One of the most striking images from legendary director Martin Scorsese’s latest epic, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” is a scene of men from the Osage Nation in Oklahoma dancing among the discovery of struck oil in their land.
However, what most people are tending to forget while discussing this scene, is the scene prior to it.
The Osage leaders are together, mourning the collective loss of their people and culture, warning that their culture will be further lost as their people are forced to assimilate into the standards of Western American culture.
That scene sets up the entirety of the film and what the audience is about to stand witness to.
Written by Scorsese and Eric Roth, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is based on the best-selling nonfiction book by journalist David Grann.
In the book, Grann explores the history of the quest for oil in Osage County during the 20th century, where the Osage experienced a profound rise in wealth after the discovery of oil on their lands.
In stark black-and-white vignettes reminiscent of 1920s silent films, Scorsese paints a picture of how profoundly wealthy many Osage were during this time, with stills showing the latest and greatest of 1920s automobiles, posing with their furs and jewelry.
Even in this wealth, financial power within the Osage was still suppressed by court-ordered laws targeting their finances.
The Osage were required to have court-appointed guardians to manage the money of “full-blood” and “half-blood” members, assuming full-blooded members as “incompetent,” according to an Oct. 20 article by the Guardian.
In 1906, The Burke Act was introduced by Charles Burke, who called Indigenous peoples “half-animal,” he also led the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
This act authorized the secretary of the interior to decide whether a Indigenous person was “competent” enough to manage his or her lands.
That also meant blood quantum laws, a system in place by the federal government to limit citizenship to tribes, controlled how much power an Osage had over their wealth.
This meant guardians empowered by the act would also take advantage of the power they had over the Osage, which meant they could write themselves into their wills and documents, allowing them to take over their finances, according to the same article.
The film doesn’t shy away from how casual this is the 1920s, it places us into their reality and what they face, yet it feels all the more relevant.
He masterfully guides the audience through the history he transports back in time to, telling us through the experiences of the characters how wrong this is and we have to sit, watch and fester in the injustice.
Right after the vignettes, Scorsese, in Scorsese fashion, cuts to the murders of members of the Osage Nation, with the character Mollie Kyle, played by Lily Gladstone, narrating over the clips of the dead bodies on screen.
Their names and ages are given, with flashes of their accidental “deaths” implying murder, adding “No investigation.”
It’s very obvious where this movie is heading and what happened to actual members of the
Osage nation, as their wealth was seen as a problem by the white people in the area and the U.S. government.
Watching the film doesn’t feel like a slow burn, at every turn there’s something to worry or be suspicious about, waiting for the brutal history of these events to unfold.
In the film we’re introduced to Kyle and her family; her mother Lizzie (Tantoo Cardinal), and her sisters Minnie (Jillian Dion), Rita (Janae Collins) and Anna (Cara Jade Myers).
We’re also introduced to William Hale, played by actor and frequent collaborator with Scorsese, Robert De Niro.
Hale is a cattle owner and reserve Deputy Sheriff who aims to create warm relations with the Osage Nation, speaking their language, getting to know their families and becoming close with the members of the tribe, with an insidious agenda.
The audience is then introduced to Ernest Burkhart, played by actor and also frequent collaborator, Leonardo Dicaprio.
Burkhart, just returned from World War I, is Hale’s nephew and he arrives to live with his brother and uncle.
His uncle, on the underlying hand, has a plan for Burkhart in the making. A suggestion to Burkhart is to court Kyle and her family, to become Kyle’s driver and have her fall in love with him.
Burkhart takes a job as a driver for the Osage, as he becomes Kyle’s main driver where he’s able to court her into marriage.
This is all a part of Hale’s larger plan where he plans the murders of multiple Osage members, including Kyle and her family.
All of this because if Burkhart marries her and she so happens to pass away, Burkhart is able to attain more of Kyle’s headrights – her land and wealth.
The backstory behind this movie matters more than the movie itself.
With a runtime of three and a half hours, Scorsese is unwavering and unflinching in portraying the brutality of the white people behind the murders of Kyle’s family and other Osage members.
While Leonardo Dicaprio is the lead in the film, Lily Gladstone plays the central soul of “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
We watch Gladstone viscerally portray a woman who is losing her family one by one, a community member working with other members of her tribe to try to figure out who is orchestrating the murders of her tribe.
We also watch her lay witness to the tragic deaths of all of her sisters, Minnie first, the murder of her sister Anna next and in the most brutal scene on screen, the murder of her sister Rita and brother-in-law Bill.
Scorsese does not give you a moment to breathe, even in the moments where we see love and care between Burkhart and his wife.
We know something suspicious is happening, we know what’s about to happen and who will be affected by this. He does not let you forget for a second.
Most of the film is taken up with the setup of the events of what’s happening to the Osage, with Scorsese interspersing moments of action and inaction one after the other.
However, the moments of inaction are necessary and I feel as though the movie could have been even longer considering the breadth and depth of the history behind “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
The brutality we watch on the screen is so unwavering, that when federal law enforcement arrives to investigate the murders, it still doesn’t feel like we’ve been relieved or justice has been done, because there is no justice or peace to what happened to the Osage Nation nor to any of the Indigenous peoples of the nation as a whole.
The Scorsese epic has all the feelings and structures of a Scorsese epic, but without the glamour of his other films, it is a stripped down and raw portrait of the evil of what the American project was in its destruction and genocide of the Indigenous peoples of this territory, what we call the U.S.
During the film I felt nothing but pure rage and grief.
I felt immobile with the amount of emotion pent up inside me, not knowing what to do with what I was watching, knowing that this history has happened and how unfair it all is and how it continues to happen to Indigenous communities not only here, but elsewhere in the world.
It’s a stark reminder of this country’s evil and greed and the people who are affected by it.
The film’s ending, a self-reflection on the film itself, reckons the limitations it has on the story and its place in current history.
It's as though we’re watching him take a step back, diving into something he has never done before in his movies.
It’s Scorsese’s most mature and realistic statement yet, in how serious the tone is which leaves you feeling breathless and devastated, but with a semblance of hope.
