While the very last film Sergio Leone was said to have worked on was the Italian comedy Troppo Forte –for which he contributed as a co-writer and apparently as director of the film’s final scene– it turns out that his final full work as a director was a car commercial!
Following Once Upon A Time in America in 1984, the director was contracted to make a commercial for Renault 18, a French station wagon that ran on diesel. As you might imagine, the commercial is actually quite fantastic, and features awesome music from Ennio Morricone…
Feature film directors working on commercials is a long tradition that continues today, while Hollywood often finds their new directing talent in the commercial world. You can call it “selling out” but director’s have funded many a great project from commercial checks, especially when Coke or Ford are happy to shell out as big a check as the filmmaker might get in ten years off another feature where the pie is carved up with more people for longer. And with commercials necessitating expedited delivery of imagery and information, many director’s have had their skills put to the test by advertisements, where every decision is down to the exact frame.
In any event, if you have more details from the story of this ad, feel free to share them in the comments.
thanks to r/KillGoombas