‘Killers of the Flower Moon’: Martin Scorsese Masterfully Frames a Dark Chapter in American History With Riveting Scope

Alci Rengifo

The cinema of Martin Scorsese is at heart a subterranean history of the United States. “Killers of the Flower Moon” is the American cinema master’s latest venture into new territory, while staying true to the kind of themes and personalities that obsess his work. It’s about thugs and assassins, greed and how violence has shaped the actual foundations of this country. The difference between this film and Scorsese’s classic gangster epics is that the killers operate in plain sight, within a racist society where an Indigenous life is worth less than an oil well, much less. On a filmmaking level it’s an inspiring look at how Scorsese still aims for grand ambition at 80, boldly telling a story that is both riveting but full of justified anger. “It’s a story of sin by omission,” Scorsese told Entertainment Voice, “silent complicity in cases, certain crime cases. And, so, that’s what afforded us the opportunity to open the picture up and start from the inside out of how this story took place.”

Scorsese is of course basing the film on the acclaimed nonfiction book by David Grann which was a National Book Award finalist. The story begins in 1921 in Osage County, Oklahoma. In history rarely discussed, which Grann’s book helped illuminate so well, the Osage Nation had become the richest people per capita in the world thanks to the oil wealth found under their lands, originally the barren strip of territory where they were pushed to settle. Osage County became a rare place where Native Americans sported latest model cars and white drivers. Into this terrain arrives simple Ernest Burkhardt (Leonardo DiCaprio), a World War I veteran who lives under the wing of his powerful, cattle baron uncle, William King Hale (Robert De Niro). Hale is a kingmaker who seems to get along with everyone, and even speaks the Osage language. He subtly encourages Ernest to marry an Osage woman, Mollie (Lily Gladstone). It seems Ernest is set, since if anything happens to Mollie, he inherits her oil share. Then, members of Mollie’s family begin to mysteriously die, either from “wasting disease” or outright murder. 

“Killers of the Flower Moon” is both one of Scorsese’s great late works and an excellent drama in the tradition of films like “In Cold Blood.” With writer Eric Roth, the director isn’t doing a straight adaptation of the book. Grann’s style was about unraveling the mystery behind the Osage murders while simultaneously narrating the early rise of the FBI. In the book, bureau head J. Edgar Hoover is a key character using the case to prove his agency’s efficiency. Scorsese shifts the focus to the Osage and the ominous air enveloping their Nation. “It was very important for me, as soon as I saw the book,” explained Scorsese, “I had been blithely unaware of the Native American experience. I was too young. I was in my 20s. I didn’t know. And, it’s taken me years, and I’m fascinated by how you really deal with that culture in a way that is respectful, and also is not hagiographic.” There is urgency to the storytelling that does away with the idea of setting this all up as a mystery. We know from the first act who the villains are because the society is so racist, in both subtle and open ways, that there is never any doubt local whites will never tolerate their Indigenous neighbors becoming a Wall Street class unto themselves. An Osage like Mollie can’t even handle her own money. The government considered Native Americans so unworthy of controlling such wealth that white guardians were appointed to essentially babysit Osage’s expenditures. If an Osage and all their relatives died, guess who kept the oil holding? Now do the math. 

DiCaprio and De Niro, two of Scorsese’s longest collaborators going back to great films like “The Aviator” and “Taxi Driver,” deliver some of their best work in this film. Their duo is one of the year’s most vile and pathetic onscreen criminal conspiracies. DiCaprio, fitted with almost comically bad teeth, turns Ernest into a lazy simpleton who loves easy money. Deep down he has a heart and genuinely likes Mollie, but it’s so easy for Hale to manipulate the younger man’s avarice to commit heinous things. Lily Gladstone, in a triumph for Native American representation this year, gives a striking performance based on restraint. Mollie comes from a culture that values silence and she playfully chastises Ernest for talking too much, even as she falls for his goofy charm. She also knows, like all Osage women, that he’s a white man looking for money. The intimate tragedy is how she looks past that and believes he wants to settle down. On the surface, Osage County almost confirmed that since money talks in America, the oil boom would produce genuine coexistence between whites and Indigenous communities. Mollie’s sisters also marry white men and local shop owners don’t care who buys from them. There’s a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan and horror stories pour in from the Tulsa race riots and massacre, but it seems so distant. When Mollie’s feisty sister, Anna (Cara Jade Myers), turns up dead, from a gun shot to the head, and another sibling, Minnie (Jillian Dion), dies in a house bombing, a vicious reality intrudes.

