Killers of the Flower Moon is quite unlike Martin Scorsese films where you see lots of fast talking and fast moving charachters, often from shifty types trying to get away with something. Here, everything seems to slow down, and especially when the camera lands on Lily Gladstone.
Mollie, an Osage woman at the core of this expansive, true story of avarice and betrayal on a large and personal scale, is the subject of Killers of the Flower Moon. Gladstone plays the quiet, strong center, taking her time, letting her eyes do the talking, and not being frightened of stillness.
Gladstone’s flawlessly timed performance is made even more remarkable by the fact that he is starring alongside two of our greatest actors. For their renowned director, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro deliver outstanding performances; it’s their first joint appearance in thirty years. However, Gladstone is the emotional focus of this picture and her face sticks in our minds because it’s one of the few Scorsese films where a female character gets the spotlight.
Based on David Grann’s gripping whodunit set among the Osage in 1920s Oklahoma, “Killers” is a departure in other ways for the 80-year-old filmmaker. It’s his first Western, a genre he’s long wanted to explore — albeit a uniquely Scorsese Western, with an upended world of heroes and villains. And in telling this Osage story, he focuses on a people he’s never depicted before, deeply mindful of honoring their experience and their rituals, beliefs and customs.
It surely won’t surprise anyone that Scorsese brings his full wealth of artistic resources to this endeavor, along with his brilliant cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto, and inspired production designer, Jack Fisk. Together, on location in Oklahoma, they’ve created an oil boomtown astonishing in its precision, detail and spirit.
It may also not surprise anyone that Scorsese has taken three and a half hours (albeit three minutes less than “The Irishman” ) to tell his tale. This may be a source of debate, but it’s hard to argue that a story this hefty — a chronicle of a dark chapter in American history and a shocking true crime tale, all framed in a fraught love story — doesn’t deserve the length, considering the craft in every shot. And with some scenes — a boisterous prairie wedding, or a dance on a boomtown main drag — you feel you could have stayed longer still.
The tale begins with a late 19th-century ceremony, one of many portrayals of Osage spiritual life. Then, in a memorable image, there’s a whoosh from underground: Oil, spurting from land that was supposed to be worthless.
Thanks to this discovery, we learn in a terrific prologue using silent-movie title cards, the Osage become enormously wealthy. But they’re deemed “incompetent” and appointed white “guardians” who control their assets. This is how we meet Mollie, asking for her own money to pay medical bills.
Meanwhile, Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio) steps off the train, a World War I vet with a taste for women and finer things, but no money, or talent to speak of. Perhaps his uncle can help. William Hale (De Niro) is a cattle rancher but more like a king around these parts — indeed, King’s his nickname — a white man who speaks the Osage language and calls himself their best friend.
When Osage start dying, one by one, in suspicious ways — including, eventually, Mollie’s sisters and mother. Federal agent Tom White (Jesse Plemons, perfectly cast) shows up, working for J. Edgar Hoover in what became the FBI.
Indeed, the vast supporting cast includes countless faces you may recognize, as well as cameos of a number of musicians, and dozens of Osage actors in key parts. Scorsese’s late friend Robbie Robertson wrote the memorable score.
