Is Killers of the Flower Moon worth the runtime?

With DiCaprio and De Niro in fine gurning form and Thelma Schoonmaker on the edit, the gang’s back together for Martin Scorsese’s brand new film. But is it worth the 3hr26m runtime?

References
Killers of the Flower Moon: Oil, Money, Murder and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (the book the film is based on)
Interview with Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone for Critqal
Martin Scorsese’s companion films list on Letterboxd

Films and TV shows about indigenous communities we recommended:
Dances with Wolves (1990) dir. by Kevin Costner 
Smoke Signals (1998) dir. by Chris Eyre
Reservation Dogs (2021-2023) created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi
Call Me Human (2020) dir. by Kim O'Bomsawin

For more, read Corinne Rice’s ‘8 Essential Films of the Native American Experience’

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Transcript

James: 0:00

it's a long ass movie. God damn.

Lily: 0:04

to, in the middle of the film, I had to get up, go to the back and do stretches because it was, it was too much. And luckily there were only seven people in the cinema, so no one was disrupted by me. Welcome to Groovy Movies. My name is Lily Austin.

James: 0:16

And my name's James Brailsford. Hello.

Lily: 0:19

Hey, James, how are you?

James: 0:20

I'm pretty good. Thanks. Yeah. I've had a, um, a busy old week, in my new kind of hopefully burgeoning profession, lecturing the next generation of filmmakers. Uh, well, so, you know, that's quite good. Getting paid all day to talk about filmmaking. That's like, that's, that's the dream for me, really. I think.

Lily: 0:38

I do. I feel like I've been your student. I've like been preparing you for that through this podcast and the listeners, obviously.

James: 0:48

Thank you. It's been great to get all my anecdotes, like refined all the funny stories, get them tweaked to perfection to entertain, entertain the student cohort.

Lily: 0:58

I love that. Well, for this episode, we're breaking with our thematic, format.

James: 1:05

We're going retro. We're going back to the old

Lily: 1:07

Exactly. We're taking it back to series one. We're just doing an episode of one film because as you probably know, Martin Scorsese's new film is out. Killers of the Flower Moon. And I've a lot of thoughts. Don't know about you, James.

James: 1:22

I have thoughts for sure. I have thoughts,

Lily: 1:25

So just to flag before we start the episode, this film is about the Osage tribe, so we'll be referring to the people in it as Osage because the general consensus among Native people is that they'd rather be referred to as their tribe because, you know, there isn't one Native American culture. There are in fact 573 individual cultures. But if we do refer to the collective, we'll use native or indigenous. Both terms are generally considered acceptable. It just depends, it varies from people to people what they prefer.

James: 1:57

That's very interesting. Very good to know. I was curious. Um, yeah, I, I didn't really know much about the plot of this film at all going into it. Um,

Lily: 2:05

Yeah, same.

James: 2:06

give you a brief summary, it's, um, centered around really, the story of. Ernest Burkhardt, who's returning from World War I, and he goes to live with his, rancher uncle, William King Hale, played by Robert De Niro, and they're based in Oklahoma, because that's where the Osage, um, are kind of, they've been relocated, or they're living there, which, from a bit of research it did, apparently that's a whole story in and of itself that isn't really gone into any detail in the film, but, To discuss the film is to essentially spoil one of its delights, which is it's the way the story unfolds and how you realize what's going on. So just, just to be clear, spoilers are now going ahead. But what, what we very, very soon come to realize is that all the white people in this town are Conspiring together to leech off the very rich, um, Osage, uh, tribes people. And as the story unfolds, you don't realize to begin with quite how deep the rabbit hole goes, but essentially everybody's in on it, they're trying to, well, they're not trying to, they are successfully killing off, um, People, the Osage community who own these, I think they're called headrights. Um, and so it, they're, they're slowly poisoning and murdering different people. So all the white people in the, in the community can essentially take over.

Lily: 3:22

When you say head rights, what do you mean?

James: 3:24

it's essentially, an entitlement of ownership to a certain amount of oil land, I think, is, is what it means.

Lily: 3:30

Right, I, I assumed it was the land where there is oil.

James: 3:35

yeah, yeah, yeah, there's 2, 229 Osage headrights for each member of the Osage nation who enrolled in 1906. So what they're doing is collecting these headrights. So they're essentially just stealing the land off the Osage by killing them.

Lily: 3:48

Right, okay, yeah.

James: 3:50

So the, the central story is a love story between, Ernest, who's played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and then we have, um, Lily Gladstone playing Molly, who's a member of the Osage. And, uh, the whole point is they're selectively killing off her extended family and direct family so they can gather more of these head rights.

Lily: 4:06

I feel like, it made sense for us to do this episode because it's a three and a half hour film, so we're essentially watching it so you don't have to

James: 4:14

it's a long ass movie. God damn.

