Buffalo Rider (1978)

BUFFALO RIDER is one of those rare 'local' films made outside of Hollywood in the 1970s. This one was shot in Oregon. I always like these films as you get a nice view of rural America missing in the big studio productions. This film tells the simple story of a guy who manages to tame a wild buffalo and then uses it as his steed. The two then travel around and are involved in various escapades with wolves, bears, hunters, and folk both good and bad. There's a cute raccoon called Bandit and lots of real outdoors footage, which makes this a godsend for wildlife lovers like myself. The film is also careful to show the brutality of the great outdoors without sugar-coating the experience.

There is a maximum of1000 words that I can use to describe this film. However 100000000000 words could never do this beautiful piece of classic American cinematography justice. It literally saved my life and restored my faith in humanity. While viewing this masterfully crafted piece of storytelling brilliance, I was in constant awe of the film's life-breathing symbolism, which can only be likened to the passion of romance engulfed in a sea of melancholy emotions. The subtle, yet deep, complexity of this work leads one to ponder, and to reevaluate what it is to subsist in this idealistic bureaucracy we call life. Surely the life, and the legend of the man, nay the spirit embodied by Buffalo Jones can be considered the greatest picture portrayed on the tapestry of the camera lens, sculpted by the dreams of true visionaries. A conceptual medium of storytelling that will forever be noted as a realization of relative truths out of this faction of subjective reality we so arrogantly deem time.

Buffalo rider tells the story of Jake Jones, a man who asks a question that most of us have probably already asked ourselves; what would happen if I attempted to ride a buffalo? The answer is, "It would make an incredibly terrible movie". Buffalo Rider appears to be made from two separate film crews who did not communicate with each other and then threw together all of their footage at the last minute and tried to form a movie out of it. It's part Western, part nature documentary, but ALL bad.There is no doubt in my mind that most of the plot was constructed after filming took place. The reason why people ride horses instead of buffalo is because buffalo do whatever the hell they want; there are plenty of scenes where the narrator says something like, "Well, Jake wanted to (insert thing or place Jake wanted to do or go), but Samson (the buffalo), decided that he wanted to (insert place or direction Samson was currently going)." Samson the buffalo just does whatever he wants; walking back and forth and going up and down hills with no direction or consistency to the movie's "plot". In once scene the narrator literally says, "Samson decided to try to scrape Jake off his back", to try to explain why the star of the movie just got slammed into a fir tree.Here's an interesting thought; at one point in time, either the writer of the directer of this film said, "I don't care how or why, but I want us to put a raccoon in the middle of a frozen river and then break open a dam upstream so we can watch the raccoon get swept away in the ensuing flood." You think I'm joking? What if I told you that this movie features not one, but THREE different raccoons struggling to not drown in three different scenes? There is SO much wrong with this movie. At one point it actually pulls a Beerfest, where a character in the film is killed (thus giving our "hero" motivation for revenge), and is replaced by the same actor playing a different character. Oh, and there is blatant animal abuse everywhere. You think an animal-struggling-to-survive-a-flood scene would be hard to watch? Well then get ready for the "Animal A Attempting to Drown Animal B by Holding Animal B's Head Underwater" scene! It's fun for the whole family! ESPECIALLY if the whole family loves watching buffalo being shot dead, because this movie has PLENTY of that! If you want to watch this movie, watch the Rifftrax version (google it), as that is the only version worth watching.

I was standing on a ledge about to jump to my death, when I saw this movie... It not only saved my life, but I went on to become a rich western writer. The film is an epic tale of a man and his mount. The world would have been a much darker place without this masterful piece of cinema. In my hometown we now have a mandatory once a week viewing of this film were everyone gathers around so we can revisit the trials and tribulations that Buffalo Jones endures. We are doing our best to get the Raccoon inducted into the acting hall of fame, maybe even get its little paw prints on the Walk of Fame in L.A. Thank you Buffalo Rider! You saved my life, that's what you did. <3 <3 <3