WASHINGTON — To illustrate how little we know about Jesse Owens in comparison to groundbreaking civil rights movement athletes like Jackie Robinson or Mohammad Ali, simply ask Stephan James when he learned the story of the Olympic champion.
“I gotta say, it’s probably when I heard about this film being made,” says James, who plays Owens in “Race,” the biopic depicting the star of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, opening Friday, Feb. 19.
“I didn’t really understand the story or the situation … I learned a whole lot about him just by playing him, by researching him.”
Many Americans likely share a similar, cursory knowledge of Owens. But the magnitude of his particular struggle, one which transcended the African-American or even American story, is one that’s been given short shrift by history.
Jackie Robinson’s story, chronicled by the 2013 film “42,” showed his personal struggle, one which is publicly celebrated each year by Major League Baseball. Even the Rookie of the Year Award has been named after him. Even if these things weren’t true, baseball’s very integration stands as a testament to his legacy.
Muhammad Ali’s story, chronicled in the 2001 biopic “Ali,” is as well-known as any from the latter half of the 20th century. While he went through tribulations at the time, he was celebrated by all in retirement, even lighting the Olympic flame at the 1996 games in Atlanta.
Owens would have no such recognition, no such global remembrance, despite being the first American track and field athlete to win four gold medals in one games, a feat not matched until Carl Lewis in 1984. In the film, Adolf Hitler refuses to meet with Owens, as he did with the other gold medal winners at the 1936 games. And while Hitler’s role in reacting to Owens’ victories is disputed, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s is more shocking and disappointing.
Upon returning to the states, Owens’ spectacular accomplishment was not publicly acknowledged by the administration. At Ohio State, where he set three world records in a 45-minute span as a sophomore, he was not allowed to live in the on-campus dormitories.
“I really felt the responsibility to bring that level of humanity to him to help teach people in the younger generation about him,” says James. “There are so many people who don’t know his story … I really wanted to give other people the opportunity to be inspired the same way I was.”
To get the role right, not only as a person, but as an athlete, meant some fairly specific training for James. Owens had a particular running style, and actually needed his start corrected to help speed him up coming out of the blocks. But to get that right meant first getting it wrong.
“There was so many different things I had to learn not just about running, but about running in that time period,” James explains, noting that he started training at Georgia Tech while filming “Selma” in Atlanta. “(Georgia Tech jumps/hurdles coach Nat) Page really worked on me, worked to make sure that I was running like him so much that I couldn’t run any other type of way, that it was so heavily ingrained that I couldn’t mess it up.”
James also studied Leni Riefenstahl’s documentary “Olympia,” about the 1936 Games, in which Owens became an unwitting star. The original source material proved invaluable, considering the time period when it was shot.
“Obviously, there are only so many YouTube clips I can find from that time,” James laughs.
The result is a fitting tribute to Owens, one that doesn’t sugarcoat his personal shortcomings, nor America’s reticence to accept and celebrate his triumphs. And while Owens only received the Congressional Medal of Freedom four years before his death in 1980, “Race” should help ensure that his legacy lives on for another generation of Americans.
