When we last saw Martin Scorsese on the big screen, it was in the still divisive three-and-a-half-hour Netflix produced historical crime epic The Irishman which reunited the director with his favorite longtime creative collaborators Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci. The sprawling saga of the mob man who likely killed Jimmy Hoffa, the film remains the longest running work of the eighty year old master’s career and up until recently his only ever foray into film production with a digital streaming media giant.
Some
four years later, Scorsese and crew set their sails from Netflix to Apple TV+
who with Paramount Pictures have mounted one of the most provocative and
ambitious American historical crime epics in years, the true story of the Oklahoma
murders in the Osage Nation during the 1920s which saw the genocide of Native
Americans upon the discovery of oil on their land, leading to the eventual
birth of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or FBI for short.
Though not the first film to tackle the subject with Tragedies of the Osage Hills in 1926 followed by The FBI Story in 1959, Scorsese’s take is based on David Grann’s 2017 nonfiction book Killers of the Flower Moon and as such is somewhat like the director’s own version of There Will Be Blood in its depiction of the mercenary, even murderous chicanery over some of that God blessed drinking of milkshakes.
Beginning on Osage County, Oklahoma, Killers of the Flower Moon follows Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) as he meets up with his wealthy and respected uncle William King Hale (Robert De Niro) to come work for him. A political figure with a substantial amount of power purporting to be a giving philanthropist of the Native American community, Hale takes Burkhart under his wing who soon catches the eye of equally wealthy Indian resident Mollie (Lily Gladstone) who quickly begins an impassioned relationship with Burkhart.
Soon they marry, but not long after members of the Native American community and particularly close members of Mollie’s family begin mysteriously dropping dead, prompting the first-ever FBI investigation into what appears to be a grand murder conspiracy with Hale and Burkhart as the primary suspects of a genocidal operation resulting in the deaths of dozens if not hundreds of Native American residents.
A crime
saga in the time honored tradition of its director who spent years of research
on the project while earning the trust and participation of the Osage Nation on
the production, Killers of the Flower
Moon like The Wolf of Wall Street or
Gangs of New York before it drops us
into the vortex of criminality amid snakes and reptiles before that very mob
way of life comes back to haunt its antagonists later.
Co-written by The Insider screenwriter Eric Roth, one of the strengths of the film is how Scorsese eases us into this world of the past with acute attention to production detail by legendary designer Jack Fisk who also designed the sets for There Will Be Blood. Every corner of the frame feels lifted out of the past despite feeling very distinctly modern with Scorsese and his longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker’s urgent narrative rhythm and key uses of music by Robbie Robertson that sounds like contemporary mid-western music with subtle sonic rumblings and/or Native American vocals.
It goes without saying the performances by the three leads are fantastic with DiCaprio maybe giving his most nuanced performance yet as a man who seems sincere upon first meeting but his eyes, lower jaw and general demeanor suggest otherwise. Robert De Niro as William King Hale exudes a kind of Lionel Barrymore It’s a Wonderful Life menace as the towering patriarch whose abilities to speak Native American languages do little to cleanse the blood from his hands.
Of course the reason anyone and everyone needs to see this extended rumination on the contract killings of the Osage Nation is for Native American actress Lily Gladstone. Inarguably the strongest character in Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women who reportedly was coaxed out of retirement by Scorsese to come on board the film, her performance ranges from subtle controlled sophistication to primal raw emotional crescendos. I lost track of the times her eyes and carefully spoken dialogue cut right through me.
A
sprawling yet intensely controlled and even intimate American epic shedding
light on a tragic chain of events that led to one of the key justice systems in
the United States, a requiem for the lives of Osage Nation lost whose cries of
anger and hurt still ring and radiate loud today and a character study of a man
in the throes of complicity, Killers of
the Flower Moon shows Martin Scorsese back on top again in the director’s
chair and at the age of 80 has lost none of his ability to crawl under the
audiences’ comfort zones.
While
the film won’t resolve many of the longstanding and still developing problems
within our national character, it is a step in the right direction for cinema
and particularly for Scorsese who shows no sign of slowing down his output or
calming his desire to challenge and provoke the audience. Seen in the context of his filmography its
perhaps his strongest since The Wolf of
Wall Street or even more recently Silence
as far as trying to find meaning and purpose in a world overrun by crime or
violence. If nothing else, see it for
the extraordinary and transcendent performance from Lily Gladstone, undoubtedly
one of the most underrated big screen talents working today. All in all, another masterpiece from one of
cinema’s greatest creative geniuses.