Woman Walks Ahead 2017

     This film is based on Eileen Pollack’s novel Woman Walking Ahead: In Search of Catherine Welding and Sitting bull published in 2002.  This film is about just a portion of her life.  Catherine Weldon was a portrait painter from the 1890’s in Brooklyn New York.  She traveled to Dakota to paint a portrait of Sitting Bull.  She became embroiled in the Lakota peoples’ struggle over the rights to their land.  In 1890, there was a vote by the tribal members to ratify a treaty to decide whether their reservation land would be allotted.  Since the treaty of 1868, congress unilaterally dictated Indian policy to the tribes.  The President was authorized to allot 40-160 acre tracts to tribal families and individuals.  Then, the open “surplus lands" were up for sale to the tribes.  Nearly 90 million acres of tribal lands were removed from Indian control.  The allotments also limited the amount of food supplies the tribes could receive.  This action was to encourage them to vote in favor of the treaty.

     It seems very unusual that a woman would travel from New York to paint a portrait of Sitting Bull??  It must be true since this is a historic fact?  After her divorce and then abandonment by her lover, she became committed to the cause of Native Americans.  She joined the NIDA, the National Indian Defense Association.  After her mother died in 1997, she inherited some money.  This gave her the means to freely travel to pursue her interests.  She changed her name to Caroline Weldon from her birth name of Susanna Karolina Faesch (she was born in Switzerland).  She denounced the Ghost Dance Movement, warned Sitting Bull that it would give the Government an excuse to kill him and Sitting Bull turned against her.  When her son became ill in November, she decided to leave.  When Sitting Bull was killed, she was proved to be right and this added to her sense of futility and failure.  3 ½* (I liked this movie)

     

101 min, Bio directed by Susanna White with Jessica Chastain, Louisa Krause, Boots Southerland, Chaske Spencer, Ciaran Hinds, Kindall Charters, Sam Rockwell, Jacob Browne, Luce Rains, Rod Rondeaux, Rulan Tangen, Michael Greyeyes, Monika Crowfoot, Debbie Black Lance.

Note:  Imdb 6.5 out of 10, 53% critic 62% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 2*, Rolling Stone 2* out of 4*, 51 out of 100 with 19 critics 6.8 out of 10 with 9 reviews, Amazon 4.4* out of 5* with 471 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed in New Mexico.  Caroline and Sitting Bull began corresponding around 1888.  This was after Sitting Bull had visited Washington.  He was there to discuss fair prices for Dakota land.  He also wanted to view maps showing the plans the government had to reduce the size of the tribes’ reservations.  This film states that Caroline Weldon was a widow but this isn’t true.  She was married to Bernhard Claudius Schlatter.  She left her husband for another man and she had a son.  She took her son with her to the Sioux settlement.  She divorced in her husband 1883.  Her painting hangs in the State Historical Society Museum in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Sitting Bull:  He was a Hunkpap Lakota leader and he led his people during years of resistance to US Government policies.  Indian agency police on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation killed him during an attempt to arrest him on December 16, 1890.  They feared he would leave the reservation to join the Ghost Dance movement.  This was a new religious movement of 1890 and it became incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems.  The proper practice of dance would reunite the living with the spirits of the dead.  The spirits would fight on the behalf of the living and make the white colonists leave the land.  They would bring peace, prosperity and unity to Native America people throughout the region.