Killers of the Flower Moon: On the Page and On the Screen

I saw Killers of the Flower Moon last fall, when it first arrived in theatres. There’s no question that a 206-minute film makes for a lengthy sit, but I was enthralled by a story I previously knew nothing about. I was fascinated by the realization that a Native American tribe had, thanks to the 1897 discovery of oil on tribal lands, become so fabulously wealthy that by the 1920s some were buying luxury cars, fancy clothing, and jewelry, sending their children to private schools, and traveling to Europe on vacation. It was not uncommon for them to hire white Americans as housekeepers and chauffeurs.

 Inevitably, this accumulation of wealth in Osage County, Oklahoma, attracted grifters and conmen of all sorts. Many were out to corner Osage riches for themselves, and there was a system in place that made this relatively simple. Congress, in its wisdom, had decided that the Osage were too childlike to hold onto their money without help, and so a system of “guardians” was established. Needless to say, the guardians were white men from the community. And suddenly the members of the Osage tribe were dying in great numbers, with whole families wiped out, from causes that were never adequately investigated. The years of the killings (mostly 1921-1926) are remembered by today’s Osage as a “reign of terror,” in which some 60 wealthy Osage mysteriously went to their deaths.

 I bring this up now because I’ve just finished reading the book on which the film is based, David Grann’s 2017 best-seller, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. I was aware from the start that virtually everyone I knew who had read Grann’s book was disappointed by the motion picture adaptation. Upon reading Killers of the Flower Moon, I could see why. Addressing the same historical subject matter contained in Scorsese’s film, Grann arranges it in an entirely different way. He chooses to divide his material into three “chronicles.” The first, “The Married Woman,” focuses on Mollie Burkhart, the Osage woman played memorably in the film by Lily Gladstone. Her mother and three sisters are among those killed off by greedy white men for their oil rights, and she herself barely survives being poisoned by her own Anglo husband (Leonardo Di Caprio), who loves her, but perhaps loves money (and his nefarious uncle. William Hale) more. This material, with its twisted love story, is where Scorsese focuses.

 The second “chronicle,” titled “The Evidence Man,” is devoted to Tom White, a serious-minded Texas lawman who arrives at the FBI at a time when J. Edgar Hoover is transforming it from the so-called Department of Easy Virtue to a serious law enforcement body. This was the era when detectives came into their own, both on the screen and in real life. White as a character has a small role in Scorsese’s movie, nicely played by Jesse Plemons. But the implications of his whole career could support a fascinating film, perhaps a more sophisticated version of The FBI Story (a 1959 James Stewart flick, heavy on heroics, that relied mightily on Hoover’s full cooperation).

 Finally, Grann spends his third “chronicle,” in the first-person, detailing how he himself, as an investigative reporter showing up almost 100 years after the crimes were committed, uncovered new evidence and was able to trace the long-term repercussions of the murders among today’s Native American community. As a reader who’s also a writer, I found it exciting to learn how much evidence a dedicated reporter can find, even decades after the fact. Maybe a documentary is in order?

 

3 Women: Robert Altman’s Waking Dream

I’m told that the plot for 3 Women came to Robert Altman in a dream. That must have been some dream! He was apparently sleeping fitfully, worried about his wife surviving a serious medical crisis. In his dream, he was directing Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek in a story about identity theft, set against the austere backdrop of the California desert. Awakening, he jotted down multiple pages of notes, which eventually turned into a highly ambiguous screenplay.

 I discovered this 1977 film (which was financed by 20^th Century Fox in tribute to Altman’s track record) while reading through obits for the saucer-eyed Duvall, a longtime Altman favorite. It  premiered at Cannes where it won positive reviews, especially for Duvall’s performance, which won her a Best Actress award. Mainstream audiences, though, didn’t know what to do with it. Though the film nabbed a few accolades from critics’ societies, Oscar voters (and the public) remained indifferent.

Altman, a master at setting a scene, begins with eerie, androgynous figures, looking something like primitive deities. Apparently these are paintings, adorning a desert town’s walls and the bottoms of its swimming pools. The watery images give way to a sad-looking local health spa, where feeble seniors are being helped into a therapy pool by young women in drab grey uniforms. Eventually we meet a new addition to the staff. Pinky, played by Spacek is a recent arrival from Texas. Pinky dresses in modest pastel-pink frocks, and responds, wide-eyed, to all the opportunities afforded her in this new situation.

 For the first third of the film, it seems primarily Spacek’s story.  Duvall is introduced to her as one of the most capable of the therapy assistants, and before long she’s showing Pinky her off-hours haunts and letting this very naïve girl share her cheerfully decorated apartment. It’s a while before we realize the film’s focus has shifted to Duvall, as Millie. Seemingly confident and sociable, full of mile-a-minute chatter, she turns out to be not as socially successful as she at first appeared. In fact, she’s lonely, and Pinky’s awestruck admiration of her seems to be quickly waning.

In the wake of a strong disagreement between the two, there’s a near drowning in one of those bizarrely decorated swimming pools. As Pinky lingers in a coma, Duvall’s Millie takes it upon herself to watch over her roommate day and night, even going so far as to locate her parents in Texas.  But from this point forward, nothing seems to go as we might expect. While Millie is revealing a surprisingly maternal side, the recuperating Pinky seems to have changed completely. Once modest, slightly childish, and a teetotaler, she now confidently drinks, smokes, and shows off her prowess with a pistol at a local shooting range. Who knew?

 The film is titled 3 Women, and—yes—there is a third, played by Broadway veteran Janice Rule. (She starred in the original stage production of William Inge’s Picnic, and at the time this film was made was married to Ben Gazzara. A previous husband was Robert Thom, the screenwriter behind Wild in the Streets, and one of the strangest men I met in my Corman years.) Rule plays a mysterious woman, the artist responsible for all those weird images. Though significantly older than Spacek’s and Duvall’s characters, she’s heavily pregnant by her husband, a movie stuntman who’s clearly up to no good. There’s a harrowing scene in which her baby is delivered, in her husband’s absence by the in-over-her-head Millie. And what follows next is even stranger, with the three women transformed into entire different people. Ah, Altman!