A Transcendent Film About A Forgotten Hero

By Media Match member Taylor Segrest

Our rabid media culture devours and discards its subjects with the same apparent disregard with which it distracts society from any contemplation of causal relationships or underlying significance. In this hyperactive contemporary media environment, a historical film as fresh, compelling and beautifully crafted as the forthcoming American Experience premiere, Jesse Owens, produced and directed by Laurens Grant and written and produced by Stanley Nelson, can seem like an oasis in a flood of mirages.

The transcendent sports biopic is timely in its anticipation of the forthcoming London Olympiad and the 75th anniversary of the riveting 1936 Berlin Olympics, where Owens made his mark in an epic match-up of nationalist narratives that pitted him against Adolf Hitler, but it is also a story that merges a rich array of seemingly timeless as well as uniquely American themes.

“I think it’s a real cautionary tale about the ephemeral nature of sports celebrity in America,” says Mark Samels, executive producer of American Experience. “I don’t think that’s changed a great deal. We worship athletes, but our attention is distracted by the next coming thing. It’s a very short lifespan for a sports celebrity in our gaze.”

As sports writer William Rhoden comments in the film, “It was extraordinary when you think about it. There are these moments in history when the actors understand that moment in history and they just do the right thing.”

Rhoden’s sentiment indirectly captures the ethos of not just Jesse Owens, but also the American Experience series at its finest. For Samels, this awareness is strong. “Each one of us has the potential for having the reigns of history in our hands at some point,” he notes. “Some people seize it and really affect great change and make this country a much better place.”

Yet even within his lifetime, in fact for much of his life, Owens experienced first-hand the racist forces that he had tried so hard to escape. After winning four gold medals in Berlin in defiance of Hitler’s agenda, the American hero Owens returned to his home country to find himself paraded and then swiftly pushed back to the margins he had fought so hard to escape. He and his wife were unable to get a hotel room in New York City until one allowed them on the condition that they use the service entrance. The creative team behind Jesse Owens fully explores the tragic and shocking post-Olympics denouement that ensues as Owens struggles gracefully to provide for his family – racing against a horse, running a dry-cleaning business. Here, and at other surprising junctures, the film poignantly demonstrates the elusive nature of social progress in America through Owens’s very personal plight.

Here’s a link to the full piece I recently wrote about the film, including interviews with producer/director Laurens Grant and American Experience Executive Producer Mark Samels.

Jesse Owens premiered on May 1st on American Experience on PBS. Click here for trailer and local listings.

The Film, Stage and ShowBiz Expo is billed as “a five-star event that brings everyone in show business together under one roof.” Having been involved in the entertainment industry here in Southern California for almost thirty-five years (twenty-four of them as President of my own company, The Research Department), I had been a fairly regular attendee of this event when it was held annually in Los Angeles up to 2002. Since 2003, Producer Zachary Lezberg had been producing the twice-annual Film, Stage and ShowBiz Expo events only in New York City so I was excited to learn about his plans to “relaunch” the Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center on October 17, 2009.

Personally, I find the benefit of these events to be highly relational to an individual’s needs. In a nutshell, the day pretty much becomes what you make it. I always pack plenty of business cards, brochures and a notepad. Don’t worry if you forget your pen, you could have at least a half-dozen by the time you clear the first row of exhibitors. More importantly, I bring along a broadly optimistic attitude that goes something like this: if I make a new friend or business connection or reconnect with one old friend plus maybe learn a few new things then I figure it was worth my time.

For the full article, please head over to http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2330344/review_showbiz_expo_returns_to_los.html?singlepage=true&cat=2

Article by Christopher Darryn

The next Los Angeles ShowBiz Expo is scheduled for April 24th and 25th in 2010.