the best car drivers and the best car racing each other. What I find terribly boring is one great driver is like ‘I want a s*** team mate so I can win everything’. I don't see the point of that, which is what I think the most boring eras of formula one are like. We have that right now, where you have one person with all the best tech and everything. And then even when they don't win, they'll switch the rules on the last lap, which was a load of bollocks…
“I wasn't a huge fan (of Schumacher), I'll be honest.”
Having covered Ayrton Senna and Diego Maradona – two of sport’s great characters – is there anyone else Asif would turn to in the future?
“The characters kind of come and go,” he continued. “But there's not many where the person and the film really motivated me, almost kind of subconsciously or even then eventually consciously, was ‘When We Were Kings’, the Muhammad Ali film, which I remember seeing when I was a student at the Empire Leicester Square, and I was a big Ali fan.
“So that film and the way that doc kind of played him and picked a particular moment and that rumble in the jungle section of his life was really one of the sports films and one of the characters that made me think ‘if I make a film, Senna, I wanted it to feel like that, I wanna kind of like be moved by seeing Muhammad Ali in his peak and enjoying seeing him in the most beautiful way’.
“And also knowing, I know people have tried, but no actor can ever be a better Muhammad Ali than Muhammad Ali. No one can be Ayrton Senna better than Ayrton Senna. No one’s gonna look as good as him, no one’s gonna talk like him, no one’s gonna have his accent, and also drive like him. So that's him driving, you know, it's not someone pretending. So anyway, Muhammad Ali was the person I always thought in the past – I haven't quite figured out yet who’s next.”
Laughing, he admitted: “There's not many that I kind of would want to spend that much time on in the same way.”
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