I recently saw the film Woman Walks Ahead. I had put off watching it until recently, because I knew Hollywood would mangle a perfectly good story. For a full review by a Standing Rock historian, see Dakota Goodhouse's review on his The First Scout Blog. His blog is a great source of historical information specific to Standing Rock and its people. He makes some very good points about the film.
I was unable to finish watching the film. It was so bad that I skipped through the final half, once again disappointed that another film got it wrong. Why Hollywood needs to mess up a perfectly good story and pull an obscure, minor character from history and mess that up as well, is frustrating. In a world where more people watch films than read, there is a responsibility on the part of filmmakers to represent history well, yet they often fail miserably. The world's eyes have been pointed toward Standing Rock in recent years, so it would have been great to have a film to point to that accurately represented history. Woman Walks ahead missed the mark.
For a better take on Catherine Weldon, I recommend Woman Walking Ahead: In Search of Catherine Weldon and Sitting Bull, a 1990s biography/travelogue by Eileen Pollack. It can be found here in a new audio edition. Print and audio editions are available at your local library including this one. Pollack explores the thin documentary history of Weldon in addition to a travelogue of her visit to Standing Rock in the 1990s.
I read Pollack's book in print quite a few years ago and after seeing the movie, need to revisit it to reorient myself to the Weldon and Standing Rock stories.
