Race

Stephan James Director: Stephen Hopkins Stephen Hopkins

Overview

This drama based on true events focuses on legendary black athlete Jesse Owens (Stephan James) and his inspiring journey to overcome racism at home and abroad, culminating in his triumphant track-and-field performance at the 1936 Berlin Olympics under the tutelage of gruff Ohio State coach Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis). At the same time, Owens also contends with a rivalry with German competitor Carl "Luz" Long (David Kross), while Olympic committee members Jeremiah Mahoney (William Hurt) and Avery Brundage (Jeremy Irons) deal with Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels (Barnaby Metschurat) and his desire to make the Games a celebration of Aryan supremacy. Carice van Houten co-stars as controversial filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. Directed by Stephen Hopkins. ~ Violet LeVoit

Product Details

Release Date:	05/31/2016
UPC:	0025192315343
Original Release:	2016
Rating:	PG-13
Source:	Universal Studios
Region Code:	1
Time:	2:15:00
Sales rank:	19,730

Special Features

The Making of Race; Becoming Jesse Owens; The Owens Sisters

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Stephan James	Jesse Owens
Jason Sudeikis	Larry Snyder
Jeremy Irons	Avery Brundage
Carice van Houten	Leni Riefenstahl
Shanice Banton	Ruth Solomon
William Hurt	Jeremiah Mahoney
David Kross	Carl "Luz" Long
Jonathan Higgins	Dean Cromwell
Tony Curran	Lawson Robertson
Amanda Crew	Peggy
Barnaby Metschurat	Josef Goebbels
Chantel Riley	Quincella
Vlasta Vrana	St-John
Shamier Anderson	Eulace Peacock
Jesse Bostick	Ken Seitz
Moe Jeudy-Lamour	Mel Walker
Gaetan Normandin	Frank Wykoff
Jacob Andrew Kerr	Foy Draper
Dondre Octave	Ralph Metcalfe
Jeremy Ferdman	Marty Glickman
Giacomo Gianniotti	Sam Stoller
Tim McInnerny	Charles Sherrill
Jonathan Aris	Alfred J. Lill
Nicholas Woodeson	Fred Rubien
Larry Day	Francis Schmidt (Football Coach)
Jon McLaren	Trent (Ohio Quarterback)
Michele Lonsdale Smith	Emma Owens (Mother)
Andrew Moodie	Henry Owens (Father)
Adrian Zwicker	Adolf Hitler
Bruno Bruni	Hans Ertl
Marcus Bluhm	Wolfgang Furstner
Glynn Turman	Harry Davis
Manuel Sinor	Starter Franz Miller
Anthony Sherwood	Reverend Ernest Hall
Justus Carrière	Carl Diem
Karl Graboshas	Adolf Dassler
Daniel Harroch	Desk Clerk (Nebraska Hotel)
Matthew Keyes	Reporter
Steffan Mennekes	Reporter
Ricky Watson	Reporter
Frank Schorpion	Doorman
Milo Larratt	Kid (in Hotel Commodore Elevator)
Anian Zollner	Hans Vons Tschammer
Eric Davis	Official (Ferry Field)
Tim Post	Phil Diamond (Head Timer Ferry Field)
John MacLaren	Announcer (Ferry Field)
James R. Murray	Brownshirt
Matthias Gunther	Brownshirt
Stefan Langel	Brownshirt
Arthur Holden	Rudolf Dassler,Announcer (Radio & USC)
Lucinda Davis	Beauty Parlor Boss
Jaa Smith-Johnson	Sylvester Owens (Brother)
Rodney Ramsey	Henry Jr. Owens (Brother)
Hank Palmer	Quincy Owens (Brother)
Jacquy Bidjeck	Laverne Owens (Sister)
Yvanna-Rose Leblanc	Gloria Owens (4 Years Old)
Kayla Stewart	Gloria Owens (2 1/2 Years Old)
Jeff Burrell	US Radio Announcer
Kimberly Youance	Local Girl #1
Andrea Carter	Local Girl #2
Michael Bornhütter	Jewish Man
Jana Reinhardt	Jewish Woman
Aiza Ntibarikure	Jazz Singer
Carlo Mestroni	Announcer (Boxing Match)
Eli Goree	Dave Albritton

Technical Credits

Joe Shrapnel

Anna Waterhouse

Stephen Hopkins	Director,Producer
Pierre-Jules Audet	Sound/Sound Designer
Solly Azar	Associate Producer
David Brisbin	Production Designer
Jonathan Bronfman	Executive Producer
Karsten Brunig	Producer
Christophe Charlier	Associate Producer
Louis Craig	Special Effects Supervisor
Mario Davignon	Costumes/Costume Designer
Luc Dayan	Producer
Jean Eichenlaub	Associate Producer
Morgan Emmery	Associate Producer
Jean Gagnon	Set Decoration/Design
David Garrett	Executive Producer
Kate Garwood	Producer
Stephanie Gorin	Casting
Francois Hogue	Production Manager
Intrigue	Special Effects
Claude La Haye	Sound Mixer
Jose Lacelle	Production Manager
Jean Charles Levy	Producer
Peter Levy	Cinematographer
Sarah Macdonald	Executive Producer
Nicolas Manuel	Producer
Eliot Mathews	Asst. Director
Morgan Menahem	Associate Producer
Louis-Simon Menard	Executive Producer
Julie Mignot	Makeup
Al Munteanu	Executive Producer
Andreas Olshausen	Art Director
Jean-Pierre Paquet	Art Director
Lucille Parenteau	Set Decoration/Design
Guy Pigeon	Set Decoration/Design
Jan-Fryderyk Pleszczynski	Executive Producer
Rachel Portman	Score Composer
Thierry Potok	Executive Producer
Louis-Philippe Rochon	Producer
Andreas Ruft	Sound Mixer
Daniel Sauvé	Camera Operator
Valeska Schitthelm	Makeup
Dominique Seguin	Producer
Joe Shrapnel	Screenwriter
Mark Slone	Executive Producer
Suzanne M. Smith	Casting
John Smith	Editor
Patrick Teng	Executive Producer
Paul Teng	Executive Producer
Anna Waterhouse	Screenwriter

