Cedar Creek Productions | BUCK the Film in the Press
by Joe Leydon
July 6, 2011
If you’re in the know about horses, chances are good you already know a lot about Buck Brannaman, the celebrated trainer and equine expert famed for spreading the gospel of “natural horsemanship” — the process of communicating with horses through empathy and instinct, not threats and punishment — at the four-day clinics that occupy three-quarters of his time every year.
June 27, 2011
John P. Meyer
If you’ve seen Buck, you know that the subject of Cindy Meehl’s extraordinary documentary — Buck Brannaman — comes across as a naturally charismatic individual. His warmth and ready humor make him seem like the kind of person you’d want as a friend. His coolness under pressure conveys the sense that you could count on him to back your play. In Louis L’Amour terms, he’d be one to ride the river with. Read complete article >
Buck Brannaman specializes in the improbable. Got a skittish, poorly trained horse? A bucking bronco? A steed who seems not to care about anything?
The evocative documentary Buck details the life of horse gentler Buck Brannaman, who holds horsemanship clinics all throughout the U.S. Brannaman’s gentle yet firm approach gives riders and owners a deeper understanding of their horse, and in effect, a profound insight into their own psyches. See complete review
Legendary horse whisperer Dan M. “Buck” Brannaman considers himself lucky despite the hard life he endured as a kid. He found a calling that some might call mumbo jumbo, but to a vast number of horse owners, trainers and grooms, he expresses an uncanny skill at natural horsemanship. Read complete interview
New York Magazine
June 17, 2011
Our therapeutic culture is lousy with stories of people struggling to spin childhood traumas into something that leaves the world a better place than the one that damaged them, but I’ve never seen a film in which the link between a trauma and its triumphant transmutation is as vivid as in Buck. Cindy Meehl’s shambling yet uncannily beautiful documentary tells the story of Buck Brannaman, a rangy, bow-legged cowboy who travels the country 40 weeks a year hosting four-day clinics. Brannaman was an adviser on the film of The Horse Whisperer and the moniker is often attached to him, but I’d call him the Horse Empath. He sees himself through the animals’ eyes and feels their childlike skittishness, their primal fear. Read complete story
Wall Street Journal, Speakeasy
June 18, 2011
1. “Buck” (just opened) This documentary trailing real-life horse whisperer Buck Brannaman could easily be an unnecessary journey into territory already staked out by Robert Redford in a fictional film. But the new movie turns out to be about much more than horses, as it uncovers its subject’s complicated and thorny past. If the movie is a success, it’s because it picked a captivating man to trail on the plains of the American West. All the pretty horses help, too. Read complete WSJ post
The Christian Science Monitor
Peter Ranier, Film Critic, June 17, 2011
Near the beginning of the fascinating new documentary “Buck,” Buck Brannaman, who runs horse-training clinics around the country, says, “A lot of times, rather than helping people with horse problems, I’m helping horses with people problems.”
Brannaman is the subject of first-time filmmaker Cindy Meehl’s graceful look at the man who was the inspiration for Robert Redford’s role in “The Horse Whisperer.” Nicholas Evans, who wrote the novel upon which that film is based, calls Brannaman the zen master of the horse world.”
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