Lily: 4:18

Yeah, but in the middle of the film, I had to get up, go to the back and do stretches because it was too much. And luckily there were only seven people in the cinema, so no one was disrupted by me.

James: 4:28

It definitely didn't need to have been that long. As I got past hour two and I start to feel it I was doing all right up to the two hour mark, then I was like, oh my God, there's another hour and a half left. I was thinking this is America's greatest filmmaker in quotation marks. He's in his last period. He's earned the right to indulge himself, I think. It doesn't mean I've got to like it, just to be clear. But, he's one of the few filmmakers who's had this successful career that he's always maintained some kind of relevance in pop culture and film history. And he's got, he's got, he's got to his last few years, he's like, Fuck it, I'm, no one's the boss of me. If I want to do three and a half hours, I'm doing it. And you will sit there and take it. And I did, I did, Martin.

Lily: 5:08

Yeah, and that, but having said that, I. Was engaged the whole time. He is a master storyteller. I actually wasn't bored at all, at all during the film. I was into the story the whole way through. He is, he's good at, with, at what he does. So, even though, Like, it's just unethical, I think, to make people sit for that long without even an intermission or something, which some cinemas have introduced, thank

James: 5:34

have to say, I think that was a genius move and my screening didn't have an intermission. I really wish it had, uh, you know, and yeah, I have noticed that there are screens with intermissions. So if you are thinking of it, I would strongly recommend the intermission. It would be most welcome.

Lily: 5:46

I just think Scorsese should have put that in himself perhaps because otherwise I don't think cinema's going to do it because again it cuts off more time. This is already, you're taking up the, you know, seven people in what could have been a cinema with two different films playing, you know, two audiences.

James: 6:06

I was thinking, God, with adverts included, then you're in the cinema, that's four hours out of your day. And that's just physically in the screening. It's then traveling to it and traveling back home. I mean, I'm lucky I live quite close to a cine world. So, you know, let's say it was half hour either side. So that's five hours devoted. Uh, that's half, to watching one film. And it was. It was definitely worth putting the effort in, but you can see why it's, it's probably not got the audience it's intended, but it's also making me think about this film is of a little bit of a peculiarity because it's not by one of the big studios, it's by a streaming service, Apple, um,

Lily: 6:43

I didn't know that.

James: 6:45

Yes, it was, it was initially going to be with Paramount, but then when COVID hit, Paramount just got cold feet and pulled out. And so Apple stepped in and they ponied up the 200 million, budget. So it's a bit of a hybrid. Apple do not need to make money on the theatrical release. For this to be a success, they don't have to make their money back. So it's the fact that it's made$50 million is great. So they're doing a hybrid thing.'cause,'cause streaming services lose money when they make films. Like how do you make the budget back of a$100 million film that you've made for streaming when you don't sell tickets? Right. So they don't make money, they just, every film they make is lost, lost, lost. So Apple are offsetting some of their losses by getting some of the money back in the theater, but it's not entirely reliant on that.

Lily: 7:29

Do you think that the length of the film is in part because it's Apple behind it and not, say, Paramount? Do you think that might have been a factor?

James: 7:37

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Same with why Netflix did The Irishman, because they don't have restrictions on duration. I mean, I have to say as well, I've never got to the end of The Irishman, so at least I got to the end of Killers of the Flower Moon.

Lily: 7:50

okay, well let's, okay, enough complaining about the length. Let's get to the, can we talk about the story, please?

James: 7:57

It was very engaging. It's like a slow burn, you know, it's beautifully

Lily: 8:01

slow.

James: 8:02

a very slow, it's not, it's not a long film because it's boring and slow and plodding. It's like very methodical, Thelma Schumacher is one of the best editors in the business for a reason.

Lily: 8:13

She did good work in this for

James: 8:14

yeah, incredible work. The story, I can see why they decided to center it on the relationship.'cause I know that the book is more about the FBI investigation, the birth of the FBI. And that's almost the one of the weakest parts of the film was when the FBI investigation came in, it did feel like they were worthy of the film being centered around them. And it wasn't. I totally understand the reason why, because the story shouldn't really be about the FBI, it's about the mistreatment of the Osage. But, um, I did just feel like, oh god, I'd really love to spend more time with these characters, doing their detective work. It was more like a little add on, rather than a, the centre of the drama.

