Woman Walks Ahead (2017)

Jessica Chastain is Catherine Weldon, a New York widow and painter who decides she’s done grieving and wants to become the first artist to commit Sitting Bull’s portrait to canvas.

So she heads West to Fort Yates, N.D., without waiting for permission to do so.

She arrives to a cool reception. Settlers haven’t gotten over past Sioux massacres. The Seventh Cavalry would still like to avenge what happened at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Ordered to return home by the Indian agent, Catherine instead befriends Chaska, a cavalry guard who happens to be Sitting Bull’s nephew and is able to introduce them to one another.

After demanding a handsome price — $1,000 — to be painted, Sitting Bull befriends Catherine and slowly transform from potato farmer back into a role as a tribal leader.

And Catherine finds herself embroiled in a new type of battle. The military is pushing a new treaty that would rob the Sioux of half of their land; she helps Sitting Bull organize opposition to that treaty.

Review:

A delightfully different, well-acted, wonderfully-filmed Western based on — but not always faithful — to history.

The film is especially effective in portraying the fact that the wounds from the Indian wars were still raw for those living in the West.

Upon learning that Catherine is from New York, Col. Groves — a proponent of the new treaty — immediately labels her an agitator.

Upon learning that she’s arrived from the East to paint Sitting Bull, a frontiersman spits in her faces, hopes she’s raped and labels her an “Indian lovin’ bitch.”

And upon learning that Catherine has bought supplies for the Indians to minimize the effects of plans to cut their rations, whites drag her into an alley and beat her. One man even urinates in the dirt, then spreads the mud over her face.

The film was based on Eileen Pollack’s 2002 book, “Woman Walking Ahead: In Search of Catherine Weldon and Sitting Bull.”

Oh, and one of Catherine’s portraits of Sitting Bull is on display at the State Historical Society Museum in Bismark, N.D.

Directed by:
Susanna White

Cast:
Jessica Chastain … Catherine Weldon
Michael Greyeyes … Sitting Bull
Chaske Spencer … Chaska
Sam Rockwell … Col. Silas Groves
Ciaran Hinds … James McLaughlin
Bill Camp … Gen. Crook
Rulan Tangen … Susan McLaughlin
Louisa Krause … Loretta
David Midthunder … Shell Kill

Runtime: 101 min.

Memorable lines:

Catherine Weldon to the railroad porter: “You’re an Indian, aren’t you?”
The porter: “Yes, ma’am.”
Catherine: “Which tribe?”
The porter: “Presbyterian.”

Catherine: “I met you two minutes ago and you’ve already accused me of being a spy and a liar.”
Col. Groves: “I worked for the war department, darling. I don’t mean to be presumptious, but you do have that certain look.”
Catherine: “What look is that?”
Groves: “The look of someone filled with good intentions.”
Catherine: “And that’s bad?”
Groves: “West of the Missouri, it can be lethal.”

Col. Groves: “This lady, she came all the way from New York to paint Indians.”
Frontiersman, walking up to Catherine and spitting in her face: “I hope they fuck ya, then cut the baby out like they did the Robinson girls. Indian lovin’ bitch.”

Col. Groves, explaining the logic behind a halving of rations for the reservation Indians: “When a new treaty has to be ratified, it’s our experience that hungry concentrates the Indian mind.”

Catherine: “It’s damned hard being brave.”

Sitting Bull, after Catherine is beaten: “Once, I would have taken 100 warriors and finished that whole town. Now I’ve learned to swallow it. Like swallowing rocks.”

Sam Rockwell as Col. Silas Groves tries to explain life in the West to Catherine in Woman Walks Ahead (2017)

Michael Greyeyes as Sitting Bull, speaking his mind to the Indian commission in Woman Walks Ahead (2017)