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]

OSCARS 2020: The Irishman (2019)

Throughout the history of American cinema, I don't know if any filmmaker is more associated with the gangster genre than Martin Scorsese. Maybe Coppola but he hasn't maintained the latter day respect Marty has. This reputation is somewhat ironic, considering Scorsese has only previously directed four mob movies across his thirty-four film career. Nevertheless, it was clear through the long development, extended production, and repeated delays that “The Irishman” was going to be his final statement on the mobster genre. This is most evident in how the film teamed Scorsese with the three actors most associated with this type of story: DeNiro, Pesci, and Pacino. (Who had somehow never made a film with Scorsese before.) Combined with an epic three-and-a-half hour runtime and the biggest budget of Scorsese's career, owing to the extensive digital de-aging of the cast, “The Irishman” is clearly meant to be a gangland epic like no other. Despite the massive expectations riding on this, Scorsese seems to have deliver. “The Irishman” has received raves from just about every corner of the film critic world, including the Academy.

“The Irishman” is adapted from the true crime book “I Heard You Paint Houses,” which was based on the possibly bullshit confessions of teamster and mob hitman Frank Sheeran. After returning home from World War II, Frank Sheeran gets a job driving a meat truck. Soon, he starts selling steak to a mobster behind his boss' back. After being accused of stealing, he's put in touch with a union lawyer, a cousin of Russell Bufalino, the head of Pennsylvania's biggest crime syndicate. Soon enough, Frank becomes a mob hitman and not long after that, he meets Jimmy Hoffa. Through the years, Frank and Hoffa form a strong friendship that carries through the changing times and the various entanglements of unions, politics, and the criminal underworld. But this too will someday end.

Over the course of “The Irishman's” epic run time, the film repeatedly returns to the idea of brotherly bonds made between brutal men. Frank and Russell's friendship is forged over a wonky truck engine, the two quickly growing closer as they learn more about each other's violent lives. Frank and Hoffa's bond is similarly based in each men's willingness to subvert the rules to get what they want. Yet anyone with a sense of history knows that Hoffa's mob entanglements eventually cost him his life. So, despite all the rewards they give each other, despite all the time they spend together, it's clear that Frank and Hoffa's friendship was meant to be broken. Like many of Scorsese's mobster flicks, “The Irishman” reveals how there is no honor among thieves. That a violent, criminal life only leads to blood and heartbreak for everyone.

In fact, “The Irishman” has widely been considered a summation of many of the themes Scorsese has touched on throughout his career. This comes into even sharper reflect as the movie pulls into its final third. After three hours of watching Frank be a violent scumbag, we see him degrade into a broken old man. His health fails him, his body fails him. His family abandons him. Russell, his only true friend, dies. Soon, he's left alone as an elderly man in a nursing home, who can still only see the world through the prism of hits and mob loyalties. It's a stunningly quiet conclusion, the weight of a lifetime of regrets being keenly felt. Scorsese, DeNiro, Pesci, and Pacino are all getting up there in age. Clearly, an ending so evocative of the finality of life, the regrets of old age, is rift with personal meaning for all of them. That is the area “The Irishman” most impresses in.

Though the film's long length quickly became notorious, that ending wouldn't mean as much if “The Irishman” hadn't taken its time. The extra breathing room of a three and a half hour run time allows for many interesting, small asides. Such as the way Frank's brutish way of life, how he can only resolve conflicts through violence, destroys his relationship with his daughter. Peggy Sheeran's lack of dialogue has been controversial but that's entirely the point. Frank can't communicate with his daughter on any level, which “The Irishman” makes very literal. This is just one way the characters' blustering macho egos get in the way of a normal life. In another key moment, Hoffa gets into an argument with a rival over being late to a meeting, that eventually ends in a petty fist fight.

“The Irishman” also proves that, even this late into his career, Martin Scorsese is still capable of pulling of an impressive set piece. There's a quiet humor to “The Irishman.” This is noticeable in the often appearing on-screen titles, which clarify the unseemly way the majority of the movie's characters die. Or the off-hand way Frank, in narration, details which guns are best for what kind of hit. Yet Scorsese is still capable of creating moments of great intensity and visual playfulness. The stand-out moment of “The Irishman” is a hit Frank performs in the middle of a seafood restaurant. The camera swirls around DeNiro and his victims as he fires more bullets into the man's body, the violence eventually exploding through a glass door and into the streets. Yet even this is not my favorite scene in “The Irishman.” That would be when, after a montage of car bombs going off, Hoffa's wife pauses before turning the keys in the ignition. It's a great, largely visual depiction of just how much the bloody gangster lifestyle ruins the lives of those around them.