Lily: 8:52

Yeah, which is mad when the film is that long, right? To feel like this is just a footnote at the end. The interesting thing About the FBI element is that the FBI was a new organization at this point. So the apparently the book, it's telling the story of the killing of of a stage people, but it's also as much about the formation of the FBI. that was what DiCaprio said in an interview that the book isn't immersed in the Osage community and that's where we wanted to be, but I

James: 9:28

Yeah, they refocused

Lily: 9:29

Yeah, but I didn't feel like it was at all like that. I felt like the film follows. DiCaprio and De Niro's characters most of the time, and I felt like I didn't really get to know the Osage people at all, and that was what was, I found quite frustrating and a bit depressing about watching the film, was that this is a film about the literal erasure of Osage people, and the film does that. Just like with, uh, The Wolf of Wall Street, that was a film predominantly about misogyny, and the film itself was misogynistic,

James: 10:01

See, with Wolf of Wall Street, I thought that was the point of the film, was that it was a misogynistic film about a misogynistic person,

Lily: 10:08

But you don't, yeah, we've talked about this before, you don't need to be misogynistic in order to portray misogyny. You can take a different tack,

James: 10:15

Yeah, but about it, I thought the whole point was to make the audience feel complicit in it. I just feel that a lot of people read The Wolf of Wall Street unironically, or didn't realize that that was what was going on, whereas when I watched it, I was increasingly uncomfortable all the way through the film, and I thought, well, that's, that's the point of it,

Lily: 10:30

right. And do you think that was the intention with this film? Yeah,

James: 10:33

Deliberate or unintentional, that is a consequence of it, is that the Ossage are backgrounded in their, in a film about them. But then isn't that what these characters portrayed by Robert De Niro? Isn't that how they perceived them? That they were just somebody that they were going to exploit I love the fact that Robert De Niro has learned lots of phrases and you know that that's, he doesn't really care about

Lily: 10:55

he speaks their language,

James: 10:56

It's all lip service, it's all seduction, but as an audience member I did think it was fascinating what we did see of the Osage, people on screen, because I've never seen, as vividly a culture displayed, even though you're right, it's very much backgrounded and a bit removed.

Lily: 11:12

Yeah I think actually in a way that was the problem, was it? Every time Molly or her sisters or There's a scene with the, some Osage elders having a meeting. I thought, like, why can't we be with these guys? I want to spend more time with them. I want to get to know them. And instead, we're going back to bloody Daenerys and Da Caprio the whole time. And actually... For three and a half hours, it doesn't really make sense to me that it should be so imbalanced like that. Whether or not that's like a deliberate choice in order to make a message, there's so many things that were fascinating that we barely got into. The film opens with DiCaprio's character arriving and you seeing Osage people, like, wearing furs and all of this, like, they're clearly super wealthy and very much, dressing immersed in the, white man culture, and that's, fascinating, right? don't know anything about this

James: 12:03

didn't know that. The introduction to the film is like this black and white prologue, as if it's almost documentary footage. But just to see all these images of essentially wealthy, Osage, uh, peoples, you, you weren't expecting that. I didn't realize how much wealth they had at a certain point. Immediately, that set me up for something I wasn't expecting that. Oh, right. I didn't realize that the Osage were made wealthy because of oil. And then the white man just conned them out of it like this.

Lily: 12:28

That in itself is fascinating, right? This, this blending of two very, very different cultures and with different values, but who are like, Connecting and coming together and what that really means and what on the surface that is and what, yes, we see it underneath it or the tensions. That is really interesting, but that's just like shown at the beginning and then we go into spending time with these white men and the other thing is There are a few moments where you see that, okay, yeah, they have all this wealth, but they have to have guardians, guardians who are white men. They don't actually have any access to their own money without these people. That is like, super interesting, and it's barely even touched on. Like, the friend who I saw it with, like, didn't even, clock that because it's just, like, skimmed over. So there are all these parts of it. And Molly is, Such an interesting character, like amazingly played by Lily Cloudstone and her and her sisters. I just wanted to spend more time with them and know more about what was going on with them. In all these films, so often when it's depicting people who have been oppressed or like communities that have been treated badly, it's always the same thing of It's just showing people being hurt, We don't get enough of their actual story. It's so frustrating,

James: 13:40

I do wonder as well how much that is part of just the filmmaking in general, the point of view that the film is taking, because you've got to be careful for, I think one of the things that defines a proper auteur director is they have a very clear point of view. Either A, what they're saying with the material, but B, whose story are we telling in the film? And so what you've just described seems a classic example of the point of view of the film isn't Molly's point of view. It isn't the Assaj's point of view. It's the white

Lily: 14:08

Yeah, and I just wish it was their point of view instead. I think that was the mistake.

James: 14:13

is it a mistake or would that, that, that could just create a very different

Lily: 14:16

Yeah, I want that film. No, it doesn't have to be a documentary. It could be the exact same story, but it be from Molly's. point of view.

James: 14:25

And that could be a film, but that wasn't the film that was made. I don't think it was, um, negligent on the part of Martin Scorsese to choose the way he told the story that he did. It's just that, that's the story he's telling. It's the story he's telling of, of white infiltration of these communities. And so, he needed to keep it focused around them, because those are the characters that he can tell a story with.

