CANNES, France (AP) – Martin Scorsese unveiled “Killers of the Flower Moon” in Cannes on Saturday, debuting a sweeping American epic about greed and exploitation on the bloody plains of an Osage Nation reservation in 1920s Oklahoma.
Scorsese’s latest film – starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro – is one of his most ambitious. The adaptation of David Grann’s best-selling non-fiction spans nearly three and a half hours and cost Apple $200 million.
Nothing was more anticipated at this year’s Cannes Film Festival than ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ – historical epic, grim crime and Great Plains Western – which seemed to live up to those expectations. It drew a long standing ovation and repeated cheers for 80-year-old Scorsese, who premiered his first film since 1985’s ‘After Hours’ at Cannes.
“We shot that in Oklahoma a few years ago. It took a while to get there, but Apple has been a great support,” Scorsese said, addressing the crowd after the screening. “There was a lot of grass. I’m a New Yorker.”
The red carpet attracted a wide range of stars. In addition to the film’s extensive cast, attendees included Apple CEO Tim Cook and actors Cate Blanchett, Salma Hayek, Paul Dano and Isabelle Huppert.
Although Grann’s book offers many possible approaches to the story, Scorsese and co-author Eric Roth focus their story on Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio, in his seventh collaboration with Scorsese), a World War I veteran who turns into Mollie Brown (Gladstone ), the member of, falls in love with a wealthy Osage family.
Because the Osage found oil on their land, they were the wealthiest people in the country per capita. But this wealth is tightly controlled by appointed white guardians. A series of murders causes increasing panic among the Osage, who are being pursued by a greedy killer.
Although Grann’s book devoted many pages to the connections between the cases and the formation of the FBI, Scorsese’s film devotes less time to the murder investigation. (Jesse Plemons plays an agent for the newly formed Bureau.) Instead, Killers of the Flower Moon captures the manipulation and murders of Native Americans through the dynamic in Ernest and Mollie’s relationship.
Killers of the Flower Moon, which runs out of competition in Cannes, opens in US theaters on October 6th.
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