The Story of Oil & Greed Behind Scorsese’s Finest Epic Tragedy
Not content with a police procedural, director Martin Scorsese tore up the script to focus on a First Nations romance in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’.
good.film
a year ago
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Why should I see Killers of the Flower Moon?
It’s an authentic retelling of a dark chapter in America’s colonial past that reminds us of our common humanity, and how greed can destroy it.
What social causes does the film explore?
First Nations People, Law & Justice, Racial Equity
It’s here, and it’s hefty: legendary American director Martin Scorsese’s new magnum opus is now unspooling across theatres everywhere. Clocking in at nearly 3 and a half hours, it’s a mighty story of greed, betrayal, injustice and murder.
Based on David Grann’s investigative non-fiction bestseller Killers of the Flower Moon: Oil, Money, Murder and the Birth of the FBI, the title is definitely intriguing. But the backstory behind the real-life tale - and our relative unfamiliarity with it here in Australia - might have you asking a few well-meaning questions.
Like, who exactly are the “Osage”? Were they really so fabulously wealthy - and how? What are “headrights”, and what was the scale of crime and injustice that went down to strip them away from the Osage? And did the Osage Murders really lead to the formation of the FBI?
Whether you’re about to head into the theatre or you’ve just emerged scratching your head, we’ve got you covered with our handy guide to Killers of the Flower Moon.
Who are the Osage Nation?
Really quick recap (trust us, this is important): the Osage Nation are a Native American tribe of skilled trappers and farmers with a rich history. Their territory - wrapped around trade routes like the Missouri & Mississippi Rivers - meant they could trade goods like furs with European settlers and American colonists. But that’s not the real reason for their incredible wealth.
Like lots of other Native American tribes, the Osage entered into treaties with the U.S. government, and in the 1870s they were relocated to smaller reservation lands in Oklahoma. If that sounds like a rough deal, you’d be right: the “Department of Indian Affairs” described the land as “rocky, sterile, and unfit for cultivation” at the time. Except for one overlooked detail…
It turned out the Osage’s terrible Reservation land sat on top of vast oil reserves worth millions, and they retained mineral rights (or “headrights”) to that oil that, legally, couldn’t be bought - only inherited. And while that made the Osage the wealthiest people per capita in the entire world at the time, that one little clause also led to untold pain, death and suffering.
How does Killers of the Flower Moon explore the Osage story?
Enter cinematic master Martin Scorsese, who’s been responsible for moviemaking’s fair share of pain, death and suffering over the years. But rather than gangsters getting ‘whacked’, Flower Moon examines how the Osage were infiltrated by the greed of calculating white men, who married into Osage families purely to gain control of their valuable oil headrights.
Even if it stopped right there, this appropriation would be bad enough. The Osage were already regarded as second-class citizens at best - and loopholes in reservation laws meant that some Osage were deemed “incompetent”, and white “guardians” managed their money. But of course, that’s just the beginning.
In 1919, we’re plunged into the tragic events that became known as the "Osage Indian Murders” through three characters: Mollie (Lily Gladstone), an Osage woman whose family owns a swathe of oil headrights; Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio), a war veteran who falls in love with her, and “King” Hale (Robert De Niro), his uncle who’s pulling all the nefarious strings.
Hale wears a friendly mask with the Osage community, treating their language and culture (seemingly) with respect. But underneath the facade, he’s motivated purely by greed, and he quickly latches onto Ernest’s marriage to Mollie as his pathway to immense wealth. If Mollie’s mother and sisters were “removed from the picture”, she and Ernest would solely inherit her family’s oil fortune - and Hale plans to make it happen, by increasingly violent means.
How does Killers of the Flower Moon examine colonialism and greed?
One of the things Flower Moon does so well is use the Osage murders as a microcosm of the wider racial tension between Native Americans and white settlers. To quote The Conversation, “the citizens of Oklahoma were perturbed by the newfound prosperity of the Osage Indians - a wealth they had come to assume was the birthright of their white community.”
Translation: white folk simply saw land as theirs to claim, and the cultural groups who actually lived on that land for generations as worthless. It probably stoked their ire even more seeing the Osage enjoying their newfound wealth, dressing in stately furs and being driven by personal chauffeurs (all true).
The film illustrates the disparity nicely with some superbly recreated newsreel footage early on. It’s startling to learn that the Osage owned the highest number of luxury saloon cars anywhere in the U.S. During tough times, all of that wealth is alluring, and white men wanted a piece of the action. No, scratch that. They didn’t just want a piece - they wanted it all.
What follows is brazen, with covert deaths and baseless marriages presented so matter of factly that the shock of what’s being perpetrated doesn’t hit you all at once - it slowly seeps into you. White hit men begin targeting Osage, whose deaths are waved away as “wasting disease” or suicide as the local lawmen look the other way. Other men will lose an Osage wife, then turn around and marry her sister barely a fortnight later. And then there’s Ernest, who’s increasingly torn between his love for Mollie and the urgings of his murderous, capitalist Uncle.
