Based on the nonfiction book by David Grann, the new Martin Scorsese film, Killers of the Flower Moon, relays a dark chapter in the homicidal practices of white Americans directed toward the indigenous population in the 1920s – the horrendous Osage County tragedy. However, from the perspective of the original inhabitants of the United States, the Osage Nation murders were hardly an exception. Scorsese’s bloated picture restricts itself to mere reportage, struggling to find its thematic core or reach any meaningful conclusions.
Since the arrival of European explorers, Native Americans endured increasing levels of ethnic cleansing, removal from ancestral grounds, and forced assimilation. After the formation of the United States, the land-grabbing acquired a much more systematic strategy, ultimately reaching genocidal proportions. Largely due to Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830, the murderous flow of European settlers was given a governmental seal of approval and the protection of the army. The victims refer to this arguably ongoing process as the 500-year war.
Such historical background positions Scorsese’s film against a very specific mindset of American exceptionalism. Unfortunately, by watching Killers of the Flower Moon, you wouldn’t be able to tell that the horrendous crimes perpetrated against the Osage people in 1920s were nothing but an extension of Manifest Destiny. The violence was symptomatic of a deep-seated belief in white superiority. Sticking to the book perhaps too closely, Scorsese bypasses the larger context, reducing the events to a local issue. The newly formed FBI comes to the rescue to set things right. White guilt, once again, is assuaged.
Of course, narrowing the scope of such tragedy for the cinema is necessary for narrative reasons. But even at 210 minutes of screen time, the film fails to define its central theme. Scorsese uses Killers of the Flower Moon not as a pretext to examine the extremes of human behaviour but merely, and rather clinically, to portray them. As a skilled chronicler he strangely lacks inquisitiveness and historical breadth.
Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth introduce the hero, Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio), as rather dim-witted and afford him a character journey to moral bankruptcy. The problem is that this arc, replete with possibilities, amounts to a dramatic zero. Ernest, whose morals are never established, remains dim-witted throughout, rendering his doubts and internal conflicts emotionally impotent. The man has no palpable conscience to awaken, nor any traits of self-awareness. Innocent of introspection, Ernest flatlines throughout the proceedings, making any empathy from the audience impossible to forge. The phrase “toxic masculinity” has been tossed around wantonly, but here Scorsese makes our white male protagonist literally administer toxins to his sick Native American wife. Toxic masculinity applies to the film directly and without grim irony.
DiCaprio’s casting feels jarringly odd. The actor’s skill has been proven many times over, perhaps to a point of too much self-assuredness for the man himself. In Killers, DiCaprio looks like a puffy 48-year-old teenager trapped in an adult world beyond his comprehension. He sports the same facial expression – a downward horseshoe mouth – in nearly every scene, and juts his lower jaw forward like a bulldog pup. It’s a choice that draws too much attention and substitutes for building a dimensional character – a handsome man’s conception of how to look ugly. It comes off childish, while leaving the root of Ernest internal ugliness unprocessed.
Robert De Niro, as Ernest’s Machiavellian uncle Hale, plays in the exact same horseshoe key. Hale is the powerful patriarch who masterminds taking control of Osage Nation’s oil headrights. The banality of evil directed so casually against a different race requires a less ostentatious portrayal, not the cartoon of De Niro’s creation. If the make-up department had given uncle Hale a moustache, the actor would be twirling it to no end. It is a worryingly surface portrayal bordering on caricature. Scorsese, perhaps trusting his old companion to the point of reverence, allows De Niro to signal every naughty thought in advance. As a result, all tension drains from the film, as the actor telegraphs King Hale’s actions a few scenes ahead. It is also disrespectful to the victims – one look at De Niro’s Hale would put anybody with a brain at a distance. Imagine an ageing Max Cady settling down next to your farm in Oklahoma.
Lily Gladstone’s critical part, as Mollie, Ernest’s beleaguered Osage wife, is reduced to a display of mostly silent dignity. She does it well, but her quiet grace extends to the entire Osage Nation. Scorsese’s portrayal of Native Americans is that of paragons of some ancient internal wisdom – soft-spoken, reasonable, and near-mythical. The only lifelike representation comes through Millie’s doomed sister, Anna (Cara Jade Myers), and her first husband, Henry (William Belleau), whose internal pain is allowed to come out. However, even they are cast as perpetual victims of history and, as the film implies, of circumstances of their own making. Individually and collectively, Scorsese deprives Native Americans of agency. True, eventually the Osage Nation reaches out to the federal government for help. But we never find out what really stops Osage warriors from taking the matter into their own hands. What kind of restraint must have they exhibited not to seek vengeful retribution? Neglecting that aspect of the story turns Native Americans into a passive, nondescript entity suspended in a corrupt white man’s world.
Operating with such threadbare characterisation by the main cast, Scorsese never establishes the emotional bonds between Mollie and Ernest. It is hard to believe that such a bright and mature woman would fall for this simpleton. We are asked to take their affection, as well as Ernest’s love for their children, for granted. Not a single scene informs us what kind of a father he is, nor how does he feel about his family. His agonising over the loss of his child has no dramatic foundation. We are asked to accept Ernest’s poisoning of Mollie without any explanation as to why uncle Hale’s influence supersedes that of his wife’s well-being. Ernest is confused, granted, but so is the audience unfamiliar with the man’s motivations.
Instead of actions informing us of Ernest’s feelings, we get expository dialogue. We learn that he loves money because he says so. Twice. We get it. But we never find out why prosperity is so important to this country bumpkin. He doesn’t wear flashy clothes and he is not flaunting his increasing ill-gained wealth. Verbally professing one’s love for money passes here as a feeble substitute for building a compelling character. Ernest’s very existence may be just as vapid as that, but the film demands a heavier anchor. Instead, the narrative just floats from scene to scene unmoored by lack of intent.
Ultimately, Killers of the Flower Moon, suffers from lack of interpretive perspective. Ernest’s dramatic arc is too superficial to give the story any meaning. It is Uncle Hale who serves as the true engine behind the proceedings. Unfortunately, as a one-note antagonist he isn’t afforded enough screen time for us to study his true character. Which leaves us with Mollie. As the representative of a whole nation of victims, her tragic tale would more than warrant the status of a protagonist. Scorsese takes a few shy steps in that direction, allowing Mollie to provide some off-screen narration. But then he takes it away, leaving the viewer perplexed as to whose story we are supposed to follow. Under such conditions, catharsis is virtually impossible. By visually bracketing Killers of the Flower Moon with postcard shots of the Osage Nation ceremonies, Scorsese seems to draw our attention to something he failed to explore in the film.
Killers of the Flower Moon tells an important story. But Hollywood has told it before in the overblown The FBI Story (1959). That film chronicled the creation of the agency, devoting a 30-minute segment to solving the Osage County murders. The events are relayed coldly and efficiently, with James Stewart as the FBI operative hero. Yet in that short and simplistic version of these horrid events we can register more agony and anger than Scorsese can muster in over three hours. I’m sure the director was aware that one cannot do justice to 500 years of damage in a single film. He tried valiantly to focus on one tragedy, but he lost his narrative battle against the magnitude of history.