The Independent on Run for Your Life

For Inspiration, Judd Ehrlich Looked to the Subject of His New Film, Run for Your Life: A look at the crowd-pleasing Fred Lebow biography that premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival

While vampires made a big splash at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, a documentary about a son of Transylvania carved out a decidedly different niche for itself. Judd Ehrlich's heart-warming documentary Run for Your Life tells the story of Fred Lebow, the founder of the New York City Marathon, and the New York City Road Runners Club, one of the preeminent runners' organizations in the world. The doc has a lot going for it: great archival footage, a cool soundtrack, a large and fascinating supporting cast of talking heads, and at the center of it all, a main character who can't run well, yet makes marathoning his life's passion. Lebow is in many ways a dream subject: he beds women, garners celebrity, copes with scandal, invents sports marketing, wrestles with the demons of his past in war-torn Europe, and lives a life of such color and comedy that it could fill several films and a few books on the side. But faced with a bounty of material, filmmaker Judd Ehrlich had to make some tough choices. He talks about the film and its reception at Tribeca with The Independent's Mike Hofman.

Runner's World on Bill, Grete & Fred

Fred, Bill, Grete, the New York City Marathon, and a movie that tells all their stories by Amby Burfoot

I thought about Fred on Monday at a New York Road Runners luncheon that kicked off the organization's celebration of its 50th anniversary. Two of the New York City Marathon's greatest champions, Bill Rodgers and Grete Waitz, were invited to the lunch. That evening, we all attended a special screening of "Run For Your Life," a feature-length documentary movie about Fred and the Marathon. It's a quintessential and easy story to tell: Eastern European immigrant makes good in the big city, finds his passion (running in Fred's case), and combines his chutzpah and unflagging energy to turn that passion into a worldwide phenomenon.

I say "easy to tell" only to emphasize that this doesn't make it easy to film. That Judd Ehrlich's movie, "Run For Your Life", succeeds so spectacularly is a tribute to Ehrlich's own artistry, passion, and of course ... his chutzpah.

That evening, about 500 of us sat eagerly in our seats, waiting for the film to begin--Bill Rodgers, Mary Wittenberg, Kathrine Switzer, Bob Glover, Fred's sister Sarah, his nephew Moshe. But Grete Waitz wasn't one of us. She came to say hello and to greet friends before the movie started. But when the theater grew dark, she stood quietly and walked out.

Grete had told us earlier that she would do this. She is battling cancer herself--she looks and sounds great is about all I know, and all I can tell you--and she said she was worried that the movie would prove too emotional for her. This was probably a good decision. When the lights came back up 90 minutes later, there was scarcely a dry eye in the house.