This essay,
Not Your
"Business As Usual"
Motor Racing Film,
is a film review of
Today Is For The Championship*
(1980) directed by Dan Weisburd and produced by Daniel Miller.
This review first appeared in The New York Times movies section on
Saturday November 12, 2011, then again on
IMDb.com
on Wednesday October 29, 2015.
It is also the fourth in a group of seven
Reviews:
I am indebted to Dan Weisburd and to Daniel Miller and to Peter
Smokler and to James Oliver and to Buddy Collette and to Robert Eber
who inspired this conversation.
Contrary to what superficial glances may conclude, this
extraordinary
film isn't about motor racing. It actually has more for organizational
theorists,
business consultants,
and team coaches than for motor racing enthusiasts.
Its focus on the United States Gold Cup motor racing circuit and Werner
Erhard's dramatic success as a rookie race car driver in it in the late
1970s, is secondary. Of primary interest is the
Breakthrough
Racing research project which is what this film is really
about.
The inquiry in this film is "What makes teams
work?".
A medium in which Werner Erhard has no natural skills (race car
driving) was chosen so that, in the unfolding of the project, it could
be noted and documented what it really takes to have a team come
together in unfamiliar territory, and
work
regardless.
This film isn't your
"business as usual"
motor racing film. You may have to watch it twice - in case you miss
the subtlety of what it's really about, the first time.
It's
extraordinarily
moving, completely "out there", and given its obvious inherent dangers,
daring, courageous, and brave.
*
Today Is For The Championship
is no longer in circulation.
