I'm doin a paper for a class on Billy Mills, the movie "Running Brave" is about him, is it based entirely on him, or is it f***ed up like a Disney movie where they fudge parts of it to market it better?
Also does anyone know if there's any interviews posted online? (yes i've done a google search, but if anyone else has extra stuff i'd appreciate it)
Thanks in advance
Educating the ignorant wrote:
I'm doin a paper for a class on Billy Mills, the movie "Running Brave" is about him, is it based entirely on him, or is it f***ed up like a Disney movie where they fudge parts of it to market it better?
Also does anyone know if there's any interviews posted online? (yes i've done a google search, but if anyone else has extra stuff i'd appreciate it)
Thanks in advance
YOU MIGHT READ HIS BOOK....10K GOLD....I would say that there is no "Fudge" in there.
And FYI, there were at least 7 Native American actors in the film, although, most of them were from Canada.
Good luck with your research.
I've met and talked to Billy Mills, if you want to E-Mail me, go ahead. I didn't interview him or anything, but maybe I can answer some questions. From what he said, the movie was pretty accurate.
The whole thing in Tokyo? Yeah, that happened.
rumour has it every kenyan and ethiopian runner has that
video under their pillow...
Interesting note:
The character of "Uncle Frank" was actually representative of many relatives & family friends that he grew up with, all kind of rolled into one character.
look at the credits and see who wrote it; he and his wife Pat.
Educating the ignorant. Hi what would you like to know about the movie. The movie itself was a lot of fun to make.
It's pretty accurate for the most part, but a little "hokey"
in spots. I played the part of Gerry Lindgren in the film.
Most of the movie was shot in and around Edmonton Alberta
and other areas of the province ie Drumheller. The stadium
scenes were shot at Commonwealth Stadium (2001 World Athletics Venue) The actors in the running scenes were for the most part very good runners and Billy Mills helped us to recreate the race. There were actually some very good native actors in the movie eg. Graham Greene( Dances with Wolves, The red Green show etc.) Billy Mills had a lot of input on the filming of the movie and is one heck of a great guy. Hope this helps. cheers
I met Billy Mills & his wife when the film was shown at a film festival here in Hawaii. They were both really nice. Like the Frank character, Mills said that the Coach Easton character had a combination of traits from several of his former coaches. He said that the real Coach Easton was pretty cool & not the jerk the movie made him out to be, but that the real Easton gave his permission for his character to have the negative qualities the movie portrayed. Pretty noble, I thought, of Easton.
Mills also said that he had many siblings, which was not portrayed in the movie.
Also, the track in the movie is synthetic, & not the cinder track that was actually in use at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
It was funny, Mills said that the studio folks prior to making the film offered to donate profits from the film to Mills' favorite charity and he said that at that time, his favorite charity was his young family.
Aloha,
Karl H.
Thanks all of you for the input, i haven't seen the movie yet, i intend to rent it this weekend, i was asking around 2 make sure it's a movie that's genuinly about him, and not a "watered-down made for hollywood" movie.
Thanks again ya'll
I would suggest using better sources than a movie.
Maybe show footage of the finish of the 10,000 in Tokyo. I have shown that to people who are not running fans and they get excited.
Got a link to that footage? I'd love to see it!
Billy Mills is played by a white guy. there's a fudge for you!
apple wrote:
Billy Mills is played by a white guy. there's a fudge for you!
Well, off the top of your head, name an indian actor.
That's what I thought.
Val Kilmer.
I was trying to think up of a long post to bash robbie benson cause he's about a d-rate actor, but then again, one on one was a pretty good movie.
Since the movie was done BY Billy Mills himself, I think you can safely assume in is more factual than Walt Disney would do it. What is important in writting an article about Billy is WHY was Billy able to do what he did?
When you work for a cause greater than self, as Billy did, you have more courage and strength than runners who run for a more selfish reason. He were awesome! Check out his great WR 6 mile run in '65
I think it depends when you talk to him as to whether Billy would describe Coach Easton as a cool guy. From what I've gathered from my meetings with Billy, I'd say he respects Easton for a lot of things, but also harbors a fair amount of resentment. I once showed him an old cross country photo that I'd found and asked Billy where the photo was taken. He said it was from a conference XC meet, the first in many years that KU did not win the team competition. Billy said that Easton came up to him afterwards and told him he was the worst captain that KU had ever had.
Anyway, you could pick a ton of things out of the movie that were fudged. My favorite is the cross-country busride he took to get to KU-- funny since he'd attended Haskell in Lawrence, an easy walk from KU.
But it's a good piece of entertainment and tells most of Billy's story. I'd love to see Ron Howard get ahold of a story like this. No one has ever truly told Billy's story in a comprehensive way. It's true rags to riches stuff.....and the guy has done nothing but represent himself and his country in a first-class way since winning that gold.
ciclista wrote:
Got a link to that footage? I'd love to see it!
http://www.indianyouth.org/billys40th.html
Also, if you go and buy the movie, don't buy it from any commercial outlet. Buy it from Mill's Running Strong for American Indian Youth. Besides that the money goes to charity, Mills' version has the real footage from the Olympics tacked on at the end.