The Osage aren’t blind to the manipulation they’re experiencing. Their community is grieving, and angry, and in shock. But under a new rule of law, and without the protections that a white citizen would enjoy, what power do they hold?
What does Killers of the Flower Moon have to say about law & justice?
What Scorsese is underlining - and through our 2023 lens, it takes quite an adjustment - is how life a century ago simply had a different worth. That worth was determined by the powers that be, and shockingly, it was largely undisputed. It meant that racism, brutality, theft and murder were merely obstacles for men like King Hale - like a list of chores to dole out.
David Grann’s source novel quotes an Osage member who said that, at the time, the white community thought of the murder of a Native American as being roughly on par with “cruelty to animals”. As for the men who actually did the killings? One of the convicted criminals told law enforcement that “white people in Oklahoma thought no more of killing an Indian [in 1924] than they did in 1724”.
The film shows Mollie’s increasing desperation to rally any kind of support from the law to look into what’s happening to her community. She first hires a private investigator; then an Osage representative is sent to Washington to lobby Congress for some kind of outside help. MILD SPOILER: both men meet a sticky end, and Mollie soon finds herself bedridden, too - battling the same “mysterious” wasting disease that already claimed so many Osage before her.
Cleverly, Scorsese aligns Mollie’s grave illness with the arrival of Tom White - a fearless Texan sent by J. Edgar Hoover himself from the Bureau of Investigation (“It’s new”, Tom explains, to Ernest’s puzzlement). While the “Federal” bit would come a few years later, it’s true that the Osage Murders were one of the FBI’s earliest homicide cases. Watching Agent White dig deeper into the origins of the Osage deaths while Mollie fights for her life is the dangling carrot that gives Flower Moon its tension across the final act.
Is Killers of the Flower Moon as violent as Scorsese’s other movies?
Well, yes and no. There are certainly some graphic depictions of death, and a few gruesome moments with victims who meet their maker at the wrong end of a stick of dynamite. But this is no glorified GoodFellas Gone West: Scorsese goes to great pains to harness the tragedy of these deaths, not their shock value.
When the Osage wail beside their loved one, lying grey and still in a pine box, we intimately feel their grief. And the ceremonial nature of their mourning feels spiritual in a way that we often lack in the West. The sense of injustice hangs over these scenes (and yes, there are many) like a shroud.
Flower Moon is a gentler experience than much of Martin Scorsese’s canon. You won’t be surprised to learn that it lacks the rollicking vibe of, say, The Wolf of Wall Street. In many ways, this is Scorsese’s most meditative feature; akin to Silence or even Kundun released over 25 years ago. And the film’s final shot is as spiritual and quite literally uplifting as any you’ll see at the movies this year.
What are critics saying about Killers of the Flower Moon?
“A towering achievement of immense empathy and startling historical truths, Killers of the Flower Moon shows a master at work on a level few can achieve.” - Hoai-Train Bui, Inverse
“Monumental stuff: a story about the deadly legacy of America’s colonial sins, both vast and intimate in scope. Exceptional filmmaking, by an exceptional filmmaker.” - John Nugent, Empire Magazine
“This is a story of historic injustice and inhumanity, resonating with current wrongs, that more people need to know about — it’s not just a Wild West fairy tale.” - Peter Howell, Toronto Star
“Lily Gladstone provides one of the most extraordinary performances by a woman in any of Scorsese’s movies. She is serene but not saintly; a figure of tragedy with a fire in her belly.” - Clarisse Loughrey, Independent UK
Fully on board, or disagree big time? We’d love to hear your take. Leave a review to share your thoughts with the good.film community!
So what’s the takeaway from Killers of the Flower Moon?
So, should you go? First, you’ll have to weigh up Flower Moon’s daunting 206 minute length, because anything over 3 hours in a movie theatre will test the limits of even the most avid moviegoer’s patience (not to mention their bladder).
In saying that, we’ve all probably sat through history classes or lectures nearly that long, and we’d take a Scorsese film any day. It’s as though he’s brought this page of history to life - through his own unmatched craftsmanship, and the stunning production & costume design from his team (who went to huge lengths for authenticity, down to the exact threads and feathers used in Osage shawls and headwear).
It’s a tragic tale, which others - perhaps telling on themselves and their own discomfort? - might label a ‘white guilt’ movie. But isn’t the reason that we tell tragic stories to learn from them? A kind of plea to feel the pain, and to not repeat our past mistakes?
You may wonder how this First Nations story is relevant to Australian audiences, and perhaps it’s a stretch to conflate America’s bloodthirsty colonialism with our own. But in the fresh wake of our nation’s referendum on our past, perhaps it’s exactly the kind of story more of us need to be open to.
Our take? Killers of the Flower Moon is more than simply a respectful and vivid portrait of a shameful past. It’s also 3 hours well spent walking in other people’s shoes.
