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Exclusive: NBC pays tribute to African American history with new Jesse Owens documentary

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The intersection of race and athletics has become an increasingly popular documentary subject, embodied most recently by ESPN’s epic O.J. Simpson series.

Now NBC is now offering a new entry to the canon: “More Than Gold,” a story of Jesse Owens’ historic performance at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, narrated by Morgan Freeman. The network will debut the film this Sunday; it is being timed to the theatrical opening later this month, by NBC sister company Focus Features, of “Race,” the fact-based biopic that has Stephan James starring as Owens.

An uplifting jangle of a film, filled with colorful details and athlete testimonials, the one-hour “Gold” seeks to examine the legacy of Owens.

A college star carrying a mountain of expectation, Owens wasn’t specifically seeking social change when he arrived at the Games in 1936. But with his four gold medals — in two individual sprints, a sprint relay and the long jump — he won over the masses at the Olympiastadion, offered a retort to a displeased Adolf Hitler and forever altered the fate of black athletes.

“I think the lesson of Jesse Owens is that you can shape history by doing what you love the most,” said Matt Allen, a senior feature producer at NBC Sports Group who produced the film.

Allen and his NBC Sports colleagues, including the producer and longtime Olympics chronicler Phil Parrish, went deep to find those who could tell Owens’ story.

In addition to experts like Pellom McDaniells III, producers also interviewed a trio of athletes who were on the U.S. Olympic team with Owens, including gold medal swimmer Adolph Kiefer and canoe athlete John Lysak.

Of particular note is the third competitor, American swimmer Iris Cummings Critchell. A Southern California native who would go on to become a well-known aviator, Critchell offers sharp pieces of color, such as the scene aboard the ship Manhattan that transported hundreds of athletes to the game. (Different sports were given different time slots above deck; pole-vaulting, nonetheless, was difficult.)

Owens’ three daughters — Beverly Owens Prather, Marlene Owens Rankin and Gloria Owens Hemphill — are also featured, describing poignantly such things as their father’s relationship with the German jumper Lutz Long, with whom Owens forged an unlikely relationship. Footage of the Games themselves, particularly the scene inside the stadium for Owens’ victories, also offer a vivid portrait of life at the 1936 Olympics. (You can watch an exclusive clip here.)

The film, coming on the 80th anniversary of Owens’ achievement, also arrives at a time of questions over justice for African Americans in a wider range of public life. If the movie underlines Owens’ historic achievements, it also points to a more complicated modern world.

“There’s no bad time to do a Jesse Owens documentary,” Allen said. “But this is a moment to remember both the progress he made and how far there still is to go.”

Owens’ own battle to readjust to life back in the U.S., where he faced discrimination as well as financial struggles, is hinted at here; the story of American heroes rarely ends at their moment of heroism. As historian David Clay Large says in the film, Owens’ triumph in Berlin “was a monumental experience for him he never forgot — and that he was never able to replicate, of course, when he came home.”

The move fits with a larger vogue for sports docs, led most prominently by ESPN’s “30 for 30” series, in which the built-in drama of a sports movie melds with the impact of a real-life story. “More than Gold” also helps set the table for the Rio Olympics. NBC is making a push with hundreds of hours of programming at the Brazil-based Summer Games, and is likely to offer more expanded content as the Games near. At the most recent Olympics, it produced and aired figure-skating rivalry tale “Nancy & Tonya” as well as the British-themed World War II piece “Their Finest Hour.”

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But the upcoming event has become a fraught topic, with some athletes expressing concern about attending due to the Zika virus; U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo is the latest.

Producers hope their new movie shows what happens when sports can break through the clouds.

“There has always been criticism from the outside, of various kinds and the Olympics aren’t perfect,” said Parrish, who has covered more than a dozen Games over his career. “But what’s important is that they’re even attempted. There are a lot of special moments at the Olympics. We’re trying to show just one of them.”

@ZeitchikLAT

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