As a filmmaker, Scorsese tends to be associated with the mean streets of New York or the American underbelly. His last massive film, “The Irishman,” was historical revisionism with hitmen and crooked union bosses. When he ventures out it’s usually for grand gestures like “The Age of Innocence,” “The Last Temptation of Christ” or “Kundun,” which are all visually stunning yet still retain his grit and eye for human nature. “Killers of the Flower Moon” borrows from the rhythm of true crime and is set in the Osage Plains of Northern Oklahoma, with its wide open skies and far-reaching vistas, where the shadow of what was once part of the Old West still hovers. It’s both John Ford and “Capote,” clocking in at 3 hours and 26 minutes, Scorsese’s longest running film ever. But it’s never a slow film and takes its time because of the breadth of what happened. Instead of rushing into the crime, Scorsese lets us get to know the culprits through uneasy conversations and striking actions. The gangsters in his classics like “Goodfellas” are always operating in the shadows. Here, Hale has no qualms about openly telling his acolytes just what he plans to do. If an Osage is found dumped in a ditch, he cries crocodile tears and shrugs behind their backs. “Killers of the Flower Moon” has a hypnotic, immersive quality created by Scorsese’s usual team, including cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker. There are none of the pyrotechnics from other Scorsese productions, but a driving pace fueled by the film’s heated performances.

Eventually, the FBI does get involved with Tom White (Jesse Plemons), a former Texas Ranger who has joined the bureau. He knows the environment and keeps calm even when someone like Ernest is clearly lying. Scorsese never aims to turn the story into a heroic lawman adventure. White appears after we’ve already seen so much, because that’s the point. The way Hale and others take advantage of the Osage Nation and blatantly practice backstabbing and murder is a microcosm of the entire history of the United States and Native American communities. Big oligarch Hale smiles and feigns kindness but deep down the Osage people are lower than dirt to him. Like the Tulsa riots, what happened to the Osage Nation was driven by a racist vindictiveness that refused to accept another community as capable of being economically strong. During an Osage council meeting, tribal elders lament the dangers that have arrived with oil. It was simpler when they just battled colonists and settlers. Ernest reads a children’s book aloud to himself, quoting a line featured in the film’s trailer, “Do you see the wolves in this picture?” You could say the same about Congress. Scorsese is one of those masters who can say much with one image, like a dead Osage in a puddle of oil. Consider we’ve gone to war abroad for that resource. 

“Killers of the Flower Moon” is a rich drama with a whole collection of notables. In addition to DiCaprio and De Niro, there’s also Brendan Fraser as Hale’s shameless attorney and John Lithgow as a spirited prosecutor. Tragic outlaws, broken men and women and suffocating greed are all over this sprawling film. For every manipulator like Hale, there’s someone doomed. The ending is one of Scorsese’s most elegant yet, combining homage to 1920s radio dramas with a powerful Osage ceremony. At times, “Killers of the Flower Moon” seems to conjure the feel of vintage photographs in its warm exteriors which easily turn cold. It’s still right at home with the fiercer selections of Scorsese’s catalog. “Killers of the Flower Moon” is about how beneath the romantic ideals of progress, there’s plenty of murder and terrible human impulses. Who are the civilized ones? It’s a question Scorsese’s historical films seem to always ask. “These are things that really weren’t talked about in the younger generation of Osage I met in contemporary Oklahoma,” said Scorsese, “It was the generation before them that this happened to, and so they didn’t talk about it much. And, the people involved are still there, meaning the families are still there, the descendants are still there.” “Killers of the Flower Moon” is another masterful portrait of our tragically flawed selves, the darkest corners of our history, and one of this year’s best films. 

“Killers of the Flower Moon” releases Oct. 20 in theaters nationwide.