Director: Martin Scorsese (USA). Year of Release: 2023
1919, Fairfax, Osage County in Oklahoma. A grass hut in the middle of a field. Inside, Native Americans from the Osage tribe are performing a pipe burial ceremony. They bemoan the loss of their culture and identity through intermarriage with White folks and the fact that their children are now forced to speak English. Outside we see oil spurt out of the ground – first a trickle, then a huge wave, soaring incessantly towards the sky.
Cut to: chubby-faced Leo in a train. When he gets off at the next station, everything suddenly becomes much more loud and chaotic. Competing representatives of oil companies jostle on the platform looking for workers. Someone offers to take Leo – or rather Ernest – to his uncle. We learn Ernest is returning from the war, where he worked as a chef. His uncle Bill (“call me King”) is a cattle rancher and public figure. King is trusted by most Osage, and speaks their language.
Intertitles, of the type common in silent films, tell us that the Osage tribe had previously lived in Kansas, but were driven out to apparently barren land in Oklahoma. The discovery of oil coupled with the birth of the car industry temporarily made them per capita the wealthiest people on Earth. They couldn’t just afford cars, they could employ white people as chauffeurs. King pushes Ernest into just such a job, where one of his regular customers is an Osage woman called Mollie.
Killers of the Flower Moon telly us the story of a great injustice. Despite their new found wealth, many Osage still were not allowed to take money from a bank without being accompanied by a white guardian. If a white man married an Osage woman, her money would eventually make its way to his descendents. Several such marriages followed. Then, Osage wives and their families started dying in suspicious circumstances. It is estimated that over 60 were killed.
This is not a whodunnit. We are clear from the start that most of the murders are carried out by dodgy employees of people like King, and that he is in cahoots with the authorities who look the other way. King encourages Ernest to marry Mollie, who as a “full blood” now has serious money, although there seems to be some attraction between the two anyway. Ernest tries to reconcile his love for Mollie with his complicity with his uncle, who is one by one wiping out her family.
For the next hour or two, we witness Mollie’s three sisters and her mother being picked off by men working for King. There’s a degree of dramatic tension, although this is limited by repetition and the fact that we roughly know what is going to happen. Meanwhile, Mollie is diagnosed with diabetes (a common disease among Native Americans at the time), and – following orders from King – Ernest adds something to her insulin which makes her feel weak and listless.
As Mollie becomes bedridden and inarticulate, the film goes all Oppenheimer on us. The camera moves away from Mollie, as we’re subjected instead to endless court hearings. White US-Americans presume to speak for and against the rights of the Osage to hold onto their land without being murdered. This is an interesting historical story and an appalling indictment of rapacious capitalism, but setting it as a court drama robs the film of much of its vitality.
I’m sure it’s unintentional, but the drugging of Mollie can be seen as a metaphor for the whole film. It starts out as a strident acclamation of indigenous rights, but by the end, the voices of the Osage are drowned out by the sound of white men in suits arguing with each other. It’s not that Scorsese is unsympathetic to the Osage – I’ve read reviews which say that as a white man he felt himself unable to tell their story. If this is so, then give an Osage director $200 million.
Shortly before the end, there is a brief flurry of excitement where we see a radio re-enactment of the case, put on by the FBI and Lucky Strike cigarettes. There is something disturbing about watching white actors pretend to be Osage as men in the background make fake sound effects. These 5 minutes of pretence (which end of course with one of the on stage characters enjoying smoking a Lucky Strike) bring much more drama than the previous hour of dreary court procedure.
Of course, Scorsese being Scorsese, this isn’t a bad film. It looks spectacular, and shows that at least Scorsese can still bring out a great performance from Robert de Niro. De Niro has been treading water for at least 2 decades, reaching his nadir with Dirty Grandpa. But here as King he’s back in form. As folksy Bill he is never less than charming, and in a couple of scenes in which he employs political rhetoric, he is compelling.
Much of your enjoyment of the film will depend on your attitude towards Leonardo DiCaprio. I must admit that I’m not a huge fan, although I thought he was great in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. There is a lot of Leo in the film, even though the character he’s playing isn’t particularly interesting. He does a strange pout with his chin which is fine if you like this sort of thing, but this is about as close as he gets to real acting.
But “everyone” is saying that the real star of the show is Lily Gladstone as Mollie. And for once, “everyone” is right. Gladstone gives us a performance of quiet dignity, of a woman who is clearly more intelligent than her husband, but she loves him anyway, even when he starts drugging her, and she loses her original liveliness. By about halfway through the film, Mollie is bedridden and barely able to speak. When it leaves her to concentrate on other characters it loses its charm.
Nonetheless the film makes some important political points. It links the exploitation of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre, when over 300 Black people were murdered by racists. There is also a walk on part for the KKK. It would have been nice if these points had been elaborated further, but only if there were serious cuts elsewhere. But the film testifies above all, what happens when no-one feels able to say “No” to a film director. It is twice as long as it should be, and easily outstays its welcome.
This is a great shame in a film which has some moments of greatness. But 3½ hours is too long for pretty much any film, especially one like this with too little actual content.
CinePhil 