Lily: 14:47

Right, yeah, I, I, I see what you're saying. I think it's just if there were 20 movies about the Osage community, and this was one of them, fine, absolutely fine. Because don't get me wrong, I did find it in a, in a, not enjoyable, it was like horrible to watch the whole way through.

James: 15:07

Oh, it's, it's, oppressively sad. The, the more it goes on and the more you realise quite how implicit, um, you know, Leonardo DiCaprio's earnest is in it all. To begin with, you just think, Oh, he's an innocent, he's an innocent, he's getting sucked in,

Lily: 15:21

But you know, he says from the beginning that he loves money and I'm like, ooh, what does that mean? you're, so that's why you're here, obviously. That was

James: 15:29

I have to say like, like great performance from Leonardo DiCaprio playing against he's charismatic type, just as this total pathetic loser of a man. And it's great to

Lily: 15:39

yeah, he's very naive, very easily, um, Persuaded to do other people's bidding. I mean, I thought it was interesting that his way of signposting that he's stupid is to have his jaw jutted forward the whole time. I thought that's an interesting, interesting physical choice, you know.

James: 15:54

Well, I think as well,

Lily: 15:55

But he did, it was good, it was

James: 15:57

He was trying to just remove his good looks, wasn't he? So I suppose, I suspect there needed to be an element of physical mugging to just like take the

Lily: 16:04

I don't know, I mean, one of the elements of his relationship, why, why him and Molly get together. It's because, like, because it's surprising that they would be together. This is a big kind of question in the film. They seem a non likely couple. Because Molly is very intelligent and she reads him like a book. she knows that he's interested in her. Because of her wealth and she's, yeah, she's pretty astute, um, and he is obviously isn't, but I think one point she makes is that he is a good looking guy. He still is good looking. I don't, I think that jutting door was just a signpost stupidity rather than like unattractiveness to be honest with you, but, but we can debate that as well.

James: 16:43

But,

Lily: 16:44

what did you think of their relationship?

James: 16:46

I thought it was really well done on one hand, it's a deliberate move by King, Robert De Niro's character to get him to seduce Molly, but they do seem to have a genuine relationship, which just makes it all the more heartbreaking when you, you become aware of quite how bad, Ernest is treating Molly because you kind of, I don't know, you think, oh, right, fine. He's, he's genuinely found love and that will affect, What he's going to do to his wife, like he's going to have limits. He's going to have boundaries to how far he'll go, but nope, he keeps on going. And, um, it's just heartbreaking to, it's essentially gaslighting the movie. This is three hours of awful gaslighting and it

Lily: 17:23

Gaslighting, gaslighting her.

James: 17:26

Yeah. Now here's your insulin love. Oops. Yeah. I forgot to mention the heroin that's in there.

Lily: 17:31

Did you find that plausible that such an intelligent woman wouldn't have suspected anything?

James: 17:38

She seems to know exactly what's going on all the way through, There's some kind of dialogue between her and one of her sisters, and she clearly knows that something is going on. She might not be able to say, I'm being poisoned like this, this, this, but she knows that the entire white community are against them, and essentially there's nothing that they can do. They're on like this. Path that they are being pushed down. And she seems acutely aware of the fact that, the community around her don't have her best interests at heart.

Lily: 18:02

So you think she knows she's being poisoned?

James: 18:05

I don't think she knows she's been poisoned, but she knows something is going on from all the way through, as in just in generally that she is aware of a conspiracy, even though she may not know the very specifics of how it's working.

Lily: 18:16

Yeah, I I thought that she didn't suspect her husband of doing anything. She believed that. That they loved each other and he was probably the one person she could trust. It does seem so implausible, right? Like, why would you marry this man when you know that he's after your money? But I was thinking about it more and I was thinking, The fact is, is that this wealth, This is wealth only because the white man arrives, right? For the white people. Value oil and for them it's wealthy, therefore, because of what? How they, how much they value it. It's wealthy for the Osage people too. It's ma, it's mainly for them. Without them, the oil. For them the oil, it doesn't mean anything. It's not necessary. because this is the question throughout the film, right? Why are these os H women marrying the white men

James: 19:06

Isn't it partly as well control the fact that they need a white person to administer the financial affairs. So you let us marry someone who we think, Oh, he's good looking, but a bit dumb. Fine. He'll do.

