When the “America’s greatest living filmmaker” releases a movie, one might expect a transcendent experience. While there is no doubt that Killers of the Flower Moon is a massive technical and artistic achievement, it also keeps viewers at arm’s length.
For the uninitiated, Killers of the Flower Moon covers a period of 1920s Oklahoma history, when the Osage people were systematically murdered for their oil rights. With this true history as backdrop, the film follows Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), a European-American, as he marries Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), a member of the Osage nation with said oil rights. Slowly, Mollie’s relatives begin dying under mysterious circumstances, leaving her, and her European extended family, with more and more wealth.
Thus is the crux of the film’s moral circumstances: how do the (some of) the European townsfolk seem to genuinely like their Osage neighbors and admire their heritage, even as they rob them and murder them. Robert DeNiro’s “King” Hale, Ernest’s cattle baron uncle, speaks the Osage language and (allegedly) counts Osage among his closest friends.
There are a few issues that one could find with the film. The first is that the film’s sprawling length, at 210 minutes, makes seeing it in one sitting difficult. With the many era-appropriate techniques utilized during the film, one might wish that director Martin Scorsese and his producers revived the roadshow format and inserted an intermission at some point during the proceedings.
The second is that, during this sprawling length many sociocultural observations, while interesting, can cause confusion on first watch. On a technical level, Killers is missing a true voice over. While the film does use a few quasi-narration techniques, the audience is not made into an accomplice the same way that they are in some of Scorsese’s best crime films are. A shrewd decision given the heinous nature content matter, perhaps, yet one that leaves the world at arm’s length.
Finally, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Ernest Burkhart is a true dummy, perhaps the dumbest main character in any Scorsese film. Ernest is simply not intelligent enough to understand the world around him, and we as an audience share in his confusion. Details are withheld from the audience for stylistic reasons, to create tension, and for practical, narrative purposes.
These critiques should not keep one from viewing this film. Killers of the Flower Moon is a morally complex and challenging film that will reward thoughtful viewers. Killers of the Flower Moon will have to settle for merely being a massive achievement.
Martin Scorsese wrote the screenplay with Eric Roth, based on the book of the same name by David Grann. At first glance, a western epic might not seem like a fit for a poet of urban crime dramas, yet a more careful look at his filmography shows that Scorsese’s historical fiction often takes a paranoiacs view of a society. Fates are decided in backrooms, and the condemned may or may not know the reason why. It’s not quite a coincidence that most Scorsese films end with a criminal trial of some sort, as the protagonists are judged by Earthy bodies. Final Judgement is left to the audience.
Killers was shot on hybrid of film and digital using a hybrid of spherical and anamorphic lenses by regular Scorsese cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto. The film was edited by regular Scorsese editor Thelma Schoonmaker, and features music by the late Robbie Robertson.