Scorsese returns to form with Killers Of The Flower Moon
A timely reckoning of a dark chapter of American history, Killers is the director’s best film in years
IS Martin Scorsese Hollywood’s greatest living director? Some would say he is. His younger counterparts such as Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh, both 60, have made headlines for announcing their retirement plans, but Scorsese, at 80, has done no such thing. With minimum fuss, he continues to make one cinematic gem after another.
His films in recent years, such as Silence (2016) and The Irishman (2019), are considered very good – much better than his output before that (The Wolf of Wall Street, 2013; Hugo, 2011; Shutter Island, 2010).
But his latest film, Killers Of The Flower Moon, is arguably better than all of them. It inches closer than its predecessors to being a masterpiece – even if it doesn’t quite hit the mark of his unimpeachably perfect pictures, including Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980) and Goodfellas (1990).
For cinephiles, every new Scorsese is treated as an event – even the duds, such as Gangs Of New York (2002) and Kundun (1997).
But the fever-pitch anticipation surrounding Killers – It’s got his favourite actors! It has a rare female lead! Its 1920s period plot is new territory for him! – is justified this time.
With an estimated production budget of between US$200 million and US$250 million, the film reunites him with two of his favourite actors, Robert De Niro (their 10th film together) and Leonardo DiCaprio (their sixth collaboration) – and they’re all worth their weight in gold.
But the fourth magician in this three-hander drama is Lily Gladstone, a relatively unknown but astonishingly assured actress who doesn’t just hold her own against her co-stars, but also holds the film together.
The fifth magician worth mentioning, also a woman, is Thelma Schoonmaker, who has edited almost every Scorsese film; here she distils a long and complex behemoth of a story into a riveting and powerful drama.
Dark side of the moon
Set in Osage County, Oklahoma, in the early 1900s, Killers tells the true story of the murder of dozens of Native Americans at the hands of white Americans. When the former become wealthy overnight from the oil beneath their land, white Americans try to steal that wealth through murky systems of financial assistance, insurance deals, land sales and marriage.
The most cunning of them all is William “King” Hale (De Niro), a white man who ingratiates himself into the indigenous Osage community, to the point that they seek him out for advice and trust him with their lives.
When King’s nephew Ernest (DiCaprio) returns from the war, King advises him to marry the “red” Osage woman Mollie (Gladstone) for her wealth.
Once this is in place, King and his thugs proceed to secretly kill Mollie’s family members one by one, so that their wealth would go to her, and by extension, Ernest and their children. He then manipulates Ernest to poison Mollie slowly so that King would ultimately take possession of the entire inheritance.
Based on the non-fiction book by David Grann, this 3 ½-hour film is engrossing from start to finish, as it narrates a dark chapter of American history with scintillating clarity.
As is wont with Scorsese, Killers doesn’t shy away from depicting the brutal acts carried out by the white men: Indigenous men and women are shot at point-blank range; one man is repeatedly stabbed to death.
By the same measure, Scorsese doesn’t hold back on showing the detrimental impact of newfound wealth on the Native Americans, who shop, drink, gamble and fornicate their money away. In fact, the film boasts a cavalcade of characters and themes, yet nothing feels superfluous: Every element lends depth and resonance to the film’s overall emotional impact.
Magisterial performances
At the heart of the film are the three magnificent performances: De Niro as the money-hungry schemer with a magnetic personality; DiCaprio as his stupid, spineless nephew who does his uncle’s bidding though his conscience tells him otherwise, and Gladstone as a woman so steadfast and sorrowful in her love for DiCaprio’s character, she stands by him despite his heinous crimes.
As for Scorsese, no recent film of his has felt more relevant to its time than Killers. As the world addresses long-dismissed issues of systemic racism, inequalities and social injustice, Killers is a necessary reckoning with the oft-ignored history of discrimination and bias towards Native Americans.
It is no coincidence that the film sometimes digresses to show snippets of brutality towards Black Americans through news reports, as well as a scene depicting the Ku Klux Klan staging a march in Osage County.
What Scorsese has done here is admirable – tell the story of a non-white community that suffered genocide at the hands of his own people. It’s proof that Scorsese can step out of his skin, away from his comfort zone of narrating Italian/Irish gangster tales, and tell a different – yet equally powerful and empathetic – story. Here’s hoping the maestro never talks of retirement.
Killers Of The Flower Moon opens in cinemas on Oct 19
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