JohnsonsEvilTwin wrote:Paints him in a far better light than the documentary or the way my elders remember him. "The best decision is MY decision" quote gives you all you need to know about the guy.
Aaaand just like the creators of the film you decided to omit a little bit of context here to paint a better picture, to make a point.
"The best decision is MY decision".... "...my decision is...*dramatic pause* democratic vote". That's how it continued (it's in the film). So if that quote tells us anything, it's that the b**tard had a dark sense of humour, nothing else.
So even though they didn't cut that particular bit out of context, with your post you nicely illustrated my gripe with the film.
I think, if you're trying to make a point regardless if it's the right one or not, you don't 'plant the evidence'. It's a good documentary only as long as it's 100% real and not manipulated with. And every side of the story must be told. At least one should try.
'Senna' is a docu-drama by a couple of guys who initially wanted to make a feature film, but decided against it and went for some real footage, which didn't change their attitude to what they were doing at all. They wanted to 'tell the story' as they saw it, in a super-hero Hollywood movie style, but using all period footage.
*spoilers below*
An extraordinary young lad comes to Europe all on his own to race go-carts. All of a sudden he's making his debut in F1 (they actually made it look like Monaco was his first race) and only the evil Balestre (aka mr. Crossbows 
), who apparently hated Senna before he was even born, stops the race just to prevent him from winning on his debut. It's made clear that cars flying off the track while doing laps +30sec slower than on the dry wasn't a valid reason to red flag the race.
Suddenly there's a mention of Senna possibly going to Lotus next year. Right after that thought he's at McLaren fighting for the title with Prost.
So then goes the story of Senna vs Prost (or more like Senna vs the World of F1). Apparently the whole world is against him. And Ayrton "with his love of truth wasn't in tune" with the politics of the sport. (In the original script that line must have been written in cheese).
etc etc etc
Perhaps the only moment where an uninformed viewer would doubt the untarnished holiness of the hero would be the is-it-because-I'm-black kind of moment with Jackie Stewart effectively being told to shut up, because whatever anyone says is frickin' irrelevant to someone who won more poles and races.
It's a great story well put together. But even with very little knowledge of F1 history I have, I didn't buy it for a second. It is not a documentary, but it's good film. If anything it made me search for facts and find out things that I probably wouldn't otherwise.
PS: oh and it has some spectacular scenes that you should see whatever you think about Senna or docudramas, some funny scenes too. And some good very appropriate music.
