The first audience to see Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon will be at the Cannes Film Festival. That means the stars will be in attendance, most notably Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. The film clocks in at over three hours and 26 minutes, but that’s because this is a sprawling tale that they would not have wanted to give short shrift.
In anticipation of the film, let’s look at the production, the story, and where it might sit in the Oscar race.
The main players are:
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Written by Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese
Editing: The great Thelma Schoonmaker
Score: The great Robbie Robertson
Cinematography: Rodrigo Prieto
Production Design: Jack Fisk
Costumes: Jacqueline West
Scorsese has won Best Director just once. Roth has won only once. Schoonmaker has won three Oscars. Prieto has been nominated three times but has never won. Fisk has been nominated twice but has never won. West has been nominated four times but has never won. Robertson is the only name on this list that’s never been nominated for an Oscar.
(Some spoilers, though it’s a true story, a part of history for a century, so…)
Killers of the Flower Moon is based on David Grann’s historical account of the tragic series of murders committed against the Osage people in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, in the late ’20s. The case led to the formation of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover. Funnily enough, Leonardo DiCaprio has also played J. Edgar, but in this film, he portrays one of the more complex characters in the saga. He plays Ernest Burkhart who married Mollie, a member of the Osage tribe, and eventually confessed to plotting her murder to steal her family’s headrights to the rich oil lands in Oklahoma.
The film’s central villain is truly a villain for all time. Robert De Niro will play William Hale, the mastermind behind the series of murders designed to take out many of the Osage people to steal their claim to the money they were entitled to receive. A dynamic personality, he’s an incredibly well-liked person in Osage, and charms his way into the Osage community. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, however. Jesse Plemons plays the former Texas Ranger who joins what will become the FBI to unravel the case. Eventually, after a trial, a couple of people confess, exposing the other conspirators, and bringing the whole ugly case to an end.
Killers of the Flower Moon is partly about the case, but it’s also about the plight of the Osage from being ousted from their homeland in Kansas and sent to live in what they believed was “worthless” land in Oklahoma. But of course, when they struck oil the exiled Osage became the richest people in the world per capita. You’d think that would mean they all had happy lives. But no. They weren’t greedy the same way the white people who took advantage of them were. The Osage really would have just liked to keep their land — they got screwed over twice. First by being pushed out, then by being cheated at every turn by the townspeople in Fairfax county, and then by being systematically wiped out so that guys like William Hale could steal their mineral rights. This is not a happy story, not in any way. There is no happy ending to be had, only justice rendered and honestly, it wasn’t even. Hale eventually got out of prison after only 20 years.
I listened to the audiobook which is read by my favorite reader, Will Patton (who reads the second half). It’s a fairly short book all in all and if you’re interested, you can find it on Audible.
As far as the Oscars go, who knows whether the film will be good enough to become a frontrunner, but I’d keep my eye on Lily Gladstone as Mollie. She is a central figure in the story and much of her family is murdered. She is slowly being poisoned but doesn’t realize it until eventually, the truth comes out. This is a great role but also, she would be the first Native American actress nominated, though not the first indigenous person (there are three prior).
Knowing Scorsese, this is going to be a big, handsome production, so I would expect nominations across the board of the crafts — and I really hope that Robbie Robertson is at last recognized.
If the film is very good, obviously, both De Niro and DiCaprio will be strong contenders out of the gate. De Niro is at his best playing villains so I imagine he’ll be great. DiCaprio plays someone whose conscience ultimately gets the better of him but it takes a while. He has to come clean and admit to his wife who loves him and trusts him that he’s been trying to kill her to help Hale steal yet more money from the Osage. Jesse Plemons, one of the few nice white guys, will likely be a contender for Supporting.
Brendan Fraser, fresh off his Oscar win, will play a fictious or composite character, a lawyer. I would imagine he’s a prosecutor bringing down the case. The corruption spread far and wide – Hale was like John Huston in Chinatown, “he owns the police,” but I imagine Fraser’s character might be a good guy.
This film will likely not be without controversy. I imagine there will be more than a few that crop up during Oscar season, depending on how it lands overall. It will be released in theaters by Apple-TV and then head to streaming.
A photographer named Owen Hutcheson posted these pictures to Facebook:
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