In the lead-up to its theatrical release, Martin Scorsese spoke candidly about how he re-wrote “Killers Of The Flower Moon” with Eric Roth to focus more on the Indigenous perspective of the events the film depicts. “After a certain point, I realized I was making a movie about all the white guys,” Scorsese explained to Time Magazine last month. “Meaning I was taking the approach from the outside in, which concerned me.” But THR reports that despite Scorsese’s refocusing, members of the Osage community who consulted on the film don’t think the director did enough.
At the Los Angeles premiere of Scorsese’s latest last night, Osage consultant Christopher Cote voiced his reservations about the new film. On the red carpet, Cote said he was “nervous about the release of the film; now that I’ve seen it, I have some strong opinions.” In short, Cote and other Osage consultants on the film have mixed feelings on the film and think Scorsese didn’t accommodate an Indigenous perspective enough. And in the case of Cote, he thinks Scorsese should have focused more on Lily Gladstone‘s Mollie Burkhart and given Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Ernest Burkhart center stage. Word of warning for those unfamiliar with David Grann‘s 2017 book: there are spoilers ahead.
“As an Osage, I really wanted this to be from the perspective of Mollie and what her family experienced, but I think it would take an Osage to do that,” Cote told THR. “Martin Scorsese, not being Osage, I think he did a great job representing our people, but this history is being told almost from the perspective of Ernest Burkhart, and they kind of give him this conscience and kind of depict that there’s love. But when somebody conspires to murder your entire family, that’s not love. That’s not love, that’s just beyond abuse.”
Cote continued, “I think in the end, the question that you can be left with is: how long will you be complacent with racism? How long will you go along with something and not say something, not speak up? How long will you be complacent? I think that’s because this film isn’t made for an Osage audience, it was made for everybody, not Osage. For those that have been disenfranchised, they can relate, but for other countries that have their acts and their history of repression, this is an opportunity for them to ask themselves this question of morality, and that’s how I feel about this film.”
“Killers Of The Flower Moon” explores the FBI’s investigation of the Osage murders in 1920s Oklahoma from the perspective of a marriage at the center of it. After oil was discovered on Osage reservation land, its Indigenous population became suddenly wealthy, leading nearby White residents to kill off rich Osage people for their benefit in secret. The conspiracy is often cited as the case that gave the FBI legitimacy in Washington, DC.
Other Osage community members who worked on Scorsese’s film echo Cote’s thoughts, like Janis Carpenter, a language consultant. “Some things were so interesting to see, and we have so many of our tribal people that are in the movie that it’s wonderful to see them,” Carptner said at the premiere. “But then there are some things that were pretty hard to take.” Julie O’Keefe, an Osage wardrobe and costume consultant, had a similar view of the film. “It was overwhelming, quite frankly, to see it for the first time. I had to see it a couple of times because you miss things.”
As for Gladstone, she told New York Magazine in a recent interview that she agreed with Scorsese shifting his film’s scope. “It’s not a white-savior story,” the actress told the magazine. “It’s the Osage saying, ‘Do Something. Here’s money. Come help us.'” But in the same interview, Gladstone also advocated for more Indigenous stories being told in popular culture, preferably by Indigenous sto. ytellers. “You want to have more Natives writing Native stories,” she continued. “You also want the masters to pay attention to what’s going on. American history is not history without Native history.”
The tragic history of Indigenous peoples in North American since the Colonial era is more complicated and overwhelming for just one movie to take on. But in the context of “Killers Of The Flower Moon,” it will be interesting to see Indigenous people’s further criticisms of Scorsese’s film. Does the legendary director provide justice for Osage County Murders, or is that something Scorsese, as a White storyteller, simply cannot provide? That will be a hot topic of conversation after the movie hits theaters this Friday.
“Killers Of The Flower Moon” will stream exclusively on Apple TV+ after its brief theatrical run. Watch the final trailer for the film below.