The story of Canadian athlete turned disability activist Rick Hansen propelling his wheelchair 40,075 kilometers around the world in his 1984 Man in Motion tour to raise money and awareness for spinal cord injuries is already legend.
But the notion of a documentary with an “untold story” suggests there’s much that the world didn’t get to see 40 years ago. And director Adrian Buitenhuis and producer Derik Murray, with Man in Motion: The Rick Hansen Story, produced by Ryan Reynolds and Maximum Effort, point to a trove of private audio diaries recorded by Hansen while aged 27 and paralyzed from the waist down, and never-before-seen archival footage, including from music producer David Foster. It all underlines their decision to take a behind-the-scenes look at a grueling 26-month wheelchair journey with a Free Solo vibe.
“There’s a lot that happened on the tour; there’s a lot of struggle and challenges to actually make it happen that I don’t think the media initially was able to capture or were given a window to,” Buitenhuis tells The Hollywood Reporter about turning adversity – a truck crash at age 15 that left Hansen paralyzed from the waist down — into possibility.
What does make the final cut this time round for the Man in Motion documentary is a romance that grew on the world tour between Hansen and his physiotherapist Amanda Reid, who, away from the media glare, became his girlfriend even as she barely pushed through endless barriers to maintain his mental and physical endurance.
“Their love story as it grows together over those two years, two months and two days is a huge part of the story,” Buitenhuis adds of the private cassette tapes that are revealed to the world for the first time. Murray recalled an early film development meeting with Hansen and Amanda Hansen, whom he married in 1987, where a trove of personal audio recordings mentioned in an earlier book was brought up.
“Rick was like, ‘Oh, yeah, those audio tapes, yeah, I got them in the vault. I’ll get you those,” Hansen answered, which brought a joy of discovery that Murray and Buitenhuis could barely contain. That’s until, just after Rick Hansen returned with the private tapes a sheepish Amanda Hansen revealed she too had recorded her own tour thoughts on her own cassette tapes, had never listened to them and after some reluctance gave them up to the filmmaking team.
The private tapes, as heard in the documentary, reveal far more than words spoken, often after each long and tortuous day on the road. “It’s not only what he’s saying, but there’s a feeling to them that’s so powerful. You feel the struggle, feel the emotion, the raw honesty that you get when you know it’s someone talking basically to a diary that no one, other than one person, is going to hear,” Buitenhuis says.
What the private tapes from the Hansens reveal in the Man on Tour documentary is also the physical toll, doubts and pressure behind an epic team effort, both on the road and back in Vancouver, required for the round-the-world wheelchair journey to get underway, much less be completed.
“The story that hasn’t been told is what happens in 1985 when you assemble some friends of yours and get a motorhome and don’t have GPS, cel phones, or really any experience of travelling like this in your entire life, and you embark on this journey,” Murray says of a documentary, especially in its talking head sections, that should more aptly be titled Team in Motion for getting a young man in a wheelchair along the busiest of major highways to get round the world.
And that’s as a globe-circling Hansen, as he powered his wheelchair with only upper body strength – and especially as he crossed the U.S. from the British Columbia-Washington state border to Miami, Florida and on his return leg across Canada – was often surrounded by cheering supporters holding placards or wanting to get near enough to touch or hug him.
Along the way, Canadian uber-musician and producer David Foster and English singer John Parr in 20 minutes composed the song “Man in Motion” for the St. Elmo’s Fire movie soundtrack. Because, make no mistake, Hansen’s team and tour struggled to get to the finish line in Vancouver in May 1987 as it tries to maintain a 70-mile-a-day pace, and all to reach their fundraising goals.
“They tried to keep that away from the media, because they wanted to show they were doing great,” Buitenhuis recounts. That’s as the Man in Motion tour crossed into the Soviet Union, across the Middle East and Asia, before wheeling into New Zealand and Australia.
Just to be certain they were on the right track, Murray and Buitenhuis halfway through their edit brought the Hansens in for a private screening. “They came in, and they sat, and they watched (the film) in complete silence. No breaks. Then the film finished, and the lights went on. They both were visibly shaken by what they’d seen, and had been crying,” Murray recalls.
And the first words out of Rick Hansen’s mouth were, “I’ve never really spoken about or been able to articulate how hard this was for my entire team, for myself, and Amanda,” he added.
Now as Man in Motion: The Rick Hansen Story gets a world premiere at TIFF on Sept. 11, the filmmakers and the Hansens are also looking to spark yet another national conversation about the iconic activist’s ongoing campaign to bring awareness to spinal cord injuries.
“He (Rick) has raised over $500 million. He has built one of the world’s leading facilities in spinal cord research and development in Vancouver. It’s extraordinary,” Murray insists, in addition to efforts to campaign for greater accessibility for those in wheelchairs.
After TIFF, Man in Motion: The Rick Hansen Story will screen at the Vancouver Film Festival, in the Canadian city and Hansen’s hometown where his global tour started and ended.