Lily: 19:16

Exactly. It's because, I think it's that and it's because that, that actually there is this dynamic where they both need each other in order to, profit because the wealth doesn't mean anything without the white people, that the white people can't get to the wealth without getting close to the Osage people. So I thought, oh, that is super interesting. And again, I would have loved to have gotten a bit more into that rather than, you're right about, I see what you, I know what you mean about the perspective thing and okay that's a choice and blah blah blah but even so, it's three and a half hours, we spend so much time on the like murders There are certain moments I thought this could have just been cut out and instead we could have just had a scene of, outside of, of that. And for me that, that other stuff was way more interesting. But yeah, the friends who I saw it with they just didn't buy or understand why Molly would... be married to this man and like Involved with these people. But I thought the film, what I, like, it did make sense because I thought it was so clever was that. I feel like, Lily Gladstone and DiCaprio, they have, like, such good chemistry that I did believe that they were in love with each other, at least, you know, very attracted to each other. And then once you're in there, you know, the, the rest kind of unfolds. I don't know. It was, again, just very good storytelling, good characterization to, like, believe that even though it is crazy, it does seem like insane for them to be in this situation.

James: 20:43

I mean, essentially it's Hobson's choice, isn't it? Molly and her sisters in the environment. She, she's got a choice, but the choice is you're gonna marry a white man or basically nothing really. I just think the society that she's in and the situation, I mean like the, the very start of the film we see the elders of the Osage tribe and they kind of lamenting the fact that, they are the last generation essentially who will be like this and that the. Then I can't quite remember it, but they are lamenting that the old ways have gone. And so from the very, the very first scene, this, we're basically being told that there's no choice for them there. They're being pushed. They're being funneled down this particular lifestyle. So the fact that Molly. As unlikely as it may seem to us in our positions, goes through with this marriage. It's essentially she, she, to some degree had no choice in how her life was going to turn out. I think she selected the least bad as she saw it option out of the ones available.

Lily: 21:36

But I think, actually, I think the fact that that point about there being very little choice and actually it being, you need to have a guardian so it makes sense to marry someone, I don't think that was made clear enough in the film. Like, that was actually, I kind of missed that part of it.

James: 21:52

It's one of those things where we're either going to complain because it wasn't clear enough, or we'll complain that we're being patronised and it was spelt out too much. It's, it's,

Lily: 21:59

No, I didn't. No, James, there isn't. I'm sorry. No,

James: 22:02

Oh, oh

Lily: 22:02

I did. Like, I disagree. I think, uh, like I, it wasn't just about spelling it out. It's about exploring that because to me, that is what is interesting before. I mean, okay, like, fine. It's the whole story is, of course, interesting in a horrible way that, like, systematic killing of these people but that dynamic, I just want to explore that more. That's like, pretty pretty central to the whole thing. It's not, it's not just about like, saying this is what it is. That is like, those relationships. And the fact that they actually, I believe, found like, genuine love in that. And that's, that is what's fascinating, right, because that's often the way that love isn't that simple. It's not simply a matter of, we're just two blank slates and we've come together. It's that there are these political things, there are family dynamics to be brought in, to be kept in mind. There's always an economic factor, why should, why, why it's advantageous or not to get together. These things always come into play and that's, to me, very interesting. And it would have been nice to have actually got a bit more of that,

James: 23:02

I was slightly struggling to keep track of how it all worked, let's say, um, with the Guardians and all that kind of stuff, but I also, just as we're talking about it now, really, this is a bit, but I am starting to settle on the fact that it is more just the point of view this film was told. Bye. And it's essentially to immerse you in a story in a world. I think they do work best when you do get a point of view that you kind of scratch rigid with. Whereas if you start spinning out to tell other stories, you're ever so slightly diluting the point of view. And I do wonder if we had discussions, for example, if we had discussions of um, what a guardian is and how it works. Would those characters have those discussions in that world, or is it just assumed everyone knows what that is, and so that would be almost like a, um, a nod to the fact that we're having to spell things out for a modern audience, rather than trying to immerse you in a world as the characters might perceive it, at that time.

Lily: 23:53

Ernest is new to this place, he's never been there before, so at some point someone's gonna have to explain to him, so it wouldn't have been, like, unfeasible

James: 24:01

A huge jump,

Lily: 24:02

for him to, you know, it doesn't even necessarily need to be a conversation, but just, Something, some scene about that, you know, it like it, that would have made sense because he's new and I get it, it's a classic trope and films, right? Is that there is someone arriving and it's at a new place and we go with them to find out. So, so Ernest could have been that for us. It wouldn't have been, we don't need to spin off. He is a man living in the, in this Osage town. Yeah. We could have gone with him to more of those, like, he's, he is immersed in that, and yet we're not there with him, we're just there chatting with King, with De Niro's character most of the time, and I'm like, yeah, I get it, I get he's an arsehole, I get he's a manipulative, controlling, uh, puppeteer behind everything that's going on in this town, but don't get me wrong, Robert De Niro plays that character incredibly well, and he's so horrible and creepy and sinister and it's done so, so well.

James: 25:02

teeth into a really good dramatic role. It's classic Rob De Niro, I would

Lily: 25:06

Yeah, I have another question for you. Did you find it funny?

