OSCARS 2024: Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Many years ago, Martin Scorsese said he would like to make a movie in every cinematic genre possible. Considering this – and knowing his love of classic Hollywood and everything therein – it's surprising that he's never made a western before. When it was first announced that Scorsese was circling an adaptation of David Grann's non-fiction book “Killers of the Flower Moon,” it was assumed that Scorsese and the western would finally meet. Yet, as the script went through several years of development, the focus changed more. Meetings with representatives of the actual Osage Nation convinced Scorsese and Eric Roth to rewrite the film, to center more around the Native American perspective. The resulting, epic length motion picture was backed almost solely by Apple, in their continued attempt to buy award season prestige. It worked, because a new Marty movie is always an event, but “Killers of the Flower Moon” has also proven to be a hotly debated new masterpiece from one of America's greatest living directors. 

In 1897, oil is discovered on the Osage Nation reservation in Oklahoma. By 1921, the oil boom had made the Osage some of the richest people in the country per capita. William Hale, a local sheriff and ranch owner, invites his nephew Ernest Burkhart to live with him. Hale's relationship with the Osage is close but he's actually been plotting for years to steal their headrights to the land, via murder and marrying wealthy Native women off to white men. He convinces Ernest to seduce Mollie Kyle, a sickly but very wealthy Osage woman. The two soon marry, Ernest immediately involved in Hale's murderous, criminal plot. The Osage are well aware of the deaths and attempt their own investigations but Hale does everything he can to suppress them. It's not until Mollie – who Ernest is slowly poisoning – lobbies Washington directly that authorities start looking into the crimes.

More than anything else, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is a case study of the mechanics of evil. The film's three-and-a-half hour length is largely devoted to showing every step by which Hale and his associates slowly massacred the Osage population. He integrates himself into the community, working so closely with the Osage that he's even present at the meeting where the tribe elders announce their plan to root out the killers. As played by a chillingly stately Robert De Niro, Hale is depicted as an always polite master schemer who is an expert at telling people what they want to hear. From there, he engineers a campaign of murder, oppression and manipulation that runs through every strata in the town. White doctors are his underlings. Outside investigators are beaten or killed. Murder is carried out casually, as it suits his plans. In one of the film's most chilling sequences, Hale coldly states how a depressed Osage man must stay alive long enough for his insurance plan on him to pay off. 

If “Killers of the Flower Moon” dedicates much of its extensive runtime to showing how these vile plans were carried out so casually, Roth's script also makes sure to shine a light on the character of such evil men. Ernest Buckhart declares, early on, that he loves money. He robs a group of Osage partiers, before immediately loosing all the jewels on a bad poker hand. Later, the entire plan is nearly blown up by Burkhart foolishly letting an accomplice steal his car. If Hale is such a convincing manipulator that he can operate practically in the light, Ernest is such a total stodge as to obey every command thoughtlessly. Leonardo DiCaprio, showing little in the way of movie star vanity, plays Burkhart as a grunting, lowly criminal motivated only by greed and the loosest sense of pride in his own mindless actions. When Hale drags Ernest into a Masonic temple and paddles his ass, it reveals him more and more as an overgrown child acting out horrible deeds on behalf of powers. This reveals a clear message: Evil isn't complicated. It's stupid and common, motivated only by taking want it wants from those who are vulnerable. 

As a post-mortem on these infamous murders, “Killers of the Flower Moon” takes a detached, almost clinical approach to its violence. Scorsese devotes screen time to many of the murders, both before and after the fact. Often, we see the victims cut down by gunshots in long distance shots. This distance only emphasizes how casual the killers were about their actions. A bullet pops off, a body falls to the ground, and it's left to be discovered. This happens over and over again. Hale and his henchmen were so confident in their plans that little steps were necessary to cover their tracks. The only time Scorsese moves in close for the violence is when a home near Ernest and Molly's place is blown up with dynamite. We see the gaping head wound of the victims, who are still, seeming to maintain a level of dignity in death that are beyond their murderers. Not coincidently, this is when the deaths seem to start to actually effect even a simpleton like Burkhart. 

Throughout the film, attention to brought to how many of the Osage people were deemed “incompetent” by the government, requiring a guardianship to manage their own money. Burkhart argues with a funeral home owner, over being charged “Osage prices.” The doctors and Hale joke openly about murdering an Osage member to his face. People who knew Ernest are depicted as being well aware of what he was doing. This occurs alongside casual racism, from people who dismiss the indigenous people as savages, or a newsreel about the Tulsa race massacre. “Killers of the Flower Moon” is a long movie and it uses that length to repeatedly hammer home how the American environment of the time allowed this to happen without a moment's glance. If greed motivated Hale's scheme, if unquestioning men like Ernest Burkhart carried it out, then the systemic forces of prejudice that infect every corner of American culture is responsible for letting it happen uninterrupted. 

Yes, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is about white forces stomping out Native American culture. It does this through means cultural, political, and interpersonal. The first scene has an Osage elder bemoaning that their children will not speak their language. Mollie's mother states that all her children have married white men. The spectre of liquor and American consumerism, brought to the Osage by the white man, haunts the whole movie. Scorsese's effort to center the Native perspective surely resulted in the expanded role for the Osage figureheads. Lily Gladstone – of Piegan Blackfoot and Nez Perce heritage herself – plays Mollie as wounded and sometimes helpless to the forces around her. Yet she also maintains an incredible sense of dignity. Every Osage character in the film does. Her conflicted feelings are brought to life through several meaningful moments of voiceover narration. The movie grants the indigenous people a complicated, fleshed-out personality that we really see even in thoughtful films about how Native Americans have been abused and absorbed by the white culture all around them.

Without falling back on stereotypes of Indian mysticism, the film respects the Osage culture with haunting visions of animal spirits and ancient ancestors. These are elements of the film's powerful cinematography, the warm, earthy images often feeling like paintings come to life. This pairs with a harsh, rambling score that establishes the feeling of a crushing, advancing machine that can't be stopped. In its last third, “Killers of the Flower Moon” becomes a courtroom drama devoted to showing how even a feckless man like Ernest Burkhart can realize his own wrong-doing. Without the ability to intellectually justify his actions like Hale – always scheming, even from his jail cell –  does, Ernest is left to wallow in his own miserable suffering. It all proceeds a haunting final scene, which puts a perfect point on the idea that all of American culture is at fault for letting this happen, up to and including Scorsese himself.

Though intimidating in its length, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is sure to rank as one of Scorsese's most pointed movies. In a career obsessed with how men perform violent acts, the film sees the director truly examining the cause and effect of violence. It's an exhausting yet graceful examination of the controlling systems that allow these things to happen while also functioning as an indictment on those that did wrong and a tribute to those that still survive. [9/10]