Review: ‘Race’ Chronicles Jesse Owens’s Rise to Olympic Glory

you really glossed over brundages collaboration with the nazis which was pretty clear to me (from the film). His interceding on behalf of a couple of jewish athletes was the result of pressure from the usa athletes. And then the matter of filming: Riefenstahl's own "pure filmaker self interest came across as a bit naive.

Nothing ever seems to be objective when written about race, gender and politics - make that prejudice. The reviewer writes when Owens became friends with a German athlete who helps him and hates the Nazis: "Although this dramatic moment almost feels too good to be true, it really took place." Why is it so inconceivable that among the 65 millions of Germans there were quite a few that were NOT only Nazis but detested them? My young father, an actor who later managed to escape the draft twice (with tricks) because he didn't want to wear a German uniform and kill people, happen to visit the Olympic Games and told me that the Games were so effectively and perfectly organized that the visitors from all over the world were besides themselves with enthusiasm and totally uncritical of National Socialism. The French even marched into the station with the "Hitler"-Gruss, arms stretched out - probably not even imagining that only 4 years later the Nazis would march into Paris!! So, yes it's all very complicated, even after 80 years! Maybe it helps to be better informed and educated when writing about history?

The film mentioned Mack Robinson ( a Silver Medalist in at least one of Owens's events) by name. Too bad they couldn't manage a way to mention that he was Jackie Robinson's older brother.

Before there was Jesse Owens, before there was Jackie Robinson, there was Marshall "Major" Taylor, who was the national and international sprint cycling champion at the turn of the last century. Taylor's story is little known and would make a terrific movie.

That the film was produced by a Canadian/German production company tells a hidden but no less compelling race story in that there are few if any blacks or other minorities involved behind the cameras in film production.

Race follows the usual pattern of most biopics about black triumphs in that it is white patronage that makes the production of such films possible. With no black or Hispanic film executives green lighting projects and precious few minorities working behind the cameras, white patronage is absolutely essential.

I enjoyed the movie and feel that in the limited time that it had to tell the story they got many good points across. However, I wish that they had added the sad saga that occurred directly after the Olympic Games

The American Olympic Committee needed funds so they booked America's best athletes in a series of meets across Europe directly after the Games. Owens, of course, was the big draw due to his 4 gold medals. He ran well in the first few meets. But poor living conditions and general fatigue caused him to bow out of the remainder. As a result the A.A.U. banned him from competing. This was not covered by the press and the general public was ignorant of this sorry story.

Reading the comments I am struck by the disconnect between Jesse Owens as a symbol of American values and the actual values which determined how badly he was treated in America because of his skin color. The same disconnect existed when men who owned slaves founded this nation on the inalienable rights of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". And still, as we witness police shootings of unarmed black people, and the disaster in Flint, we must recognize that disconnect remains and do all we can to bring it to an end.

Great review!

The story of the two Jewish athletes who never ran in the olympics including Marty Glickman the sports announcer is a shameful episode in thev1936 olympics. America should never have participated in this shameful Nazi spectacle.

It is unfortunate that, while focussing on only three years in his life, the Race movie did not, at least, have a postscript scene in which Jesse Owens in the mid-1960s at the OSU football stadium upon the introduction before tens of thousands of specters of his daughter as homecoming queen remarked over the PA system: “Only in America…..” A chill went up my spine then, as one of the spectators; as it does now as I recall that moment.

I read that Hitler wasn't in the stadium when Owens won his medals, Owens did not believe that Hitler had snubbed him. Hitler was told by the IOC that he had to congratulate all medal winners not just the Germans, so after the first day he did not bother. The Germans topped the medal table in 1936 and obtained their propaganda victory.

Owens when he returned to the US found it hard to find a hotel room in New York and had to enter the Waldorf by the back entrance. None of the sponsorship deals he was promised came through. The US was a segregated society at the time and claiming that Owens was running for freedom is disingenuous.

I would have hoped that the forced non-participation of the great Marty Glickman would have been shown. Marty was Jewish and was told by American coaches that he could not run for fear of offending the nazi hosts. The anti-Semitism was as disgusting and feckless as the racism that is portrayed in this film.

Because Mr. Holden only provides facts about the movies and few opinions, I 'm assuming the movie is not very good. I know this is a sensitive time for race and cinema, but journalism should have enough salt to let us know when a movie is just mediocre so that we aren't required to read between the lines. "standard," "least-challenging," "safe," "efficient."

And, think about seeing these movies which enrich this time period: Rosenwald, The Secret Game and From Swastika to Jim Crow. These all get at racial and religious discrimination in that dangerous era --- with the rise of Hitler. In some ways, some important ways, these stories are intertwined. I, too. will see this movie even if it is not perfect. Remembering is important too.

Two problems with Mr Holden's review:

1) How does the film "[confine] its time span to ... 1934-1936" and at the same time begin in a "Cleveland [slum]" in 1922, "follow[ing] him through high school to Ohio St Univ," and the birth of his daughter in 1932? Ya can't have it both way, Stevie.