James: 25:11

Um, not particularly, I don't think. I mean, maybe I was just a bit numbed out after hours of sitting in the cinema. Why, did you find it funny? Was it funny?

Lily: 25:22

Well, I feel like there were many moments that were played for laughs, which I found difficult, really. There were some choice words at certain points which I think were meant to be paid for laughs. In fact, people in the cinema laughed at a moment which I was kind of shocked by. But the friend who I saw it with was like There wasn't, there weren't funny moments. He He didn't agree at all. And so I was just curious and God, maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like with Scorsese, there's always moments of comedy in most of his films that like, it's always just as life is, I think. But it's just often that that comedy is, it's a bad guy. Making the jokes or, it's, there's always a sinister, it's like black comedy. There's, there's comedy in it, but I think it's meant to signpost to us. That they're a bad guy. But you, but maybe not.

James: 26:18

maybe I was a bit numbed out, but I wasn't particularly picking up a lot of comedy, but,

Lily: 26:22

Not a lot, just the

James: 26:23

but just, just some bits, I mean, it's a bit like, it's a bit

Lily: 26:26

maybe I'm a monster.

James: 26:27

And no, no, no, like with Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer has some funny moments in it. Even though, when you're saying that to people, isn't that a film about the development of the nuclear bomb? Well, yes, of course it is, but just like in life, even going through your darkest moments, there's probably moments where you have a joke, even though it's still relatively grim and dark. And I just think, with big films, regardless, you do need to pepper them with just slight moments of levity. Otherwise, three and a half minutes of just pure, sadness and grimness is a bit much.

Lily: 26:56

yeah.

James: 26:57

I wasn't crying out for it being overly explained. I got the gist. Let's say I got the gist of the setup was that we're, we're infiltrating the Osage my thing was, I understand why they did it. I was just hoping the FBI might, it might become a bit more of a procedural detective story, but then that would be another perspective shift. You know, they're telling about the point of view of the story. The FBI are just seen as another thing that come into the community. We experienced them very much from the perspective of, Ernest and, King. They're much more in the background and part of me was like, Oh God, after two hours, I wouldn't mind it not kicking up a notch and becoming some like cat and mouse game, We know who did it and it's like, we'd like to see them hot on the trail. But, um, I guess that would have muddied the storytelling.

Lily: 27:40

It's such a relief when the FBI finally turn up because there have been various investigators, being brought in at, at points during it and it, they're always coming to a sticky end and nothing ever coming of it and you're at this point of despair about, oh my god, is this ever going to stop? And so it's a huge relief to see them, but because at this point we're, what, like, two and a half hours in? Maybe even three? Like, they are very much at the end of the

James: 28:07

It's, I think it's, I think it's two hours before they first make their presentation. I

Lily: 28:10

Oh, okay. It felt to me like right at the end of the film, and, and so you're relieved to see them, but also like, okay, come on, let's just get, get, get going with this, get going. So, yeah, but I, but that was interesting. I would have liked to have seen more of that. I think in an ideal world, here's what we'd need. Okay, we need three films. We'll start with DiCaprio's story, but cut it down and it just be about just as the film is really about him and, and De Niro's relationship and him manipulating him and the murders that they carry out together. And then we cut there and then we take it to Lily. We have a new film with Lily Gladstone. I keep calling her Lily. I'm so, so self involved. Molly. We, then we take it to Molly's life and we, and I would love to have seen her perhaps from a younger age, more of her with her sisters, and then a bit more of her meeting Ernest and then falling in love. And then. The murders and then we'll have a third film and that be all about the FBI investigation and then what happens in there And we could split it could be the the FBI but then also Ernest and Lily's Relationship during this just split it out because they're actually the yeah I'm I was really uncomfortable with the perspective of the film for sure but It was a valuable story in itself. If you take away all of the other, problematic stuff around it, it was like, watchable. But they're trying to do too much because, yeah, tagging on the FBI at the end, it's a fascinating story in and of itself. It's just too much to try and squeeze in, clearly. And they failed even in three and a half hours, so.

James: 29:49

Cause you know, originally the, the part FBI investigator was meant to be the Leonardo DiCaprio role for Close the Flower Moon.

Lily: 29:56

Right, I, I knew that he, I saw a quote where he'd said something about how he was like, I should be earnest, let's just go for it, it'll be crazy, people won't expect it. And I mean, it's a bit confusing because he's meant to be coming back from war and you would imagine a man coming back from war would probably be like max 25 and he's obviously much older than that. So there is, there is a bit of, I had to kind of put aside that. illogical casting element because he's perfect in the role. He's great. So it's like I can forgive him that it's fine, but

James: 30:28

but it's interesting because definitely 10 years ago, the FBI role is Leonardo DiCaprio's classic character. It's been about 10 years in development, this film, and I think the first six years they were developing it, I think, were with the intention of DiCaprio being the FBI investigator, so a vast majority of the time was spent, and it was only the last four years, I think, kind of, about the time it went into, before the pandemic hit, so maybe it was when they launched, When the first attempt at making it got shut down, perhaps that's when they had the rethink, but then, so that's a huge shift in, in perspective, you know, we're talking about perspective of the storytelling that, that think of, we would have got the kind of FBI procedural film if Leonardo DiCaprio had have been that central, uh, had been the FBI investigator, There's no way they're going to wait two and a bit hours to get Leo on screen, are they?

