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Traumatic Brain Injury
They Shoot Horses, But Not People
A film review of "The Rider."
Posted April 7, 2019
What becomes of rodeo cowboys after their brains and bodies are too damaged to go on? Especially their brains: TBI (traumatic brain injury) is dreadfully common among war veterans who have had closed head injuries from IED explosions, if they survive. Some are left with a plate in their skull, or living in a wheelchair, or prone to seizures, mood, and addictive disorders, or impulsive, destructive actions.
For cowboys riding bucking broncos or bulls, their head injury comes from being thrown during a ride. They can break a lot of bones, as well as sustain major brain injury from the torque on the skull from the fall, or from a fierce kick from the hoof of a very large animal, or from landing on their head.
The physics of injury are plain. When our skull is subject to an extreme outside force, even without an object penetrating the brain, the soft brain tissue inside is thrown forward and backward, or from side to side. Nerve fibers are readily damaged, and arteries or veins may burst and bleed within the cranium, causing further pressure damage, since there is no room for the brain tissue to expand. The nature of the resulting cognitive, motor, and emotional injuries will depend on which parts of the brain are injured. When the brain damage is on the opposite side of the skull impacted, this is a called a contrecoup head injury.
TBI becomes the cross to bear, the emotive force in this film, as embodied by the two cowboys the film features. One is the legendary bull rider Lane Scott (played by himself). We meet him where he lives, at a physical rehabilitation facility in a wheelchair, having to communicate with hand signals. The lead actor, Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau), visits with him regularly in the wake of Blackburn’s own major head injury, after he is thrown from a bucking bronco. Brady, young, lean, and leathery, has a large metal plate under most of his right skull bone and suffers from complex partial seizures, which trigger repetitive muscle spasms that leave his right hand contracted and disabled. His career as a rider, horse breaker and trainer, and rodeo star appears to be over. To make ends meet, he works as a clerk and cleaner in a big box store.
The Rider uses rodeo, cowboys, and the American West to frame its philosophical inquiry. A cowboy’s purpose “is to ride.” Meaning, relationships, and pride are all at stake. Growing old and without means or purpose is anathema and drives Brady, as he sees what has become of his dad. Lane’s smiles come only when Brady gets him to imagine, once again, riding a bull or bronco—pulling on cords that substitute for reins, swaying to and fro as the imagined animal seeks to not let man (or woman) tame it. Apollo, a wild horse that Brady breaks and trains, presents the dilemma of who gets to live after an injury that will hobble a creature forever. The departing message, nonetheless, is to never give up on your dreams—they are the true font of emotional life.
Pills, weed, and meth are prevalent among entertainers and athletes, as they are among cowboys and rodeo riders. Substance use appears in the film without drama, as merely a means to get by. Brady, as the film actor (and in life), is an amazing athlete to admire as he noses up to majestic, yet still feral horses, trains them, rides them and has his eight seconds on a bronco on the sandy floors of rodeo arenas. He has the capacity to convey his pain and uncertainty in a minimalist way, which only adds to its power.
Where we as viewers resonate with the storyline is that few of us elude or escape critical decision points, forks on the road we are walking in life. Do we go up or down, in or out, onward or backward? Do we get back on the figurative or real horse that has thrown our lives into possibly huge turmoil and confusion? Those are the moments that reveal and define who we are. Like Brady, we will face moments where our soul will be tested.
This gorgeously shot and musically rapturous film and its director and writer (Chloé Zhao) received dozens of cinema award nominations and prizes, including at SXSW, Cannes, Sundance, the National Society of Film Critics, and the British Independent Film Awards, to name a few. When you watch the credits at the end, you will do a double-take, because Brady Blackburn, Wayne Backburn (his father), and Lilly Blackburn (his sister) as actors in the film are all Jandreaus, members of the same nuclear family that runs Jandreau Performance Horses. They have had their share of rodeo gigs.
The Rider is dedicated to the other riders, unknown or in the limelight, who “live their lives 8 seconds at a time.” So do the rest of us, in an ongoing stream of 8 second-or-less experiences that shape who we are and what we will make of ourselves and our lives.
