Songs My Brothers Taught Me

Songs My Brothers Taught Me is a 2015 American drama film. Developed at the Sundance Institute workshops, the film, set in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, explores the bond between a Lakota Sioux brother and his younger sister.

Directed and written by Chloé Zhao.

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Johnny

• Thing about breaking a horse is don't run him out of time, 'cause if you're gonna just keep on running your horse, you're gonna break his spirit. Anything that runs wild got something bad in him. You want to leave some of that in there, 'cause they need it to survive out here.

• Remember, you gotta always protect yourself. Remember if somebody small, your size, you can probably beat 'em up or whatever, but if it's somebody bigger than you, then I don't know what you're gonna do, you'd better run.

• Where we live, the Plains, the Badlands, things usually look the same. People are always related. They got the same old worries all the time. It gets really hot sometimes. You get tired of it, but... there's just things you always gotta do. [...] It's always a hard place to leave. 'Cause that's all you got growing up. My sister Jashaun, she's got a thing about this place. She sees things I don't. She's a good one. Whenever the storms are comin', the old timers would teach us to watch the cloud. And when the wind is too strong, we all know to lean into it so it don't blow us away.

Dialogue

Travis: I'd like to say a prayer for, um, my family and for that... that you helped me see my own alcoholic ways and to help me conquer alcohol. And to help all our people conquer it. It's our greatest enemy.

Priest: How many of us live an alcoholic life? I can raise my hand first. We as believers sometime lose that first love we have for God. God doesn't want us to turn away. He's gonna get your attention. He's gonna draw you back and he's gonna put you through a fire. Whatever it takes, he's gonna put you through a fire. He's gonna burn the impurities out of you.

---

Jashaun: Why do you like seven so much?

Travis: That, there's way too many reasons, way too many. Seven is the most influential and used number in the Bible, and it is our culture's most sacred and revered number. Crazy Horse said, "Everything will all seem to have ended at Wounded Knee, but it'll all begin again with the seventh generation," you know? And that's you.

Cast

• John Reddy as Johnny Winters
• Jashaun St. John as Jashaun Winters
• Travis Lone Hill as Travis
• Taysha Fuller as Aurelia Clifford
• Irene Bedard as Lisa Winters
• Allen Reddy as Bill

External links

• Songs My Brothers Taught Me quotes at the Internet Movie Database