Martin Scorsese is famous for many things - Being one of our greatest living directors, for one. Going nearly 30 years with that reputation before finally winning an Oscar. Being very Italian and very Catholic. Passionately advocating for the preservation and elevation of overlooked films from around the world. Being persistently harassed by pesky reporters who won’t stop asking him about superhero movies. And for making very long movies.
With the help of his longtime collaborator and perhaps the greatest living editor in Hollywood, Thelma Schoonmaker, most of his epics - such as ‘Goodfellas,’ ‘Casino’ or ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ - speed through their runtimes. His latest, ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ is not one of those movies. This western epic of racism, greed and murder clocks in at 3 and a half hours, and every minute is felt. But to tell this story, there was no other way.
This is the story of the Osage Nation, catapulted to fabulous wealth in the early 20th Century after discovering oil on their land, only to fall victim to predatory economic systems and, eventually, a rapidly escalating plot of murder and mayhem. Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives home wounded from the war and enters into the service of his uncle, William King Hale (Robert DeNiro) - a powerful rancher who has built a fortune off of exploiting the Osage while publicly presenting himself as their benefactor. Hale pushes his nephew into the path of Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), one of four sisters in a family holding major oil headrights. The two begin a romance, kicking off a tragedy of mythic proportions that is all too real.
Gladstone is revelatory in her leading role. While the story is largely told from Ernest’s perspective, Mollie is the heart, and she holds her own opposite two of Hollywood’s greatest acting powerhouses with deeply layered poise. That - after a brilliant turn in Kelly Reichardt’s criminally underseen ‘Certain Women’ - she was on the verge of quitting acting is tragic, if not unsurprising given the dearth of good roles for indigenous artists in Hollywood. We can only hope this film secures her a long and successful career. While Mollie is a woman of few words, Gladstone imbues every glance and each slight motion with a silent monologue of its own. Each moment she spends on screen is carefully crafted, speaking to complex calculations that only become apparent when one stops to pay attention. And the men around her rarely do.
As the vultures circling Mollie’s family, DiCaprio and De Niro deliver everything you could ask for from Scorsese finally uniting his two great muses. They both deliver their best work in years here, showcasing two very different faces of evil - Ernest the idiot, willfully blinding himself with greed to the consequences of his own actions until they inevitably come home to roost; Hale the smooth-talking politician who cloaks himself with a facade of good intentions so he may turn those coming to him for aid into his own cold profit.
Rounding out the cast is an ensemble of mostly newcomers - a collection of small time character actors and musicians who give Osage County a delightfully authentic sea of faces to parse through and whose performances are so good you can’t help but be shocked to find no other credits to their names online. Especially of note is Cara Jade Myers as Mollie’s sister Anna, who passes through the film as a titanic force of nature, stealing every scene and leaving a heavy absence once she’s left. While the leads have - deservedly - received high praise, I hope Myers' acting future is very busy as well.
Directing them all, of course, is Scorsese himself. Here, at 80, his willingness to take risks and commitment to authentically telling difficult stories has in no way diminished. And that, ultimately, is what makes the movie work. The breakneck pace of his most popular outings would feel - at best - ill-fitted to this painful true story. And so he slows things down, forcing the viewers to sit with the gravity of the crimes they are witnessing, unable to look away. The creeping pace exposes the bare bones of his skill - intricate blocking, careful staging - but most importantly it holds attention while offering no escape from the bloody legacy he knows he and his American audience have inherited.
That Schoonmaker rises to this occasion is no surprise - she remains among the greatest to have ever done it. Guided by her careful hand, and powered by the late, great Robbie Robertson’s final score, the film takes its time, but never drags, building to its gripping conclusion without ever sacrificing the horrific truth for the comfort of those watching. It is a delicate balancing act, one that could have only been pulled off by this team of legends, laying bare the past for what it is without an easy escape.
As the credits roll, the weight of the movie pins you to your seat. It is clear that this is one of the best films of the year - a year shaping up to be an all-timer for cinema. But it is impossible to avoid the feeling that a better version exists - one wholly from the perspective of Mollie and the Osage. But that is not a story Scorsese is equipped to tell. And, in his eight decades on Earth, he seems to have grown self-aware enough to recognize this. To speak extensively on the final scenes of the film would be to do it a disservice. But in those moments, the master seems to admit the limitations of his hand in telling this history and recognize the deep flaws remaining in the Hollywood system that withholds this power for men like him.
With that in mind, Scorsese and his team have crafted an arresting tragedy of epic proportions, firing on all cylinders to bring the story of the Osage to life the best they can, with hope for a tomorrow where “Never Again” means more than a reverent nod to the victims of long-past crimes, but a promise that the brilliant artists too-long forced to the outskirts will be empowered to tell not just their histories, but to paint bright future in art with their own survivor’s hand.
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