Without Limits - Comparison To Prefontaine

Comparison To Prefontaine

Without Limits is often compared to Prefontaine, a similar movie on Prefontaine's life that was released a year earlier by Disney. While the two films both focus on the same events, the Disney film tells the story from the point of view of Bill Dellinger, the assistant coach who was with him day-to-day, and Nancy Alleman, Prefontaine's girlfriend at the time of his death. Prefontaine also explores American athletes' amateur status and the conditions and lack of resources these athletes had to endure in their attempts to compete with the world's top athletes, who were provided all they needed to train and compete at a top level, while dealing with the pressure from their American fans who expected nothing but the best from them. It includes a cast of Jared Leto as Prefontaine, Ed O'Neill as Bill Dellinger and R. Lee Ermey as Bill Bowerman. Siskel and Ebert reviewed it and gave it two thumbs up.

Without Limits is told from the point of view of Bill Bowerman (played by Donald Sutherland), with Dellinger as a minor character and Mary Marckx, who was a previous girlfriend of Prefontaine while at the University of Oregon. In this film there is no Nancy Alleman, and Mary is his girlfriend all the way through. Bowerman is given guru status, whereas Ermey had portrayed Bowerman as more of a hard-line general-type.

In both films, Prefontaine is shown as headstrong and difficult to coach. Bowerman did remain active with the Oregon program and with Prefontaine after his retirement.