Writers: Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese
Director: Martin Scorsese
The official trailer for Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour epic doesn’t do justice to The Killers of the Flower. It’s much better than the trailer suggests. Roberto De Niro gives his best performance in years and Leonardo DiCaprio, despite a stubborn scowl, shines in this film about the murder of members of the Osage Nation, indigenous Americans in the Midwest. Based on truth as laid out in David Grann’s book, the story follows a traditional narrative of showing how bad America was in the past, but also how good America is in exposing its wrongdoings.
With the discovery of oil on their land, some of the Osage people are extremely wealthy after the First World War. The women wear furs; the men drive expensive cars; white people are their servants. It’s a world that ex-soldier Earnest Burkhart (DiCaprio) enters after the war has finished. Unable to do manual work because of a war wound in his stomach, Earnest becomes a cab driver and often drives Mollie Brown, an Osage woman who could one day inherit a fortune, around town.
Under the guidance of his Uncle King (a smooth-talking De Niro), Earnest begins to date Mollie. She knows that he’s after her money, but she also believes that he wants an easy life, where he doesn’t have to work. She imagines that’s why he’s so keen to marry her. Marrying an Osage woman was not seen as a transgression of social mores if that woman had money. The first hour or so of Scorsese’s film treads a familiar tale of courtship, but it’s nicely presented and Earnest’s awkwardness around Mollie is cute to watch.
However, underneath this love story is a darker reality. Many of the Osage people are sick. Some have diabetes caused by the sugary ‘white people’s food’ that they are now eating. Some have become melancholy alcoholics and are addicted to the moonshine that thrives under Prohibition. Women die mysteriously of the ‘wasting illness’ while others commit suicide.
Mollie’s sisters die and then her mother. Mollie becomes lethargic but puts it down to the diabetes. Earnest whiles away his time drinking or playing billiards. He has the lazy life he’s always wanted. They have a whole troop of servants to clean and cook and nurses take care of their children. It’s not that he doesn’t love Mollie; it’s just that he’s scared of his uncle more.
Lily Gladstone is Mollie and is terrific at the beginning of the film when she tries to figure out Earnest’s intentions, but she has little to do in the second half. The film is more concerned with the dynamic between its two male stars than giving the Osage people a voice. Perhaps Scorsese wants his audience to sympathise with DiCaprio’s character too much. He may be stupid – that’s why DiCaprio’s mouth is downturned so often, Earnest is thinking – but he has agency and has the ability to choose his course of action. The power that King wields over Earnest is not as total as that Earnest has over his wife.
But Earnest is progressively shown as a victim, a gaslighted lackey doing his uncle’s dirty work. But this idea of him as a victim is a little repulsive and it’s telling that we only see Earnest once struggling to sleep and that is when he has organised someone to steal his Buick so he can claim the insurance money. Otherwise, Earnest sleeps like an innocent.
Occasionally, the film loses focus and Scorsese can’t resist the allure of his Hollywood stars, putting forward their conversations while the plot lags behind them. In comparison, John Lithgow as a prosecutor, Jesse Plemons as the investigator from the not-yet-named FBI and Scott Shepherd as Byron, Earnest’s sly brother, are underused.
But quibbles and its length aside, Killers of the Flower Moon is a grand old-fashioned film with old-fashioned crowd scenes to match. The music by the late Robbie Robertson, Scorsese’s favoured composer, keeps the energy high even when the film begins to flag in its fourth hour. It looks beautiful throughout, right down to the detail on DiCaprio’s pyjamas. At the age of 80, Martin Scorsese’s vision is still something to be reckoned with.
Killers of the Flower Moon is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2023.