After slumming it for years in various subpar projects, Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino are all too aware that this may very well be there last chance to show what they are made of as performers. DeNiro, narrating in a reflecting style throughout the film, certainly proves once again why he's one of the most respected performers of his generation. DeNiro's glances or a nods speak volume, especially as more and more regrets are added to Frank's shoulders. Pacino, meanwhile, is fantastically bombastic as Hoffa. His profane rants are among the film's most entertaining moments, which plays to Pacino's operatic strengths. Joe Pesci, meanwhile, plays against type as Russell. Instead of the swearing, manic heights Pesci is beloved for, Russell is a quiet man who considers every word before he says it. It's another good indicator of the amount of control and grace Pesci is capable of as an actor.

Yes, “The Irishman” is very long. You have to carve out a large chunk of your day to watch it. I'm tempted to say the film didn't need to be quite such a behemoth but that ending really counts for a lot. Also, yes, the digital de-aging effects are a bit on the distracting side. DeNiro never quite looks as young as he's suppose to, making his exact age during any of the flashback scenes hard to determine. All things considered, “The Irishman” is an experience absolutely worth going through. It is Martin Scorsese and his frequent co-collaborators making their final, definitive statement on the mobster movie, summing everything up and somehow finding new things to say about it. [9/10]

Recent Watches: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

This Oscar season has invited maybe a little more controversy then usual. From Woody Allen, to “12 Years a Slave’s” disturbing content, to the Academy actually liking “American Hustle,” this year has seen no shortage of outrage. However, I think the biggest generator of film-related controversy this year belongs to “The Wolf of Wall Street.” Does the film glorify its immoral, criminal protagonists? Does its sex and drug content go too far over the top? Does it unfairly represent the true story? How big of an asshole was Jordan Belfort exactly? Surprisingly, the film itself, an engaging, amusing affair, hasn’t been entirely overlooked amid the hullabaloo.

Based off his tell-all book, the film chronicles the life of Jordan Belfort, a wall street broker who made millions by selling shitty stocks for exaggerated costs, ripping off thousands and making himself absurdly rich. What money Jordan doesn’t spend on his ever-growing addiction to sex and drugs buys himself a succession of mansions, a yacht, and a supermodel wife. Nothing interrupts the constant bacchanal that is Jordan and his co-workers’ life. Not even when the government begins to investigate Stratton Oakmont’s deeply illegal business practice. The second half of the film discusses how the company hides their millions in Swedish banks, before rising drug-related insanity, a dissolving marriage, and increased government scrutiny leads to a downfall of sorts.

It’s no wonder the film has received so much attention for its content. “The Wolf of Wall Street” draws detailed attention to the impossible intake of sex and drugs Jordan and his pals regularly partaked in. The film begins with a dwarf being tossed onto a Velcro dart board and continues on to Jordan getting road-head while in his speeding Ferrari and snorting cocaine out of a call-girl’s asshole. Much attention is paid to the amount of coke and Quaaludes Belfort consumes on a daily basis. Throughout the film we see more breasts then you could ever count, full frontal nudity, and graphic fuckery of many sorts, including kinky S&M and a gay orgy. I have no idea how this movie received an R-rating. I know the moral guardians at the MPAA count the number of thrust men perform during a sex scene and I suspect this film far exceeds the typical R limit. I guess starring Leo DiCaprio and being directed by Martin Scorsese leads to some leeway.

Does the movie glorify the excesses of its protagonists’ life? Probably. If for no other reason then Scorsese never focuses on Belfort’s victims. Never once do we see the lives ruined by Stratton Oakmont’s “pump and dump” scam. The film is focused purely Belfort and his associates, telling the story from their point of view. This might be unfair, even slightly irresponsible, but I suspect it accurately reflects the source material. Maybe it’s for the best since, for the majority of the runtime, the coke, pills, hookers, and money money money looks like a whole lot of fun. The film’s rambunctious tone probably would derailed any attempt to make a statement about greed.

The movie’s themes are more self-evident. Here in America, greed works. Belfort and company are made ridiculously rich, live lives of incredible excess, rip off lots of people, and never truly suffer for it. Oh, he looses a portion of his fortune, his wife, his kids, all his friends, and spends three relatively comfortable years in jail. At the end, he’s still well-to-do and doesn’t seem to have learned much. The film is less a “rise and fall story” then a rise, rise, rise, and eventual minor fall story. This structure is helped along by the film’s epic three hour length which spends far more time on the circumstances of Belfort’s charmed life then his inevitable loss. The film accurately reflects a world were the 1% never suffer, told from the point of view of those who are victors even when they loose.

