Prefontaine (film)

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Prefontaine
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Steve James
Produced by	Mark Doonan Peter Gilbert Shelly Glasser Jon Lutz Irby Smith
Written by	Steve James Eugene Corr
Starring	Jared Leto R. Lee Ermey
Music by	Mason Daring
Cinematography	Peter Gilbert
Editing by	Peter Frank
Distributed by	Hollywood Pictures
Release date(s)	January 24, 1997
Running time	107 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$8,000,000 (estimated)
Gross revenue	$532,190
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

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 stars Jared Leto as the title character.

Most of the movie was filmed at the University of Puget Sound campus in Tacoma, Washington. Peyton Field was redecorated to resemble Hayward Field at the University of Oregon.

[edit] 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 by Warner 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 including Jared Leto as Prefontaine, Ed O'Neil as Bill Dellinger and R. 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 of Bill Bowerman with Dellinger as a minor character and Mary Marcks, 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 by Donald Sutherland and is given guru 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.