Killers of the Flower Moon is a sumptuous beast of a film that’s impeccably directed by Martin Scorsese and boasts powerful performances from Leonardo diCaprio and Robert De Niro. And the more that the nature of its story sinks in, the more disappointing that is.
Based on David Grann’s award-winning bestselling book, it tells the true story of the Osage, who briefly become the richest people on the planet when oil was discovered under their corner of Oklahoma in the 1920s. The result is a world that’s been turned upside down, with impossibly wealthy brown skinned people being served and waited upon by white maids, lackeys and chauffeurs.
Inevitably, the white majority are determined to restore the natural order, which they do by marrying into the Osage and systematically murdering anyone who stands between them and their now rightful inheritance.
Oklahoma, by the way, was where the Tulsa riots took place in 1921, when planes were used to bomb the town of wealthy black people. Which was the other way that the white population sought to restore the natural order, and which was used so potently as the backdrop for Damon Lindelof’s The Watchmen, reviewed by me earlier here.
The book of The Killers of the Flower Moon tells this story by following the parallel narratives of Mollie, one of the victims, and of the FBI agent whose investigation uncovered what was going on.
But a couple of years into the film project, DiCaprio told Scorsese that he was uncomfortable with the way they were telling the story because it was so obviously the story of Mollie, her people and what was done to them.
So Scorsese was faced with a dilemma. Does he do the obvious thing, and turn it into Mollie’s story? Or does he completely re-fashion the whole narrative so that he can keep his two favourite actors centre stage?
Understandably, he opts for the latter, making De Niro the regal mastermind and casting DiCaprio as Mollie’s scheming husband. After all, making a film takes literally years. And we’re talking about two of the most talented and exciting actors in modern American cinema. So what we’re given is a film whose script condemns the two men, but which shows us a pair of loveable rogues whose charm and magnetic screen presence make them impossible to hate in the way that their conduct demands.
We have of course been here before. Goodfellas similarly asks us not to think too deeply about the victims of the vicious thugs the film so lovingly celebrates. And most of us are more than happy to sit back and enjoy the ride.
So we watch as Goodfellas tells us that crime doesn’t pay, but which shows us impossibly glamorous individuals, beautifully lit and impeccably choreographed to the tunes of white picket-fence, 1950s middle America. And, as with The Godfather, we’re presented with a criminal underworld that’s seductively romanticised and impossible to resist.
But unlike Coppola, whose primary interest is in surface spectacle and the business of entertainment, Scorsese seemed so much more interesting, and was and is clearly an artist riven by guilt and driven by self-examination.
And Goodfellas, it seemed at the time, was but a momentary distraction that Scorsese was diverting himself with before returning to the business of more serous fare. And Killers of the Flower Moon is exactly the more serious affair that we’d all been waiting for him to return to. Which makes it all the more disappointing.
What a pity they didn’t all sit down together to watch Once Upon a Time in the West. De Niro could have been handed the black hat and given a smaller but much more memorable part as the unequivocal villain, just as Henry Fonda had been in Leone’s film. And they could have made it what it clearly is, Mollie’s story.
An unknown actress could have been given the same kind of springboard that Dustin Hoffman was afforded in The Graduate or Al Pacino in The Godfather. And Mollie’s husband would have remained the very minor and irredeemably nasty character that he was in real life. A revolting, despicable individual so blinded by greed that he was prepared to do literally anything if he thought it might feather his nest.
And DiCaprio could have magnanimously stepped aside to take on the dull but worthy and much smaller role of the FBI agent. So that the spotlight could have been left to focus exclusively on where it so clearly ought to be, on Mollie and the story of how her family were murdered and their land raped and stolen.
Instead of which, we get a beautifully crafted film with a pair of impressive performances from two of Americas finest actors. And the more you think about that, the more quietly and profoundly depressing that is. Both the film and the way that it’s been so casually if predictably lauded.
You can see the trailer for Killers of the Flower Moon here:
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