[ Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of David Grann’s
best-selling Killers of the Flower Moon explores the rot beneath the
myth of American exceptionalism.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

“KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON” A SLOW, STAGGERING AMERICAN
CONSPIRACY  
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David Sims
October 19, 2023
The Atlantic
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_ Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of David Grann’s
best-selling Killers of the Flower Moon explores the rot beneath the
myth of American exceptionalism. _

Killers of the Flower Moon, Osage Nation Museum

 

When the World War I veteran Ernest Burkhart (played by Leonardo
DiCaprio) gets off the train in Osage County, Oklahoma, he is walking
into the turn-of-the-century boomtown of Fairfax, a bustling throng of
activity that has sprung up out of nowhere following the discovery of
oil. Wandering salesmen press leaflets into his hand and promise he
can get rich quick; luxurious automobiles buzz around, the atmosphere
pulsing with a feeling of runaway success. But as Burkhart is driven
by an Osage man named Henry out to the countryside through fields of
pumping derricks, he asks whose land he’s on. “My land,” Henry
says gruffly.

As it thrusts the viewer into this epic tableau, a world of sudden and
overwhelming wealth at the start of the 20th century, Martin
Scorsese’s _Killers of the Flower Moon _is suffused with the
dreadful sense of storm clouds gathering on every horizon. Adapted
from David Grann’s best-selling book, the film explores the history
of the Osage Nation as it reaped the rewards of oil residing
underneath its land and immediately found itself in the crosshairs of
an overwhelming force: pioneering American exceptionalism, which
Scorsese demands that the viewer recognize as brutal white supremacy.

Grann’s masterful book is preoccupied more with the investigation of
the notorious Osage murders, a series of mysterious deaths that
diverted much of the tribe members’ money to white family members
who had married into their oil rights. The quantity of murders was
shocking enough to summon the predecessor of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI,
whose lawmen helped unravel the evil conspiracy behind the killings.
But that whodunit is mere window dressing to Scorsese’s film, which
he co-wrote with Eric Roth; the filmmaker’s fascination lies more
with Burkhart, who married an Osage woman named Mollie (the remarkable
Lily Gladstone), and the terrible contradictions contained within
their marriage.

The history is clear on who perpetrated the Osage murders, and within
minutes of meeting the local cattle magnate William Hale (Robert De
Niro), Ernest’s uncle, viewers will pick up on something deeply
sinister afoot. But over the course of three and a half entirely
gripping hours, Scorsese plumbs what he clearly considers the biggest
enigma of the tale—whether there was real humanity to relationships
like Ernest and Mollie’s, despite the evil intent behind them.
It’s a conceit that would fail without the staggering work being
done by DiCaprio and Gladstone, who depict a sometimes loving but
deeply poisonous partnership that reflects the slow-moving scheme
around them.

In focusing on a doomed partnership rather than on white-hatted FBI
agents saving the day, Scorsese pays homage to the swooning, romantic
roots of classic Western films, which often depicted star-crossed
love, Native Americans as a mysterious other, and fated heroism.
But _Killers of the Flower Moon _scrubs the Old Hollywood varnish
from cowboys like Ernest to reveal them as they truly were: crude and
callous “pioneers” whose only motivation was to seize more of what
they felt belonged to them, be it money, land, or women. Ernest
happily regards himself as a simple creature, fond of drink and sex,
and when he’s pushed into courting Mollie by Hale, he does it with
the same dunderheaded aplomb with which he later carries out far more
nefarious deeds.

He’s just one of many blunt instruments deployed by Hale, a rancher
and political boss who presents himself as a friend of the Osage—he
speaks their language, knows their customs, and breaks bread with them
constantly. The most terrifying thing about Hale is that he clearly
believes his own guff. De Niro plays him as a chummy, satisfied
grandpa, nudging Ernest and Mollie toward each other with glee while
also matter-of-factly telling Ernest that the Osage, as a people, are
clearly on their way out from civilization, and white men are rushing
in to replace them. The banality of Hale’s malevolence, combined
with the sheer scale of his manipulation, is almost too staggering to
consider—so. DiCaprio doesn’t let Ernest do it, portraying him
instead as a simple cowboy going with the flow.

It’s up to the audience to piece together how self-aware Ernest is,
and how long it takes him to comprehend the depth of what’s
happening. Similarly, it’s easy to identify with Mollie’s initial
reaction of being charmed by this dashing outsider, and her
unwillingness to accept that he might be part of the malice being
inflicted on her family and her people. From the start, white society
is obviously hell-bent on usurping the surprising wealth and influence
of the Osage, but Scorsese still depicts the criminality beat by beat,
each individual death here and there piling up into a generational
tragedy.

Eventually, the FBI (or, technically, its forebear, the Bureau of
Investigation) does show up, in the guise of Tom White (Jesse
Plemons), a straight-arrow investigator who starts asking hard
questions of Hale and Ernest. But again, Scorsese is least interested
in the actual detective work involved. He’s invested more in the
tragic consequences of these deaths, pushing his viewer to understand
that whatever justice might have been done on behalf of the Osage, it
was not nearly enough to halt the larger, inevitable act of ethnic
cleansing that had already been happening for hundreds of years.
Scorsese will frequently visit old Hollywood genres he adores, like
the gangster film
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the costume drama, and use their tropes to examine life as it really
was at a particular time, unearthing grimy realism in filmic
slickness. As a Western, _Killers of the Flower Moon _does exactly
that, taking in swelling vistas of Oklahoma before probing the rot
just beneath the surface. It’s a tremendous but chilling achievement
from one of America’s great storytellers.

David Sims [[link removed]] is a
staff writer at _The Atlantic_, where he covers culture.

 

* Film
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* Film Review
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* Killers of the Flower Moon
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* Martin Scorsese
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* Osage Indian Murders
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* David Grann
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