Words by Kyle Boulton
Capitalism, theft, and greed are true murderers and horrors that Martin Scorcese focuses on in Killers of the Flower Moon.
As one of cinema’s most pronounced auteurs, Martin Scorsese has found new pertinence in relation to contemporary cinema discourses. Increasingly aware of his own mortality, Killers of The Flower Moon, a 206 minute-long deepdive into America’s colonialist underbelly, forms the director’s powerful counterpoint to the “theme-park cinema” that he so potently described in that now infamous 2019 interview.
Or at least according to Film Twitter, Flower Moon embodies the vanguard of this reactionary movement. With its evocative cast, Apple funding, and novel-sized length, I would argue it champions a current cinema trend that echoes the theatrical renaissance of 1950s Hollywood cinema. Indeed, where CinemaScope compelled audiences back to cinemas through visual spectacle – often defining the Westerns and Historical Epics of the period – the current operation is aimed at our ever-dwindling attention spans. In turn, the theatrical experience has become a more holistic endeavour – spiritually and experientially – with spectators agreeing to the terms of creators via extensive runtimes.
So far, this has yielded positive results for audiences worried about medium integrity, and producers concerned with commercial performance. What happens, however, when this dynamic delivers a film that seeks to challenge auteur theory, and hinders itself in the process?
Indeed, the only point of discussion more pertinent than cinema in 2023 is the issue of representation when navigating Killers of the Flower Moon’s historical context. From the beginning of production, Scorsese approached the Osage Nation, seeking linguistic, historical, and ethical contributions that would inform the film’s direction. This collaboration marked a departure from past Scorsese projects, typically informed by his Italian-American worldview, initiating an authorship complex found in no other work of his.
Through what perspective does one tell a story that is not their own, nor correlates with a wider filmographical trend? In this case, Scorsese penetrates the heart of darkness through settler protagonist, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio). Lacking both intelligence and grace, Burkhart’s defining trait, if one exists, is a lackadaisical lust for power built upon the exploitation of others. With the guidance of his more cunning uncle, “King” William Hale (Robert De Niro), Ernest musters just enough charm to swoon Molly Kyle (Lily Gladstone), an Osage woman whose family possesses headrights from the local oil industry. What ensues is a story of capitalist-colonialist greed, deceit, and violence, as bit-part opportunism erupts into ethnic cleansing.
In forefronting Ernest as protagonist, we’re directly shown the criminal intricacies of the Reign of Terror. Revealed are the familial dynamics between white settlers and the Osage people, along with the ruthlessness of a transitioning society in which communal autonomy is no longer achievable. Indeed, what the story so vividly represents is a fatalist framework of capitalist integration that unleashes paranoia, trauma and violence upon those that hesitantly accept it.
There remains, however, a perspectival imbalance between victim and perpetrator. Scorsese’s innate ability to deconstruct the human condition with immense detail is apparent, but often risks obfuscating the murderers’ actions. At the opening premiere, Christopher Cote – the film’s Osage language consultant – speaks candidly about this issue. For Cote, the murderous operation that Flower Moon depicts ultimately distracts from the moral clarity of this particular history. Cote goes on to suggest the need for oppressed people to tell their own histories without pandering to other audiences.
Notably, Cote’s argument doesn’t invalidate Scorsese’s work, but further sheds a light on the authorship complex in play. The film’s main thesis statement comes to a similar conclusion, challenging the cynical suggestion that such a film would not exist without Scorsese’s name attached. And yet, despite forming a symbiotic relationship between subject and filmmaker, these complexities are to the film’s detriment. Here I am not criticising the prospect of directorial compromise, but the filmmaking itself.
Collaborative or not, Flower Moon follows a familiar Scorsese formula: elaborate rise and fall narratives, gripping character studies, effective transitions to violence, novelistic approaches to storytelling. Here, however, there’s a resounding weightlessness to these qualities, making for an unlikely disconnect between technique and effect. This disconnect is neither meta-textually appropriate nor deconstructive; rather, the film’s stifling realism is regularly disrupted by an intruding artifice.
One simple factor behind this is the editing. Despite moving at a steady pace, the film lacks in the smaller moments, fidgeting between multiple points of interest within a given scene. From shoehorning in minor characters, to heavy-handedly focusing on objects with symbolic importance, there’s a manufactured element that distracts from the slow-burning naturalism. In doing so, Flower Moon often focuses on what’s inside the image, rather than the image as a whole, weakening the feeling and space of the world depicted.
The casting of DiCaprio and De Niro further intensifies this critique. While DiCaprio adequately embodies the obtuse protagonist, there remains an intrusive sense that DiCaprio is performing a character. The same logic applies to De Niro, except he’s playing a role we’ve seen countless times before. The result is stilted and often predictable with Lily Gladstone being the only true success story. The clarity of her performance, and the lack of disharmony between subject and performer, is ultimately appropriate for a story as rooted-in-reality as this. What otherwise reinforces this imbalance are the genuine casting risks taken in the form of non-actors, contrasting the film’s naturalistic approach with an awkward theatricality (see Brendan Fraser).
In a similar manner, the desire to take risks, to tell radical stories with newfound perspective, informs the fundamental disconnect between auteur and material. Where The Irishman (2019) took advantage of its auteurist licence – extensive runtime, Netflix budget, indulgent cast-list, metatextual intricacies – Flower Moon is far more unsure of itself. What transpires is an awkward marrying of artistic consent with a director that is more self-conscious than ever.
Theoretically, this dilemma makes for a fascinating moment in Scorsese’s late career. The watching experience, however, is far less engaging, especially when meandering to the main thesis statement. On the level of filmmaking, sadly, there remains a certain complacency that reveals Flower Moon to be unsure of its purpose beyond the crucial illumination of a harrowing wave of oppression.