Lily: 31:19

Really Interesting

James: 31:22

they wouldn't do a version of Killers of the Flower Moon where Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't play Ernest and Ernest is so central to the film. They wouldn't have that played by somebody else and then have Leonardo DiCaprio come in for the last hour or so as the FBI

Lily: 31:33

It just means then that he slightly misrepresented things. DiCaprio in that interview I listened to, because I'll put it in the show notes cause he said, oh we, we optioned the book. We wanted to be more central in the Osage community. The film, the book is very much on the FBI. We wanted to take a different tack. You think that they had an initial script that was more in keeping with the book?

James: 31:52

That's my reading of it. I mean, again, maybe I'm misreading it as well. So somewhere between our two respective bits of research is the truth, but my understanding was there was a kind of quite a way down the line film script written that had the FBI investigator and they re scripted it over the years to, or maybe they didn't get to the scripting phase, but there was a lot of time spent believing it was going to be the FBI's story.

Lily: 32:15

I wonder if there was feedback of. the problematic element of focusing on the FBI story and not the Osage community.

James: 32:24

I think it's the classic case of in the process of making the story of developing the story, it changed. And this is a very, quite a good modern example of when in the process of developing something, you change tack quite dramatically. I mean, I know that Scorsese consulted with the Osage and like, he's got the elders have kind of signed off and approved that the way that they are represented on screen. I think the process of getting the film made made them change tack, which is a good thing, I think.

Lily: 32:49

I mean, it is controversial. There's been quite a lot of backlash from native people

James: 32:54

because I've been reading the conversation about how, it should be told by, you know, this story needs to be told really by somebody from the Osage or from an indigenous kind of background. And that makes complete sense. But also there is something else by having a story. told by, one of the greatest living directors that you aren't, you may not get the perfect representation. It may not be as authentic as an honest as if we had somebody from that community making the film, but what you are getting, you are getting a story told if imperfectly by a master filmmaker and there's only one Scorsese in, in the world. Regardless of which community of filmmakers he comes from. So you're getting a unique opportunity to have this story told by a preeminent filmmaker. But you are by doing that also not going to get the most authentic or the most respectful treatment of the subject matter.

Lily: 33:44

I think it's just the issue of oppressed communities being the victims of violence that's like so prolific in filmmaking and it's just, I get that and I thought it was a compelling story, heartbreaking story, but I just came away feeling a little bit bad for that. And I just I don't really, I don't quite understand why, I, well I understand why, these are interesting stories, it's just a shame that this happens again and again. So, with that in mind, I was doing a bit of research because I have, I've seen very few films. Telling native stories. So I found an article written by a Lakota Mohawk journalist called Kareem Rice and in it she gave some film recommendations, um, of telling stories from different native communities. And interestingly, her first recommendation was Dancers with Wolves. The film directed and starring Kevin Costner, which was a surprise to me. I have to admit, I haven't seen the film, but she, as a Lakota woman herself, she said it was, it depicted the experience of, uh, Lakota people being in contact with white people quite well. so worth a watch. Uh, the other one she mentioned was Smoke Signals directed by Chris Eyre. And this is a comedy. This is the thing I was excited about. This is like a big, A very popular film in the native, amongst native communities, made by and starring all native people and it's just a comedy and like a fun film. so I have to admit, I haven't watched it yet, but it's on my list because thank God that there's at least a few films where it's not just about oppression

James: 35:23

I've not seen this myself, but I know that reservation dogs is a very well regarded comedy, TV series. That's an entirely indigenous creative team, the writers, directors, the cast, I suppose as far as a show made by people from that community sounds pretty good.

Lily: 35:39

That sounds great. And then the other one I want to recommend is one that I have actually seen myself, Call Me Human. Oh, and by the way, I'll, put a link in the show notes to Corinne Rice's article so you guys can have a look if there's any other films you want to see any recommendations. Um, but Call Me Human was a film, um, that I actually saw at the Shetland Film Festival last year, so the film follows an Innu poet called Josephine Bacon. And it's this beautiful film that looks her life but also kind of explores the trauma she experienced from going to a residential school when she was younger. It was an amazing film and it was also followed by a discussion was mostly made up of like local Shetland people, and they drew a lot of parallels between the experience of residential schools in Canada, and their own experience in Shetland of not being allowed to speak. Their local language and being forced to learn English. And these were like older people who were talking about their experience when they were young at school. So it was this amazing conversation that really like showed the parallels, the kind of the pervasiveness of this kind of erasure. It's a beautiful film and I strongly recommend it. And just, I just wanted to, counterbalance Peers of the Flower Moon because I would strongly recommend it. it was a great film. I just felt like, God, that representation of indigenous people is, is so far from where it should be. So, bounce out with a couple of these films and then, and that will help a little bit at least.

