- Prefontaine (film)
Infobox Film
name = Prefontaine
caption = Theatrical release poster
director = Steve James
producer = Mark Doonan
Peter Gilbert
Shelly Glasser
Jon Lutz
Irby Smith
writer = Steve James
Eugene Corr
starring =Jared Leto R. Lee Ermey
music =Mason Daring
cinematography = Peter Gilbert
editing = Peter Frank
distributor =Hollywood Pictures
released =January 24 , 1997
runtime = 107 minutes
country = USA
language = English
budget = $8,000,000 (estimated)
gross = $532,190
website =
amg_id = 1:154548
imdb_id = 0119937"Prefontaine" is a 1997 film documenting the life of the American long-distance track athlete
Steve Prefontaine . It was written by Steve James and Eugene Corr and directed by Steve James, and starsJared Leto as the title character.Most of the movie was filmed at the
University of Puget Sound campus inTacoma, Washington .Peyton Field was redecorated to resembleHayward Field at theUniversity of Oregon .Comparison to Without Limits
The film is often compared to "
Without Limits ", a similar movie on Prefontaine's life that was released a year later byWarner Brothers . While the two films both focus on the same events, the Disney Film tells the story from the point of view of the assistant coach who was with him day-to-day,Bill Dellinger , and Prefontaine's girlfriend at the time of his death, Nancy Alleman. It has a cast includingJared Leto as Prefontaine,Ed O'Neil as Bill Dellinger andR. Lee Ermey as Bill Bowerman. Siskel and Ebert reviewed it and gave it two thumbs up."Without Limits" was produced by
Tom Cruise and told from the point of view ofBill Bowerman with Dellinger as a minor character and Mary Marckx, who was a previous girlfriend of Prefontaine while at Oregon. In this film there is no Nancy Alleman and Mary is his girlfriend all the way through. Bowerman is played byDonald Sutherland and is givenguru status, whereas Ermey had portrayed Bowerman as more of a hard-line general-type.In both films, Prefontaine is shown as headstrong and difficult to coach. Bowerman did remain active with the Oregon program and with Prefontaine after his retirement.
External links
*imdb title|id=0119937|title=Prefontaine
* [http://www.moviesmackdown.com/2008/08/without-limits.html "Without Limits -vs- Prefontaine"] at [http://www.moviesmackdown.com Movie Smackdown]
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