Scene Index

Disc #1 -- Race
1. Scene 1 [5:30]
2. Scene 2 [8:18]
3. Scene 3 [7:34]
4. Scene 4 [10:21]
5. Scene 5 [6:14]
6. Scene 6 [6:46]
7. Scene 7 [6:25]
8. Scene 8 [5:17]
9. Scene 9 [4:36]
10. Scene 10 [2:37]
11. Scene 11 [6:00]
12. Scene 12 [6:01]
13. Scene 13 [3:48]
14. Scene 14 [8:05]
15. Scene 15 [6:11]
16. Scene 16 [5:54]
17. Scene 17 [7:32]
18. Scene 18 [4:44]
19. Scene 19 [5:23]
20. Scene 20 [8:02]
21. Scene 21 [8:52]

Menu

Disc #1 -- Race
   Play
   Scenes
   Bonus
      The Making Of Race
      Becoming Jesse Owens
      The Owens Sisters
   Setup
      Subtitles
         English SDH*
         Español
         Français
         Subtitles: Off
   Previews
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         Dallas Buyers Club
         Closed Circuit

Editorial Reviews

The first, fateful meeting between Ohio State freshman Jesse Owens (Stephan James) and head track coach Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis) doesn't go swimmingly. Segregation etiquette demands that the Alabama-born Owens not make eye contact with the white man who's called him into his office to discuss his place on the university's track team. Snyder will have none of that. "Your mother didn't teach you right," he snaps with characteristic bluntness. "She should have taught you to look a man in the eye." Snyder doesn't need an athlete on his team who's too cowed by racism to live up to the extraordinary talent he demonstrated during that afternoon's practice. The 1936 Olympics in Berlin are only a few years away, and Snyder knows gold-medal material when he sees it. Can this freshman meet that promise? Owens' marathon journey from college jock to immortal Olympian in just a few short years is the main thrust of Race, a journey made even more difficult by the symbolic nature of the Olympic Games he's about to enter. Berlin in 1936 is actively hostile toward nonwhites, and Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels (Barnaby Metschurat) is intent on making the event a pageant of Aryan supremacy. This does not go unnoticed by the members of the International Olympic Committee, who are divided as to how to proceed; Jeremiah Mahoney (William Hurt) advocates for a boycott in response, while Avery Brundage (Jeremy Irons) argues that the Games are a celebration of human achievement that should remain unsullied by political protests (even if they're against Nazism). Biographies of athletes usually expend most of their blood, sweat, and tears on the scenes of punishing training rituals, but this movie makes it clear that being a great runner was the easiest of Owens' challenges. He also has to contend with not only earning money for a daughter and fiancée (Shanice Banton) back home, weathering the insults of Jim Crow America, and resisting the temptations of fame, but also riding out the repercussions of talks between Goebbels and Leni Riefenstahl (Carice van Houten) over how prominent a role he should be allowed for the Olympics' publicity. In addition, Owens must deal with Brundage's backroom deals with the Nazis regarding the management of the Games, his rivalry with German golden boy Luz Long (David Kross), and the side drama of whether Jewish-American athletes Marty Glickman (Jeremy Ferdman) and Sam Stoller (Giacomo Gianniotti) will be barred from competition. Although the whole movie feels like a track-and-field competition, with several different events vying for space on a crowded stadium field, for the most part the ambitious screenplay by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse does justice to all of these subplots. Race's biggest problem lies in its miscasting. Stephan James is a fast runner, but he doesn't have the charisma as a leading man to carry an entire film. William Hurt and Jeremy Irons can do better than the lethargic old men they play here, and Dutch sex kitten Carice van Houten portrays Leni Riefenstahl as spunky instead of steel-willed (Barnaby Metschurat fares even worse, interpreting Goebbels as a surly skinhead pouting his way through the Third Reich). Shanice Banton, on the other hand, is well cast as Owens' dimpled girl-next-door sweetheart, but it's Jason Sudeikis who really steals the movie. His Coach Snyder is a hard-drinking and tart-edged man, but with a corn-fed, Midwestern decency that only surfaces when we learn how his own Olympic dreams were thwarted, and how badly he wants them for Owens in his stead. Movies about racial injustice inflicted on African-Americans typically lean hard on irredeemable stock characters, like the chorus of hulking white louts who make life miserable for stoic and saintly blacks. But Race doesn't shy away from exploring how both Nazi Germany and 1930s America were guilty of racial discrimination, such as when Owens is pleasantly surprised to discover that there are no segregated dorms in Germany's Olympic Village. And when Owens himself casually refers to a previous Japanese record holder as a "Chinaman" and boasts about taking world records away from "crackers," it illuminates how even someone decent and goodhearted isn't immune from occasionally seeing others through the lens of his era's racial stereotypes. The filmmakers could have hit this point more directly, but this subtext still elevates the story from being a simple good-vs.-evil fable into a nuanced portrait of a singular talent who triumphed during a complex time in history. Despite its shortcomings, Race is still a rich, engaging, and ambitious sports biopic that does right by its true story.

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