James: 37:06

I had a good time, but it's just a long movie. It's an investment of your time going to see it. Part of me does think it's probably going to be best watched at home where you can watch it for an hour, have a little pause and you like, I just think a few breaks would help, but I do understand, there's nothing quite as intense as going to see the cinema,

Lily: 37:23

I just worry if I'd watch at home I would have turned it off or watched a bit, you know, I think I need to be in the cinema to keep me engrossed.

James: 37:30

Yeah, I was thinking about, oh, would I have sat through the Irishman if it was at the cinema? And I probably would have, so yes, yes. I know what you mean. Maybe there's something you need to be at the cinema to just give you that focus.

Lily: 37:39

Just make sure you go to a screening with very few people so you can scoot round to the back and do some stretches and

James: 37:45

Or...

Lily: 37:45

your legs.

James: 37:46

Or, I would recommend if you're going to go see it, go see it somewhere that's got reclining seating. So Dolby Theatre, two thumbs up.

Lily: 37:53

Alright, well. After that, shall we take a trip to the film pharmacy?

James: 37:58

Oh, yes, please.

Lily: 38:01

Okay, so we have Okay, so we have quite a topical entry to the film Pharmacy, uh, which goes something like this. Hi guys, I have a confession. I've never seen a Martin Scorsese film. I'm thinking about seeing Killers of the Flower Moon, but the three and a half hour running time is

James: 38:20

ha,

Lily: 38:21

me off. Should I just bite the bullet, or is there another Scorsese film you'd recommend to get me started?

James: 38:28

I wouldn't recommend Killers of the Flower Moon as your first Scorsese if you've never seen one before. I would, I would want something a bit more typical of his earlier years. I mean, the one that I gravitate towards is going to be Taxi Driver. It's like the classic definitive Scorsese film. It's also a classic American film. It's tight, it's punchy. It's also pretty grim. Um, so it'll get you, get you in the, in the mindset for Approaching Killers of the Flower Moon. But I would say Taxi Driver is Scorsese when he's got the pressure of making a film that a studio has got to put in cinemas and so he's got to keep it a bit. Lean and tight.

Lily: 39:03

That was my second choice. But my all time favorite Scorsese film is definitely Goodfellas. Love that movie. And I just checked and it's two hours and a half, just under. So still horribly long, but slightly more humane. So from that point of view, you're fine. And it's Robert De Niro again.

James: 39:24

slightly more humane. It's about gangsters, but slightly more

Lily: 39:27

Oh, I didn't even think about that part. Yeah,

James: 39:30

about murdering gangsters and drug dealers. Ha

Lily: 39:34

So run time, humane content, not humane, but hey, we can't have it all. Yeah. Okay. So yours, so Scorsese is a blood thirsty man. I think we can conclude that, right? Because yes, it's, it's similarly quite a violent film and it did. There was one moment in the film, which. Going back to the talking about the black comedic elements in his films, there is a scene that really, I won't, I won't spoil it, but it just like, has scarred me for life. I think about it from time to time. I'm just like, oh, traumatized. But, um, I don't know, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, at their finest, and just the kind of breakneck pace of the storytelling, the, it just makes for compulsive viewing. I, I just,

James: 40:17

It, seduces you in. It's makes the life of crime seem quite appealing somehow, you know, because it's, it's it's told in a very seductive, fast paced

Lily: 40:25

yes, but then all of course starts to unravel and you see it for the awfulness that it is, but in this incredibly watchable way. So I think that is a good entry point it's like, that's the tester. If you like that, then you're probably on the whole going to enjoy Scorsese's films. So I, I would, yeah, that, that, but also I think Taxi Driver is a little bit, uh. It's a bit more controlled perhaps. So that's probably, I would probably start with Taxi Driver actually and then move up to Goodfellas.

James: 40:52

Taxi driver, then cheer yourself up a bit by watching Goodfellas.

Lily: 40:57

Yeah, exactly. All right, okay, well on that note, let's wrap up. Thank you guys so much for listening to another episode of Groovy Movies.

James: 41:07

And if you could find your way to leaving as a like or a review, all helps get the podcast out to a new audience.

Lily: 41:13

Okay, so that's it for this week, bye!

James: 41:16

Bye.