In 2019, Martin Scorsese raised eyebrows when, in an interview for Empire Magazine and again in a follow up opinion piece in the New York Times, he opined on the Marvel movies: “I tried to watch a few of them and they’re not for me. They seem to be closer to theme parks than they are to movies . . . and that in the end, I don’t think they’re cinema.”
Despite the grim, ugly nature of this page of American history, Scorsese's film is a beauty – “a terrible beauty”to quote Yeats.
Scorsese went on to explain that to be art, filmmaking must be “about revelation — aesthetic, emotional and spiritual revelation . . . about characters — the complexity of people and their contradictory and sometimes paradoxical natures, the way they can hurt one another and love one another and suddenly come face to face with themselves.” Scorsese is essentially describing storytelling of the human condition — on a grand scale. And that is exactly what the Academy Award winning director delivers in Killers of the Flower Moon.
The almost three-and-a-half-hour film is grand in both running time and its subject, an examination of America’s troubling and violent relationship with its native peoples at the beginning of the Amercian Century.
The tragedy begins with good fortune for the Osage Nation, which finds oil on its tribal lands, but quickly turns and escalates to sickening, greed-based acts of depredation.
First screened at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2023, Killers of the Flower Moon opened on Wenatchee screens in late October 2023. The western, crime drama is based on the 2017 non-fiction book of the same name (with a subtitle: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the F.B.I.) written by David Grann, and stars an ensemble cast, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Lily Gladstone.
Notably, the movie’s score was composed by Robbie Robertson, who died two months before its release; the film is dedicated to Robertson, himself Native American, who collaborated with Scorsese on eleven movies.
Robertson’s score provides what feels like a pounding heartbeat driving the story. At the time, from 1921 to 1926, newspapers labeled the dozens of unsolved murders and deaths among young adults of the Osage Nation as the Osage Reign of Terror, making it seem as though the Osage themselves were responsible.
When the oil boon hit, the United States Congress passed a law requiring half or full-blood Osage to have White guardians to oversee their management of wealth from the oil. Those guardianships became the means by which the Osage were exploited.
Unsurprisingly, the Osage found little assistance from local law enforcement to investigate the deaths. Later investigations, including the first by the Bureau of Investigation, the precursor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, revealed extensive corruption, conspiracy, and murder among local officials involved in the Osage guardian program, including lawyers and judges. Nonetheless, most of the murders were never prosecuted.
Despite the grim, ugly nature of this page of American history, Scorsese's film is a beauty – “a terrible beauty” to quote Yeats. Killers of the Flower Moon is bigger-than-life with its sweeping vistas, high-wattage cast, gorgeous soundtrack, and impeccable cinematography. As the credits roll, with emotions still raw, the viewer will unmistakenly realize that the heartbreaking masterpiece she just watched was indeed no theme park; it was cinema.
Follow the link to view the film’s trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP34Yoxs3FQ
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