U.S. President Barack Obama (L) presents Basketball Hall of Fame member and human rights advocate Bill Russell the 2010 Medal of Freedom in the East Room of the White House on February 15, 2011, in Washington, DC. Obama presented the medal to twelve pioneers in sports, labor, politics and arts. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
*Academy Award-Nominated director Sam Pollard unpacks the pioneering career of late NBA star Bill Russell in a new two-part documentary now streaming on Netflix.
“Bill Russell: Legend” features the last interview with Russell prior to his passing in 2022. Per the official synopsis: On the court, Russell went on to lead each and every one of his basketball teams to championships — two back-to-back NCAA titles, a gold medal at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, and 11 championship titles in his thirteen-year career as a Boston Celtic (his last two as the first Black head coach in NBA history). Off the court Russell was a force in the fight for human rights — marching with Martin Luther King Jr., leading boycotts in the NBA over racist practices and speaking out against segregation — efforts which earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Narrated by actors Jeffrey Wright and Corey Stoll and featuring exclusive interviews with the icon’s family and friends as well as Steph Curry, Chris Paul, “Magic” Johnson, Larry Bird, Jim Brown and more, Bill Russell: Legend illuminates the ways in which Russell stood tall in every sense of the word.
Larry Gordon, Ross Greenburg, Mike Richardson, and Charles Rosenzweig serve as executive producers on the project that was released globally on Netflix on Feb 8. Check out the trailer below.
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Sam Pollard attends the PBS 2023 TCA Winter Press Tour at The Langham Huntington, Pasadena on January 16, 2023, in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)
Pollard’s doc contains vintage game footage and rare interviews with Russell. EUR’s Ny MaGee spoke exclusively with the director about this inspiring and empowering piece of work. Check out our conversation below.
Why did you want to explore Bill Russell’s legacy as your next documentary project?
Pollard: Well, I was brought into the project by one of the executives on the film, Ross Greenburg, who had been president of HBO Sports, and I had worked with him years before when I was doing some short films with Spike. And he asked me if I was interested in directing a doc on Mr. Bill Russell. And I didn’t hesitate. Now, I said yes, because I grew up in the ’60s. And being a child of the ’60s, I was familiar with Bill Russell and his exploits on the court. Now, I wasn’t as familiar with his exploits off the court. So these two documentaries gave me an opportunity to learn a lot about Bill Russell.
By the end of the doc, you’re forced to reflect on how much the sport and the aesthetics of basketball have evolved and much can be attributed to the impact of Mr. Russell. What are you hoping viewers are left thinking about or talking about after they watch this?
Well, I hope when they finish watching this film, they want to go get some books and read about Russell in more detail and depth than you can sometimes do in the film. That’s number one. Number two, I think that it’ll help them understand that when you watch an NBA game today and you watch those players on the court, they are building on the legacy that was developed by Bill Russell and people like Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, those players in the ’60s and the ’70s who changed the makeup of the NBA that has made it the dynamic enterprise that is today.
Was there anything you learned during this production that surprised you — either in the evolution of the creative process or the content itself?
I would say the thing I learned, and which I always learn in these films, is the people that you’re dealing with, sometimes you realize they’re much more complex and layered than you ever imagined when you started the process. And that really excites me now. I mean, it makes me think, “Wow.” This is why I took on this project because I peeled back the onion and learned something very new about Bill Russell that I never knew before.
Lastly, what is your personal philosophy when it comes to documentary filmmaking, and do you feel like you achieved your mission with this project?
My personal philosophy is one that where I’m hoping that the films that I tackle, I can always do a richly deep dive into understanding the character or the situation in complex ways and not to be, have a one-sided perspective. And I think we accomplished that with these two Bill Russell films and I’m very proud of them, of both of them.
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