Killers of the Flower Moon
Lily Gladstone (second from left) with Cara Jade Myers, Janae Collins and Jillian Dion. Photos via IMDB
Not since “Oklahoma!” opened on Broadway has the state where I grew up in the '50s and '60s gotten so much attention in popular culture.
That's not necessarily a good thing.
Ken Burns's recent PBS documentary “The American Buffalo” followed the rise and demise of the majestic beasts across a boundless landscape being transformed in a nation. Their fate was intertwined with the fate of Native Americans, a lot of whom, along with a lot of buffalos, wound up in Oklahoma.
A horrendous 1921 race riot in Tulsa provided the opening scenes of the recent HBO miniseries “Watchmen.”
And now comes “Killers of the Flower Moon,” recounting yet one more unconscionable chapter that wasn't in the books or libraries when I was learning Oklahoma history in school.
The tragic, three-and-a-half-hour epic follows the diabolical scheming by white men in what was called “Indian Territory” before Oklahoma became a state in 1907. Led by rancher William “King” Hale (Robert De Niro), the plan called for white husbands to marry women of the Osage tribe, inheritors of tremendous wealth after oil was discovered on their tribal lands.
“Killers …” reunites De Niro with his favorite director Martin Scorsese, and Scorsese's go-to superstar Leonardo DiCaprio. With jutting jaw, yellow teeth and a confused scowl on his face, Leo plays Ernest Burkhart, King Hale's dumb-as-a-post nephew.
Native actress Lily Gladstone co-stars with the boys, playing Molly Burkhart, Ernest's Osage bride. Her diabetes makes her a natural target for King Hale's plans. Interspersing the Osage language with English in her carefully chosen words, she exudes dignity and ancient wisdom in a performance as powerful as her Oscar-winning co-stars'. She just won a Golden Globe for her unforgettable portrayal.
With heavy-hitters Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow and Brendan Fraser along with Native non-actors and even Scorsese himself in key roles, you know this is going to be a masterpiece.
It might have been more of one if it was half as long. And more focused. And less pretentious.
Returning from World War I, Ernest first appears riding a train to his uncle's cattle ranch outside the town of Fairfax. The discovery of oil on the nearby Osage kingdom has transformed Fairfax into a boomtown. Its sidewalks are crowded with brawling oil-field roustabouts and huckster photographers; its main street is a blur of racing roadsters and sedans driven by white chauffeurs for their Osage owners.
Between the steam locomotives and passenger cars, the vintage autos, the clapboard architecture of the stores and houses, and the wooden derricks pumping the oil, Scorsese has a veritable Smithsonian warehouse of props to work with.
Orchestrating all that action must have been a heady sensation, enticing him to run scenes about twice as long as they need to be. Characters, both victims and perpetrators, blur as the same patterns keep repeating themselves.
The movie's on the screen so long, you find yourself talkin' with a twang by the time it's over. There's also a grandeur to the cinematography painted in saturated colors that I don't remember ever seeing in the flat, sun-bleached landscapes I grew up in.
Possibly because you know the story going in, the action proceeds at a snail's pace, claiming one Osage victim after another. Some succumb to poisonings administered by physicians. Others die by gunshots, ruled suicides by local “law enforcement.” The brazen dynamiting of one household is the last straw that finally brings in federal agents led by Tom White (a terrific Jesse Plemons) working for a new agency run by someone named J. Edgar Hoover.
As King Hale, De Niro registers one of the most vile characters in his peerless resume. Oozing sanctimonious Bible scripture, he supports Osage schools and charities for the “finest people on the earth,” even as he is orchestrating the grand plan to marry and/or murder them to secure the “head rights” for their money. Watching him is excruciating.
DiCaprio is also outstanding as Hale's thankless foil. Ernest's ineptitude and their interplay borders on comic absurdity at times – or would, if the consequences weren't so grave. The fact that Ernest actually does love his wife is little consolation for the pain and mindless wreckage of his actions.
In spite of its glacial pace, or maybe because of it, the film elicits powerful emotions, mostly negative. The racism depicted on screen isn't as well known as other incidents in American history, but is just as disquieting. King Hale shares his nephew's jutting jaw, a symbol of arrogance as much as ignorance.
When the early Native Americans known as the “Five Civilized Tribes” were driven from their homelands in the Southeastern states to the god-forsaken Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River, their passage, marked by disease and death, became known at the “Trail of Tears.”
“Killers of the Flower Moon” shows their destination was no better than the journey.
Both the Osage wives and the tribal elders knew the white men were after their money. They knew in their bones that white men were stupid and crazy. But they were powerless to stop them. Native intelligence – especially the wisdom of knowing humans' relationship to their environment – has never been a match for the entitlement of white skin.
Much of the anger the film generates stems from watching the impunity of the white race as it inflicts its “morality” on indigenous peoples. More outrage stems from ongoing efforts of state legislatures in Oklahoma and elsewhere to keep whitewashing the history books a century later.
“Killers of the Flower Moon” is an effort at redress – although one wonders if white people are the best ones to tell the story.
For audiences who weren't anxious to spend more than three hours in theaters learning its painful lesson, it's better absorbed in series-size installments on Apple TV.
It can't right the wrong, but at least provides a missing chapter.
And it may give pause next time you hear Hugh Jackman sing or the OU Marching Band play “Oklahoma!”
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