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?

 

Shine On, Flower Moon: Scorsese on the Prairie

Recently I’ve heard from several admirers of David Grann’s 2017 bestseller, Killers of the Flower Moon: the Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. These readers—including Jack El-Hai, a colleague known for his work as a biographer—are disappointed by Martin Scorsese’s new film adaptation of Grann’s book. They find the film, among other things, too long, too lacking in sympathetic characters, and too focused on one family’s egregious behavior to capture the magnitude of the problem the book confronts.

 I can’t agree with them, partly because I’ve never read Grann’s book. So I don’t exactly know what was lost in the transfer from page to screen. I do know that the filmmakers, deeply aware of the strong emotions invested in this project by indigenous groups, worked hard to avoid any accusation that this was a “white savior” project. They didn’t want this, in other words, to be one of those movies in which white-skinned men of good conscience rescue suffering Native Americans from their oppressors. Scorsese even goes so far as to make an appearance at the beginning of the film, spelling out his intentions. And I’ve heard that star Leonardo DiCaprio, a longtime Scorsese collaborator, made the gutsy decision not to star as an heroic FBI agent but rather to play a not-too-bright World War I veteran whose credulous nature contributes to the disastrous love story at the center of the film version.

 Taking the film as a film—and not as an adaptation of an important book—I have to say that I found it enthralling. Though well over three hours long, it caught me in its grip and wouldn’t let go. Partly this is a matter of a brilliant production design, best appreciated on an IMAX screen. I will long be haunted by the memory of Osage men, having sadly concluded that their traditional way of life is dead and buried, suddenly reveling in a spurting plume of crude oil on their land. And there’s a stunning moment much later in the film when firefighters battling an arson blaze seem like inhabitants of Dante’s Inferno.

 Moviegoers who have watched loads of classic westerns will be enthralled by this apparently authentic look at the Osage people, circa 1920, following the discovery of oil. These Native Americans do not live in wigwams or hogans, nor do they dress in buckskin and wear feathers in their hair. Now wealthy because of their land rights, they speak good English, attend the local Catholic church, and glide into their squalid Oklahoma town in taxis driven by white men. Young women like Mollie may proudly wrap themselves in tribal blankets, but also cover their heads in stylish chapeaux. Played by rising star Lily Gladstone, Mollie is hardly the pathetic little squaw of many a western. Strong and spirited, she has no problem in choosing DiCaprio’s Ernest as her husband, and sharing with him (at least at first) an intense connubial life.

 If Ernest doesn’t seem worthy of his bride, it’s at least partly because of his allegiance to his uncle, played by Scorsese regular Robert De Niro as William King Hale. In his illustrious career, De Niro has played many bad hombres. But there must be a special circle of hell for the man he portrays here. King Hale speaks the Osage language and loudly touts his friendship with the Osage people. But ultimately his eye is on those lucrative Osage land rights, and the devil take the consequences.

 A clever (though controversial) device at the film’s end invites us to put this tragic story into perspective. Bravo, Mr. Scorsese.