The film’s cynical tone is helped along by the fact that it’s really funny. Belfort casually discusses the business of buying prostitutes, his daily regiment of illegal substances, and how to rip people off. It’s clear that none of his crimes, both legal and moral, weigh on his conscious at all. Before a long flight, Belfort doses up just right, to insure he’s passed out for the entire trip. DiCaprio’s deadpan description of each phase of intoxication is especially amusing. When faced with a boat-capsizing tidal wave, Belfort runs for more drugs, exclaiming that he won’t die sober. Rob Reiner plays Belfort’s dad, often wryly commenting on his son’s hellraising behavior. A discussion between the two concerning women’s pubic hair is another highlight. The lead character’s debauchery arguably peaks when he decides to seduce his wife’s aunt, a moment that builds and defuses fantastically.

However, one humorous scene in the movie stands above the rest. In order to celebrate successfully smuggling cash into Sweden, Jordan and his best man Donnie pop a set of ultra-rare, ultra-powerful ‘luudes. They don’t appear to work at first, prompting the men to ingest more. And more. When the drugs finally kick in, Belfort looses complete control of his bodily functions. If the Academy gave out Oscars for comedic performances, DiCaprio would surely win. His physicality in that moment is incredible, twisting his limbs into knots, rolling around on the ground, nudging a car door open with his foot. The scene continues to build from there, the completely slurred Jordan forced to rescue an equally intoxicated Donnie. Contrasting a Popeye cartoon with Belfort’s dependence on cocaine, the moment climaxes hysterically. Even then, the movie isn’t done, the fate of Belfort’s car providing a nice punch line.

With the movie being so amusing and DiCaprio’s performance being so likable gung-ho, you almost wonder if Scorsese wants you to like these utterly despicable characters. After two and a half hours of Belfort and his cohorts being portrayed as lovably debauched pranksters, Scorsese pulls the rug out from under us. Facing financial ruin, government prosecution, and a divorce from his wife, Belfort hits rock bottom. He snorts a hidden cache of coke, beats Naomi, kidnaps his daughter, and nearly gets both killed in a car wreck. See, the director says, he’s not so much fun now, is he? It’s a good thing Scorsese is a fucking master at these sort of tonal shifts because otherwise that scene might derail “Wolf of Wall Street’s” final act.

And what about that cast? DiCaprio’s running monologue intentionally recalls “Goodfellas” but Leo makes it his own. He shows no shame, inhabiting the role of a heartless, completely debauched scumbag. He earned his nomination and, in a less busy year, would probably win. Jonah Hill certainly has the comedic chops to pull off scenes involving cousin fucking, crack smoking, and whipping his dick out at a party. He still has yet to convince me as a dramatic actor. Margot Robbie, last seen on forgettable airplane soap “Pan Am,” makes a ridiculous Long Island accent believable and proves an able foil to DiCaprio, especially when thrown glasses of water are involved. (She’s also lovely and very, very naked.) Though Matthew McConaughey’s role is ultimately small, his scene as Jordan’s cock-swinging, hedonistic mentor is certainly memorable.

Even at three hours long, “Wolf of Wall Street” is certainly a good time, an entertaining and absorbing study of a fully unrepentant character. Scorsese packs the soundtrack full of inspired choices like Devo, Klaus Nomi, the Foo Fighters, and Jimmy Castor. His direction is smooth and creative. Maybe Martin Scorsese doesn’t make masterpieces like “Raging Bull” or “Taxi Driver” anymore but this film proves he certainly hasn’t lost any of his youthful energy. [7/10]

With only a few hours to go before the Oscars, I have finally seen all of the Best Picture nominees. I would rank them thus:

Her: 9/10
Nebraska: 9/10
Gravity: 9/10
12 Years a Slave: 8/10
Dallas Buyers Club: 8/10
The Wolf of Wall Street: 7/10
Philomena: 7/10
Captain Philips: 6/10
American Hustle: 5/10

I guess that makes for a pretty good year. I also saw about half of "August: Osage County" last night before falling asleep. It seemed slightly shrill but still interesting. I was hoping to get to some of the documentary and foreign language nominees but, as usual, ran out of time. Return later tonight for my annual Live-Blog of the 86th Academy Awards. See you then!