Francesconi, Julie

Poster Courtesy of Apple

Killers of the Flower Moon, released October 20, was directed by multiple academy award-winner, Martin Scorcese. The cast contains a wide variety of well known actors such as Leonardo Dicaprio, Robert De Niro, and Brendan Frasier. The story revolves around the marriage of Mollie Burkhart, played by Lily Gladstone, who was targeted by her husband and his uncle for wealth in the 1920’s. This crime-ridden tale is a true masterpiece that tells the overlooked story of the Osage murders.

The film takes place in Oklahoma, where the Osage people were from. At the time, Oklahoma was of no interest, until a sea of oil was found underneath Osage owned land. All the oil that was found made the Osage people very wealthy, very quickly. They had it all – servants, luxurious houses and the newest cars of the time. As a result of this newfound wealth, the Osage people started mysteriously being murdered, those committing the crime were out for their wealth. Killers of the Flower Moon takes place as these murders begin.

Mollie Burkhart was portrayed by Lily Gladstone. A newcomer to these kinds of films, Gladstone has appeared in smaller films since 2013, when she made her film debut. She has been in movies such as Certain Woman, The Unknown Country, and First Cow. Her overall performance as Mollie Burkhart was captivating. Her character was subject to murder, loss of family, and illness, and Gladstone did an incredible job displaying those emotions and actions.

In one particular scene, Mollie had found out that her sister had died from an explosion. Her reaction was astounding and it left the audience in utter silence and awe. She truly put her heart and soul into this role, and I love how she showcased Mollie as a very headstrong character who, even throughout her hardships, was unbreakable.

Furthermore, Dicaprio and De Niro’s characters were the cause of Mollie’s hardships. Dicaprio played Mollie’s husband Ernest Burkhart and De Niro played Ernest’s uncle, William Hale. Dicaprio’s portrayal of Ernest gave off a weak and powerless character who was doing whatever his uncle told him to do, but even though he was told to kill Mollie, Ernest refused to do so. Dicaprio did a great job portraying this character, but he tends to repeat the same kind of acting and show raw emotion in most of his roles.

In other movies such as, Titanic, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Don’t Look Up, he displayed the same raw emotion in certain scenes. Towards the end of the movie we see Ernest in his jail cell crying after finding out one of his children died. He started sobbing on the floor and showed the same kind of acting you would see in many of his movies.

De Niro on the other hand did a remarkable job playing the midwestern crime boss William Hale who was behind the murders of the Osage people. What striked me the most was how different his acting was compared to his other roles. Unlike Decaprio, De Niro changes his way of portraying a character in each of his roles. In movies, such as GoodFellas and Casino, De Niro plays a gangster with similar characteristics but he still manages to give them different feelings and uniqueness.

Nevertheless, Martin Scorcese’s directorial style shines throughout the film, but with a few added stylistic twists. Although Scorsese is known for making films about gangsters or criminals, he has made a wide variety of films that show different ways of expressionism and this film was no different. Most of his films explore identity, sin, and in this film the idea of the metaphysical world, which he expresses through symbolism.

Symbolism of the metaphysical world or death was shown as an owl in this film. When Mollie was close to death an owl appeared, the same happened to her mother before she passed away.

Another interesting part of his directing style is the way he tells a backstory of a certain character or event. In most of his movies he has the main character narrate, but since this movie focused on a wide variety of characters there was no narration. Instead, he tells the overall story of the Osage people through a 1920’s style news reel that uses title cards and old film. He also tells their backstory through old black and white photographs and radio shows. Overall it was quite interesting seeing the kind of technology that was available at the time being integrated into this movie.

The importance of this film finally brought a missing piece of history to light and Scorsese did it justice. He dedicated a lot of time and effort to make sure that every detail was true to life by consulting and hiring Osage people for this film. But a lot of indigenous people are criticizing the movie for how it seemed to be from the perspective of Ernest and his “love” for Mollie. I agree with this argument, the movie followed Ernest as he went to jail and was in court but it never fully explained what had happened to Mollie and her children. It also makes it seem like he was the hero for confessing what he and his uncle had done to save his wife, even after Ernest lied to Mollie about the attempt to kill her.

The Osage murders were something that most of us had never heard of, but having the determination and willpower to create such a story is inspiring. These kinds of movies are the ones I enjoy and I applaud Scorsese for creating another beautiful story. To experience this movie in theaters was truly amazing and it did not disappoint. I rate this movie a 10/10.