2) I find Mr Holden's persistent aborrhence of Gus Van Sant's "Finding Forrester" both incomprehensible and increasingly distasteful. it's not "Citizen Kane," but it ain't "Ishtar" neither. Given nearly all of his colleagues listed it in their top ten of the year, and movie audiences gave it an auspicious "A+" CinemaScore, perhaps he should revisit the movie with less of an arthropod in his distal digestive tract.

Biopics often end with onscreen notes at the end. Citing how FDR did not have him at the White House (which '36 athletes were?) and continued dealing with continued racism at home would be important.

FYI the Luz-Long-helping-Owens story was probably a myth - Owens said he kept telling the story because it was the one people wanted to hear. Owens and Long didn't meet until after the games.

Any long jumper knows how to change his mark in order to qualify - that's basic stuff. Advising someone that would be incredibly patronizing in high school, let alone the Olympic Games.

My father sat behind Jessie Owens (alphabetical order seating dad was 'S') in a handful of classes at Ohio State. He said Jessie was a very pleasant and unassuming guy.

I will go see the movie.

When I first heard of the making of the movie, I knew that the myth of Hitler ignoring Owens would be a key part. This never happened. The athlete that was supposedly 'snubbed' by Hitler was Cornelius Johnson on the previous day. HItler was asked by the Olympic Committee to 'lay low' to avoid politicizing the events. Owens claims that he and Hitler had a moment where Hitler shook his hand. The German crowds embraced Owens' feats with 'ear shattering ovations.' Owens' accomplishments did nothing to diminish the Germans' as they won more medals than any other country and those Olympics were a public relations coup for Hitler (at that time). Ironically, Riefenstahl's film probably gives a more accurate portrayal of those Olympics than this film supposes to with its fundamental inaccuracy.

I'm interested in seeing this film, but I wish they had paid more attention to the negotiations between Goebbels and Brundage over the "limited participation of Jewish athletes." There's no doubt this was an incendiary stage on which to place the Olympics, but I'd like the full story to be told.

I saw the movie and liked it for what it was: a timely moment in history when a black American won 4 gold medals at the Berlin Olympics under Hitler. I don't think a 3 hour movie would have been able to tackle the complexity of Jesse Owens' lifetime. The movie is as much about dedication, politics, racism and the pride show of strenght of a democracy and its ugly side. Race tackles racism that still plagues us today... I do find it a little ironic though that no one had done a movie on Jesse Owens and that it had to be a Canada-Germany coproduction behind it.

Finding Forrester is Hollywood hokum to be sure, a chance for Sean Connery to play the Great White Emancipator of a young black man's spirit. But to say the movie is "an offensive low point in Hollywood's hypocritical portrayal of race" is hyperbole. There are many lower points that are much more offensive, including the film that gave us the film grammar we still use to this day, Birth of a Nation.

"By confining its time span to only three years, from 1934 to 1936, the movie ... doesn’t look beyond Owens’s rise and moment of glory when he was 22. (He died in 1980.)" Thanks for this observation. Owens was reduced to racing horses to make ends meet. His moment of glory was just that: a moment. Too bad the film didn't take a longer view and provide a stronger commentary on the treatment of African American athletes.

How was "Finding Forrester" a hypocritical portrayal?

Stephen Holden fails to mention that the director of the "acclaimed two part film" Olympia, Leni Riefenstahl, was a dyed in the wool Nazi. She liked to claim that she detested Hitler and the politics of the Nazi movement.

As a member of the OSS during and after the war, my father had the "privledge" to interview her and assured the US government that her belief in Nazism was strong indeed.

If “Race” does an efficient job of clarifying the issues, at no point do you feel that this is the whole story in all its complexity. Leni Riefenstahl (Carice van Houten), the free-spirited German filmmaker whose acclaimed two-part 1938 film “Olympia” documents the 1936 Games, flits in and out of the movie, yet the friction between her and the suspicious Goebbels is palpable.

Riefenstahl’s presence points up the visual flat-footedness that is the movie’s biggest flaw. The poetry found in her film is absent in the racing and jumping scenes in “Race,” and the movie’s overall palette is prosaic verging on drab.

The movie previews make Mr. Owens sound uneducated. I located several clips online and he spoke very eloquently. Another dumbing down of a great American has occurred. #shameful #amerikkka

If we're going to have fact-based movies about heroic black Americans who challenged the system and triumphed over the odds at a time when racism was rather more blatant than it is now, how about someone doing a bio-pic about the late, great Paul Robeson, a somewhat more "difficult" figure who did much the same thing? It seems as though the white studio executives who run the movie industry are eager to produce films about solitary and appreciative black men whose story arcs fit comfortably within the conventional Hollywood mold. Mr. Robeson, on the other hand, remained angry and defiant during his own triumphant career: not the kind of person you'd invite to Hollywood dinner parties or could easily extol via a multi-million dollar biopic. Seems like an obvious subject for a Spike Lee "joint." No one else is likely to commit.