Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ reckons with old evils

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Martin Scorsese had gotten most of the way through co-writing the script for Killers of the Flower Moon, when he realized the story needed to change.

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Based on David Grann’s 2017 book of the same name, the film recounts the horrifying real-life story of an insidious plot to murder members of a community of Osage Indians and gain control of their oil-rich land in Oklahoma in the 1920s.

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“The David Grann book has the subtitle, ‘The Birth of the FBI,’” the Oscar-winning filmmaker said this week over Zoom. But as he and co-writer Eric Roth worked through their story and the federal investigator who was brought in to solve the murders, he realized that the pair “took the birth of the FBI as far as we could take it.”

A better way to capture the unfolding horror, he said, was to centre the story on the loving yet traitorous relationship between Mollie Brown (Lily Gladstone), a wealthy member of a larger Osage family, and Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), a First World War veteran who is drawn into his uncle’s (Robert De Niro) plan to murder tribe members and steal their land.

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Following his meetings with descendants of the victims and perpetrators, Scorsese, 80, came to realize that Mollie loved Ernest. At the urging of DiCaprio, Scorsese shifted his focus to the unraveling relationship between the couple and the reign of terror cast upon the Osage Nation and gave the script a complete overhaul.

With Jesse Plemons taking on the role, the Texas ranger that serves as the focal point of Grann’s book — and whom DiCaprio was originally slated to play — became a secondary character.

“It’s a love story,” Scorsese said, one that ties in with themes of heartbreak and betrayal that have populated the director’s previous films in his six-decade career. “Instead of coming in and finding out whodunit, in reality it’s, who didn’t do it. It’s a story of complicity. It’s a story of sin by omission … that afforded us the opportunity to open the picture up and start from the inside out.”

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Like a lot of his past movies, Flower Moon allows Scorsese to continue his lifelong exploration of characters fighting against unchecked greed and violence. But the film deals with an unrepentant chapter of American history largely ignored on the big screen.

“I had an experience in the ‘70s where I began to become aware of the nature of what their situation was, and is, still is,” he said in his familiar in rapid fire way of speaking. “I had been blithely unaware of (the Osage); I was too young … I didn’t know, and it’s taken me years. But I’m fascinated by how do you really deal with that culture in a way that is respectful that was also not hagiographic?”

With Scorsese’s films standing in stark opposition to the superheroes and sequels populating movie theatres, Flower Moon is an almost cinematic rarity. But after explorations of faith (2016’s Silence) and loss (2019’s The Irishman), the lengthy epic produced by Apple melds the ambitious and personal filmmaking that has been a hallmark of Scorsese’s work.

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When he first went to Oklahoma to meet with the Osage, they were “naturally cautious” about seeing a horrific part of their history getting the glossy treatment.

“I had to explain to them that I was going to try and deal with them as honestly and truthfully as possible. We weren’t going to fall into the trap,” he said. “What I wanted to capture, ultimately, was the very nature of the virus or the cancer that creates this sense of a kind of easygoing genocide.”

Both of his frequent collaborators, De Niro and DiCaprio, dived into the world of the Osage Nation and the “wolves” that murdered them. “Lily Gladstone learned the language, and so did Leo, and so did De Niro, who really fell in love with it,” he said.

The passage of time is clearly weighing on him. In past interviews earlier this year, Scorsese said that “there’s no more time” for all the stories he wants to tell. But Flower Moon allowed him to work with his two longtime partners (he’s made 10 movies with De Niro and six with DiCaprio) for the first time on a feature-length film.

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“In the case of Robert De Niro, we were teenagers together, and he’s the only one who really knows where I come from,” he said. “We had a real testing ground in the ’70s, where we tried everything.”

So naturally when De Niro told the filmmaker to keep an eye on DiCaprio, he listened.

“He told me he worked with this kid, Leo DiCaprio, a little boy, in This Boy’s Life. He said, ‘You should work with this kid sometime.’ But a recommendation at that time was not casual,” Scorsese said.

Eventually DiCaprio and Scorsese partnered up for Gangs of New York (“He made Gangs possible, actually,” Scorsese admits). But their relationship blossomed on their next two films — 2004’s The Aviator and 2006’s The Departed.

“Even though there’s 30 years difference, he has similar sensibilities. You know, he’ll come to me, and he’ll say, ‘Listen to this record,’ and it’s Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald. I grew up with it. He’s not bringing me anything new, but he likes it,” Scorsese said smiling.

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Scorsese repeatedly uses the word “trust” as he reflects on the six films they’ve made together over the past 20 years.

“It’s very interesting to me, to be open that way to older parts of our culture (and) newer parts of our culture, of course. And the curiosity that he has about other people and other cultures,” Scorsese said of his friendship with the actor. “Even if we can’t get it right away, we know we’ll come up with something. You know, maybe other people have relationships where they come up with it faster. Well, we don’t. We just work it through.”

Killers of the Flower Moon opens in theatres Oct. 20.

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X: @markhdaniell

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