[With my older son in the midst of his high school cross-country season, and both sons gearing up for their next seasons of indoor and then outdoor track, running has become a huge part of this AmericanStudier’s life these days. But it’s long been part of both my life and America overall, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy different sides of running, leading up to a very special Guest Post from one of those aforementioned youthful AmericanStudiers!]
On a telling
storytelling difference between the two late 90s Prefontaine movies.
There are
plenty of impressive American sports stories, plenty of inspiring ones, and
plenty of tragic ones, but I’m not sure any such story combines all three of
those modes more clearly or in a more condensed period of time than the story
of Steve
“Pre” Prefontaine. One of the first internationally acclaimed and
successful American distance runners, Prefontaine achieved a striking series of
milestones in the few years after the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics
(at which he competed as a 21 year old, amidst a collegiate career at
the University of Oregon in which he never lost a cross-country race and
was only beaten twice in any events, both in the mile). That amazing stretch
included his setting American
records at every distance from 2000 to 10,000 meters over those few years,
with his 13:21.9 in the 5K at the 1974
World Games a particularly stunning result. And then in May 1975, when a
still only 24 year old Prefontaine was deep into his training for the 1976
Olympics, he was tragically killed in a
single-car accident near his home in Eugene, Oregon.
Prefontaine’s
legacy has lived on for the nearly fifty years since his death, including in a
famous 10K road
race that bears his name and is run every September in his hometown of Coos Bay,
Oregon. But in pop culture specifically, there was one interesting late 90s
moment when two competing films brought Prefontaine more prominently into the
public eye: 1997’s Prefontaine (starring Jared Leto as
Pre) and 1998’s Without Limits (starring Billy Crudup). [AmericanStudies aside: I’ve long been
fascinated by the trend of competing movies on a very similar subject that are
released very close together, and the 90s were particularly prone to that
phenomenon; note for example the
dueling 1997 volcano films, Dante’s
Peak and Volcano!] Without Limits is certainly better
known, likely because it was written and directed by the great Robert Towne and co-starred Donald Sutherland
in an acclaimed performance as Prefontaine’s coach
Bill Bowerman (later a co-founder of Nike); but as ever, I think an
additive approach, putting these texts in conversation, is especially illuminating.
There are
plenty of expected parallels between the two films, particularly in their
depictions of both Pre and Bowerman (played by Tommy Lee Jones in Prefontaine). But there’s also a really
interesting and telling difference in the films’ structures and uses of perspective:
Without Limits focuses closely on
Prefontaine and Bowerman and their relationship; while Prefontaine uses two relatively supporting characters, Assistant
Coach Bill Dellinger (Ed O’Neill) and Pre’s girlfriend Nancy Alleman (Amy
Locane), as the principal lenses on the runner and his story. To this viewer at
least, that distinction means that Prefontaine
is more interested in images and narratives of Pre, in how he was perceived and
his meanings for those around him (within but also outside of the sports world);
while Without Limits is a somewhat
more conventional sports story, interested in groundbreaking athletic
achievements and the coach who was instrumental to them. Both those lenses have
a lot to tell us about why and how an individual athlete like Steve Prefontaine
becomes an enduring presence in and out of sports, so lace up your running
shoes and cue up a double feature!
Next
RunningStudying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Running connections or contexts you’d share?
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