Directed By: Martin Scorsese
Screenplay By: Eric Roth; Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio; Robert De Niro; Lily Gladstone; Jesse Plemons; Tantoo Cardinal; Cara Jade Myers; JaNae Collins; Jillian Dion; Jason Isbell; William Belleau; John Lithgow; Brendan Fraser
Language: English; Osage
Genre: Crime; Drama; Western
Run Time: 3 hours 26 minutes
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon delves into the infamous history of the Osage Murders known as the Reign of Terror. However, unlike the eponymous book which is a non-fictional investigative text on the Bureau of Investigation’s efforts (later FBI) at uncovering the murders and cover-ups in Oklahoma, the film’s focal point is through the marriage of Molly Kyle (Lily Gladstone) and Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio).
We are told that the Osage Nation were forced to move to Oklahoma, an arid patch of land, giving up their ancestral spaces. They found oil in these lands making them overnight one of the richest communities in the US. The oil brought unbelievable wealth but it also brought white profiteers who believed that they had to ‘rescue’ the land and its wealth from the ‘incompetent people’ who own it. The Osage, according to US law, were declared ‘incompetent’ by the government and were given white benefactors/overseers who managed their property and gave them an allowance.
Into such a background, we have the entry of Ernest Burkhart. Discharged from service during the WWI, he comes to live with his uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro) or King Hale as he was known. Ernest, we are told, was a cook in the army. He was discharged because his injury would not permit him to do hard labour. We realise also that he is dim-witted. He is thus presented right from the beginning as a harmless man who cannot be a threat. And yet, a perfect pawn.
We see that Molly and Ernest are happily married; he is a devoted father and husband. But King Hale continues to be a spectre looming over not just Molly’s family but the entire community since he has ingratiated himself to the Osage Nation by learning the language, the customs and seemingly respecting it.
We are shown frequent, brutal deaths with obvious perpetrators and yet the fact that no one questions it means that they are performed with the tacit approval of the local law enforcement agency. There is a sham of a medical service – ‘treatment’ for the Osage illnesses as well as coroners who are hiding the cause of death rather than revealing it. Even the illnesses plaguing the Osage such as diabetes are not discussed in detail, but in passing referenced as a result of the consumption of a white diet unsuitable to the Osage. These conversations seemingly bemoaning the poor health practises is matched by high sugar dishes being served constantly.
Much more deep-seated is a racial framework that believes that the Osage, like other Native American tribespeople, do not deserve autonomy. They are not even seen as people. One of the most chilling dialogues is, when there is a discussion planning out the murder of Molly’s sister Reta (JaNae Collins) and her white husband (Jason Isbell). They are referenced as “a man and his blanket” – she is reduced to the traditional wearing blanket that Osage women wore and maybe the fact that she is but just his financial safety net. Marriage to white men, gave the Osage women seeming control over their property but in reality, the white overseer was now not court-appointed but the husband.
Even the fact that the Osage Nation needed to pay the FBI to conduct an investigation points out at the flawed state of affairs. One of the scenes that is increasingly repeated to a disturbing effect, is Molly looking at an intimate family gathering and finding it slowly filling up with unfamiliar people – they are white, ‘family’, smiling and yet dangerous. Even the scenes of the house’s interior, starkly changes from when she first invites Ernest over for dinner to when it is teeming with white people. The whole thing works like a metaphor for the settler colony that America is.
Much of the criticism levelled against the film has been about how it is more about white people and not the Osage expressing themselves in primary positions. However, when the point is to poke holes in racial privilege, it needs to come from a space where it becomes harder and harder to justify. Other peoples’ emotions can be discounted – ‘oh they feel too much’ – but buffoonery? Harder to explain.
The players engaging in it may be entirely oblivious of the flaws of their argument because to begin with, racism is one of those systems founded not on logic, because reason cannot be the bedrock of prejudice, but a blind cult-like belief. And nothing is more blinding than greed. We see that reflected when Ernest, in a scene similar to Molly’s disquiet at the unfamiliarity of her intimate family gathering, walks into the Hale house and is faced by grim-faced white people who look strangely alike and frightening. And much like a cult, they brainwash Ernest to parrot their ideas.
Personally, the film played out like a black comedy crime thriller because the conclusion seemed obvious. Even if you wanted to wish it away, it was like a foregone calamity – a complete train wreck. There is romance in Killers of the Flower Moon but it is not a romance. It is the antithesis. It is a betrayal.
Directed By: Ken Loach
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