Winter in the Blood: A Case for Maintaining Cultural Content in Adaptations of Indigenous Stories

Filmmakers who adapt Indigenous novels and stories for the screen are likely to face some complex decisions related to the story's connection to a specific place and language, as well as issues related to casting, potentially intense social and political issues, and conflict resolution that is appropriate for the cultural context. Many filmmakers have skirted the complexity of these issues by minimizing culturally specific content in their adaptations of Indigenous texts, thereby creating homogeneous representations of Indigenous people that do little to challenge pervasive media stereotypes. In their 2013 adaptation of James Welch's 1974 novel Winter in the Blood, however, Alex and Andrew Smith address rise to the challenge of adapting the novel in both Blackfeet and broader Indigenous social contexts, particularly through their willingness to recognize the relationships between story and place.