Confronting "Killers of the Flower Moon"

You know it's Oscar season when you find yourself sitting through a three and a half hour period piece made by one of our greatest living directors, and wondering if you could get away with not writing anything about it.  "Killers of the Flower Moon" is a great film, shedding light on a terrible moment in American history, and showing us a different aspect of Native American history.  However, it is also undeniably the kind of movie that requires effort to watch, and tackles such difficult subject matter that I have no useful knowledge of, I'm wary of saying anything, for fear of coming off as an idiot.  For easier viewing, I'd suggest breaking the movie down into two sessions since the story has two distinct parts - the conspiracy and the investigation.  

Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a WWI veteran who comes to Gray Horse, Oklahoma after the war  to live with his uncle, "King" Hale, a prominent rancher and community leader.  Gray Horse is home to many of the wealthy Osage who have rights to oil discovered on their lands, and King presents himself as a friend to their community.  In private, however, he schemes to gain control of their wealth.  He encourages Ernest to marry Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), a diabetic Osage woman with an ailing mother, Lizzie (Tantoo Cardinal), and three sisters, and then starts arranging their deaths, one by one.  Ernest loves his wife, but is easily swayed by his uncle into helping with the murders.  Because the local law enforcement and government are corrupt, there are no consequences for the deaths, which are easily swept under the rug.  However, Mollie finally raises enough outcry that a federal agent, Thomas White (Jesse Plemmons) shows up on their doorstep.

What makes this telling of the Osage murders a Scorsese project is the way that it's framed.  The book "Killers of the Flower Moon" is largely about the investigation of the killings by federal law men, leading to the creation of the FBI.  The film sees the events unfold from the POV of the perpetrators, namely Burkhart and Hale.  Scorsese has a lot of experience making movies about criminals and organized crime, and that experience is put to good use here.  The plot against the Osage involves an ever-expanding number of people, with a lot of little subplots covering the planning and fallout of various killings.  It's absolutely chilling to see how casually the murders are arranged and discussed, and how almost all of them are of people that Hale and Burkhart know personally and have relationships with.  

Robert DeNiro gives the standout performance of the film, playing Hall as a charming, generous paternal figure who is nothing but sympathetic to the "sickly" Osage he devotes so much attention towards.  DiCaprio as Burkhart is thornier and more frustrating.  Burkhart is a weak man who isn't very smart, and frequently chooses being loyal to his uncle over his wife and children.  While he's capable of doing the right thing, we watch him make bad decisions over and over again.  DiCaprio's performance is sweaty and guilt-ridden and excellent.  Finally, Lily Gladstone is rightly getting attention for playing Mollie, one of the most well-rounded, tragic Native American characters in film history.  Unfortunately, she doesn't get nearly as much narrative emphasis as I would have liked to see, especially in the second half of the film when her health starts failing.

A major criticism I've seen of the film is that the Osage are only secondary characters.  However, Scorsese wouldn't be the right filmmaker to make "Killers of the Flower Moon" if the Osage were the leads.  This is very much a story about bad men doing bad things, and trying to justify it to themselves.  And beyond that, it's about taking the established narrative of American history and challenging it with several forgotten, disturbing chapters that most of the audience will be unfamiliar with.  I like how Scorsese uses familiar artifacts and media from this time period - photographs and tintypes, early film reels, and storybooks - to orient us.  Framing devices, like the fanciful epilogue, draw attention to the fact that Scorsese is concerned with his own biases as a storyteller.

As for the Osage, I was immediately struck by seeing a portrayal of a Native American community in this time period that was wealthy and prosperous, though they certainly faced other challenges.  A significant portion of the film is also in the Osage language, with DeNiro and DiCaprio both taking a stab at Osage dialogue.  It's a valuable addition to the American cinematic lexicon, and will hopefully lead to more media like it.  Scorsese is very aware of what he's doing,  and the cultural references he chooses to include in the film are very pointed, with the Ku Klux Klan making a brief appearance, and the Tulsa Massacre having just taken place.

Like fellow octogenarian director Ridley Scott this year, Scorsese has made a rare epic, and I don't know how many of these he has left in him.  "Killers of the Flower Moon" is far from perfect, but it's a film I'm very happy that Scorsese chose to make and make with such care.

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