Martin Scorsese makes long movies; he makes gangster movies and villainous movies and movies about men who sink with their choices; but they are always long. He has made a career of painstaking attention to detail, and of getting the most out of a scene, and those scenes linger. Think of Travis Bickle blowing it on the phone with a date. Think, more famously, of Henry Hill, showing off the trappings of his mafioso nightlife. Scorsese gets close to his films, and he tells a complete story - a three-hour story, often, but one that's dense and absorbing, every time. I knew and expected this going into "Killers of the Flower Moon." Probably not all of his audience will be so willing.
A hundred years ago thrived a rich and intelligent community of Osage, owners of Oklahoman land meant to be worthless but floating on oil. In flocks the white man, coyotes, seeking a bit of fortune from these Osage; wooing their women, building them schools, and trading them goods. If any of these white folk were well-meaning, they were those who left them be when the cards were on the table. A kingpin of these folk, William Hale, has ingratiated himself within Native American society like a fattening tick. He means to take everything. In this film Robert De Niro plays an exceptional sociopath, single-minded and unconflicted, who becomes responsible for the murder (that is, the poisoning, stabbing, shooting, burning, exploding, and garroting) of dozens of these Osage.
But the soul of this film lies between Mollie (Lily Gladstone) and Ernest (Leo DiCaprio): Mollie the Osage heiress of a black gold fortune, and Ernest the dimwitted, charming nephew of Hale. Their relationship and the events within are devastating on a level I've rarely seen. It would be a disservice to dissect it in a review meant to get you to see the movie, so you'll have to take my word on their performances - stunning, perplexing, distressing, and nuanced. I don't fawn over Leo but I've never seen him better.
Something I've been dying to talk about is the balance of dialogue punctuating "Killers". Moments that tell you the most about a character are often when they say the least, white man and Osage alike. Scorsese omits subtitles in some scenes so you're scrutinizing Leo and Lily's faces as they speak her language, until suddenly you realize you didn't need them to understand. Leo's relaxed charm in the first act is later juxtaposed in U-turn fashion with contorted, confused, suffering grimaces (which apparently has people questioning if his jaw was wired). Lily conveys unimaginable heartache with simple glances, her eyes like fates, knowing how it's going down but unable to change it. Until her last appearance on screen, she's magnetic. Don't be surprised if three Academy Awards for acting home in on the three leads.
In a film of such Godforsaken girth, there is so much of "less is more" put on display. It's stated explicitly as a trait of the Osage - they waste no breath when it isn't necessary. And William Hale spends the whole film yapping.
This here's a beautifully shot bit of legitimate non-fiction which reeled me in from the start and held my attention to the end. It won't work for everybody (and already hasn't, according to some of my friends). In some other universe is a shorter cut of this film, leaner by perhaps an hour, and more of a thriller than a contemplative tragedy. As a trumpeter of this version's excellence I'm satisfied, but even I thought some scenes languished. No matter. With acting, writing, and cinematography of this echelon, I'd have sat through a fourth hour.
8/10 for being alive at the same time Marty Scorsese is making magic.
A hundred years ago thrived a rich and intelligent community of Osage, owners of Oklahoman land meant to be worthless but floating on oil. In flocks the white man, coyotes, seeking a bit of fortune from these Osage; wooing their women, building them schools, and trading them goods. If any of these white folk were well-meaning, they were those who left them be when the cards were on the table. A kingpin of these folk, William Hale, has ingratiated himself within Native American society like a fattening tick. He means to take everything. In this film Robert De Niro plays an exceptional sociopath, single-minded and unconflicted, who becomes responsible for the murder (that is, the poisoning, stabbing, shooting, burning, exploding, and garroting) of dozens of these Osage.
But the soul of this film lies between Mollie (Lily Gladstone) and Ernest (Leo DiCaprio): Mollie the Osage heiress of a black gold fortune, and Ernest the dimwitted, charming nephew of Hale. Their relationship and the events within are devastating on a level I've rarely seen. It would be a disservice to dissect it in a review meant to get you to see the movie, so you'll have to take my word on their performances - stunning, perplexing, distressing, and nuanced. I don't fawn over Leo but I've never seen him better.
Something I've been dying to talk about is the balance of dialogue punctuating "Killers". Moments that tell you the most about a character are often when they say the least, white man and Osage alike. Scorsese omits subtitles in some scenes so you're scrutinizing Leo and Lily's faces as they speak her language, until suddenly you realize you didn't need them to understand. Leo's relaxed charm in the first act is later juxtaposed in U-turn fashion with contorted, confused, suffering grimaces (which apparently has people questioning if his jaw was wired). Lily conveys unimaginable heartache with simple glances, her eyes like fates, knowing how it's going down but unable to change it. Until her last appearance on screen, she's magnetic. Don't be surprised if three Academy Awards for acting home in on the three leads.
In a film of such Godforsaken girth, there is so much of "less is more" put on display. It's stated explicitly as a trait of the Osage - they waste no breath when it isn't necessary. And William Hale spends the whole film yapping.
This here's a beautifully shot bit of legitimate non-fiction which reeled me in from the start and held my attention to the end. It won't work for everybody (and already hasn't, according to some of my friends). In some other universe is a shorter cut of this film, leaner by perhaps an hour, and more of a thriller than a contemplative tragedy. As a trumpeter of this version's excellence I'm satisfied, but even I thought some scenes languished. No matter. With acting, writing, and cinematography of this echelon, I'd have sat through a fourth hour.
8/10 for being alive at the same time Marty Scorsese is making magic.