The Ferrari wikipage has a section about the genesis of the project, and right at the top it says that director Michael Mann “first began exploring making Ferrari around 2000, having discussed the project with Sydney Pollack.”

This suggests why the late David Rayfiel, the screenwriting “colorist” who worked on several respected Pollack films (The Way We Were, Three Days of the Condor, The Firm) as an uncredited “pinch hit” guy…it suggests why Rayfiel, who died 12 years ago, has an IMDB credit for “additional literary credit” on Ferrari.

Having just noticed this credit, a friend asked me if I heard Rayfiel’s voice while watching Ferrari.

HE reply: “I could not hear David’s voice — not in the same way I’ve heard his voice in all those Pollack films. But what do I know?”

“JBM” in HE comment thread: “Mann was the final writer, combining two scripts by the late Troy Kennedy Martin (died in ’09) and Rayfiel (died in ’11). But Martin did the heavy lifting.”

Fair HE Statement: Even in the tragic and traumatic here-and-now, it’s not anti-Semitic to explain or acknowledge the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Familiar quote: “If the Arabs were to to put down their weapons, there would be peace. If the Jews were to put down their weapons, there’d be no more Jews in the Middle East.”

Funny: “I think we need to shut down Harvard University until we figure out what the hell’s going on.”