Leadership contains certain elements of good management, but it requires that you inspire, that you build durable trust. For an organization to be not just good but to win, leadership means evoking participation larger than the job description, commitment deeper than any job contract’s wording. Stanley McChrystal

We saw two – slightly fictionalized – biographical movies the last couple of nights; one on a black icon, Harriet Tubman, and one on a good ol’ boy white icon, Carroll Shelby. The movies couldn’t be more the same in many ways or more different. Both movies are true stories of the American journey, slightly fictionized for more drama, and both used actors that bore a resemblance to the real people, other than that, they are as different as their black and white characters.

Harriet, the Tubman movie, was good but not as good as I had hoped, more like a very good classroom film for social studies class than a rip-roaring thriller (although her life was a real rip-roaring thriller). Part of the problem is that we know the ending, part of the problem is that the movie is much more subtle than Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave – and I, we, have become jaded – and part of the problem is we saw it in an almost empty theater. Still, it is a movie I recommend if not super enthusiastically.

For starters, Harriet Tubman is a real American hero. In General Stanly McCrystal’s book, Leaders: Myth and Reality – which the quote at the top comes from – Tubman is one of the examples he uses. She not only escaped from slavery, but she also went back into slave-country to help others escape. Over and over again. Most of the movie takes place before the Civil War and, while many owners saw the war coming, the slaves really had no idea, they only knew that trying to escape was a high-risk venture, a risk that most men wouldn’t take. In many ways, this is a more revolutionary film than it will get credit for, this is a black film with a black sensibility and, while there are white people involved with the Underground Railroad, Tubman is clearly responsible for her own manumission (or emancipation, if you prefer).

Ford vs. Ferrari, the Carroll Shelby movie, is really a movie about friendship, between Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles. They, along with a lot of other people not in the movie, built a racing car that became its own American icon, the Ford GT40, that went on to beat the Ferraris at Le Mans. Michele loved this movie and when I asked her why she said that it had everything; a friendship story, a father-son story, and a rivalry story between Henry Ford the Second and Enzo Ferrari. Like Harriet, I liked Ford vs. Ferrari but not as much as I had hoped. I think that might be because I am too close to the subject. Michele thought it was terrific and, while she is a car person, she didn’t know much or particularly care about the GT40 story. One rave review I read referred to the Mustang as a sports car so I’m inclined to think that even though the movie has lots of cars and racing, it isn’t really a car person’s movie, it’s just a good people movie. Sitting here, thinking about it, there is a lot of good car stuff in this movie, not the least of which is Matt Daman driving around in a 427 Cobra with its almost orgasmic V8 bark.

As an aside, when we first planned to go to Harriet, it was playing in San Mateo but a week later, it was only playing at 10:30, so we went to the Century Theater at Tanforan in San Bruno, where it was playing three times. As an aside to the aside, Tanforan was a horse racing track when I was a young kid and, during the early stages of World War II, it was used as a holding area for Japanese-Americans being rounded up before they were sent to more permanent Concentration Camps in the boondocks (like Manzanar in the Owens Valley or heart Mountain in Wyoming). Now it’s a shopping mall. End aside to the aside. San Bruno is not as wealthy an area as San Mateo and it is disturbing that the people of San Mateo lost interest before the people in San Bruno. There were a lot of trailers before Harriet and all but one were for black movies I hadn’t heard of. That makes me a little sad. End aside.