There are many ways to tell a story, especially one that really happened, and that fact has been on Martin Scorsese’s mind lately. In films like The Irishman and The Wolf of Wall Street, he carefully transforms his protagonists’ true stories – or at least they say they are true – to look at them from a new perspective by using the men Subtly repositioned at their center (a mob hitman, a Wall Street gangster) to reveal new perspectives and undermine their self-aggrandizement. The results are insightful portraits of ego and self-deception, unpacked by a filmmaker intimately familiar with these qualities. The way you tell a story determines what it’s about – far more than the facts themselves.
“Killers of the Flower Moon,” Scorsese’s latest epic, is based on an exceptionally well-told nonfiction book by journalist David Grann. The book’s narrative structure is integrated into the subtitle: “The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.” Much of the book actually focuses on the crime and investigations of the newly formed FBI, highlighting the origins of the FBI and the men who conducted the investigations as well as the perpetrators and victims. It’s effective storytelling, history coupled with mystery.
However, the story structure on the page doesn’t always translate effectively to the screen. In interviews, Scorsese said he wasn’t happy with his first attempt at writing the script because “I realized I was making a movie about all white people,” as he told Time. “That is, I took the outside-in approach, which worried me.” After a private screening I attended in New York, he elaborated, noting that he recognized that the center of the story, that he told wasn’t the FBI at all: It was the strange love story of Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone), a white man and his Osage wife who lived together and started a family while Ernest was active was involved in a slow-moving plan to defraud Mollie’s family hatched by his uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro). As a self-proclaimed “Friend of the Osage,” William wants everyone to call him “King.”
Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon. Paramount Pictures
DiCaprio – one of Scorsese’s leading actors – was originally slated to play Tom White, the FBI agent who led the murder investigation; He was eventually recast as Ernest Burkhart, with Jesse Plemons taking over the role. Gladstone said the change was sparked by a simple fact: whoever plays the lead will be the focus of the film. DiCaprio’s recast puts Ernest and Mollie front and center, and the grief of the Osage Nation comes to the fore.
The plan to slowly transfer the oil-rich Osage’s wealth to the white men around them through a combination of marriage and murder is the plot that drives Killers of the Flower Moon. It really happened, in the early 1920s. But in Scorsese’s film, that plot isn’t really the story the film is telling. In keeping with his larger work, Killers is about how organized crime and the egos that drive it victimize the innocent, or even just the less intelligent. If “The Wolf of Wall Street” is about the tactics of high finance that are similar to organized crime, then “Killers” is about how our history is essentially full of gangster behavior. The centuries-long efforts throughout U.S. history to deprive indigenous peoples of their homes, families, wealth, and dignity, often under the guise of caring for them, are just another example.
Mild spoilers follow!
With its sweeping vistas and slow, droning score (composed by the late Robbie Robertson, a close friend of Scorsese), “Killers of the Flower Moon” draws on a cinematic language developed in Hollywood’s narratives of how the West was conquered and was perfected. This is telling: most of our popular imagination of the West comes from films about heroes and cowboys, in which Native Americans are often marginalized or positioned as outsiders. Scorsese evokes this style of storytelling while turning it on its head. The first moments of the film are Osage leaders mourning that their children are being “taught by whites”; Next is the discovery of oil on Osage land and a jubilant dance.
And then a 1920s-style reel begins immediately, black and white, silent, with subtitles, explaining who the Osage are (“the richest people per capita in the world,” the “chosen people of chance”). It’s the kind of film that curious moviegoers would have seen before a feature film showing at the theater, in which the Osage are transformed into curious characters: Can you believe it, Indians with fancy cars?
In “Killers of the Flower Moon,” there are constant battles over who gets to tell the story and who gets to tell what happens. Will Mollie be allowed to say what is happening to her and her family, or will Ernest and William’s explanations be accepted? Which version of events will make it into the obituaries and history books? And if the answer isn’t Osage – why?
Members of the Osage Nation with Scorsese at the premiere of “Killers of the Flower Moon” in New York (from left): Princess of the Osage Nation Gianna “Gigi” Sieke, Princess of the Osage Nation Lawren “Lulu” Goodfox, Chad Renfro, Scott George , Julie O’ Keefe, Brandy Lemon, Martin Scorsese, Osage Nation Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, Julie Standing Bear, Christopher Cote and Addie Roanhorse. Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
The result of all this careful questioning is astounding. To say that Scorsese made a great film is to proclaim that the water is wet, but there’s a kind of sadness in Killers’ tone, a constant sense of dread and sorrow that only works in the hands of a master. You’re not so much told how to feel as you are made to feel, and by the end you’re overwhelmed with outrage at what happened with the story of the murders and many similar stories.
The key to this was the decision to focus on the romance between Ernest and Mollie, and not just because Gladstone’s elegant seriousness is a serious counterpoint to DiCaprio’s interpretation of Ernest as a weak, silly and easily manipulated man who Mollie nevertheless loves. You begin to understand why she stayed with him long before it made sense. In fact, during the film, Ernest and Mollie go to the cinema and watch a 1918 film called The Lady of the Dugout, a silent western whose tagline is “a true romance of the true West, the truth and nothing but that.” Truth” was .”
This film was narrated by a real-life outlaw, Al Jennings, who tells a story – ostensibly true but also somewhat exaggerated – about rescuing a woman whose alcoholic husband was abusing her. Just a little foreshadowing for Ernest and Mollie and also for Scorsese. It depends on who gets to tell the story. It is also important who the story is about.
“Killers of the Flower Moon” hits theaters on October 20th.
Most news organizations make money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to accomplish at Vox, there are several reasons why we can’t rely solely on ads and subscriptions to keep us running.
First, advertising spending rises and falls with the economy. We often only know in a few months what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it difficult to plan ahead.
Second, we are not in the subscription business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world – not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe this is an important part of building a more equal society. We can’t do that if we have a paywall.
That’s why we’re also turning to you, our readers, to help us keep Vox free. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted, high-quality information, would you give Vox a gift today?
Yes, I give $5/month
Yes, I give $5/month
We accept credit cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay. You can also contribute via
