Killers of the Flower Moon: Leaving a Mark
One of the joys of fandom is watching the greats operate at the highest level. Seeing a master of their craft work is something that stays with you for the rest of your life. You tell your kids and grandkids about it and reminisce with friends about it. With the arts, this experience is heightened because the window for greatness isn’t bound by age and/or physical capabilities. So with a great artist, we can experience their greatness for multiple decades. Such is the case with Martin Scorsese. The legendary director is well into his 7th decade directing films and still appears to be operating at the highest level. Which is why a film announcement shuts down the film world and rightfully brings about celebrations of his work. Such was the case with the announcement of his newest film Killers of the Flower Moon.
Our current cultural landscape allows for anything to be a debate. Topics that may seem clear cut or don’t even necessarily warrant a debate, still find themselves the subject of think pieces and heated online arguments. We also rope in the very artists we praise and claim to love. Analyzing past works, unearthing long forgotten quotes and pulling them into the petty discourse that crowds the landscape. Scorsese again, is the perfect example of this.
Constantly being asked about superhero movies, who can tell what stories and movie runtimes, has turned the legendary filmmaker into a meme used to mock the very artform he’s mastered. The latter being the most trivial and pertinent to his newest film, which runs nearly three and a half hours has been the subject of debate. Becoming a larger focal point of the film's release and reception, than Martin Scorsese directing a new film. While this isn’t not meant to be an addition to the debate, acknowledging that one does exist around the film is important, because the length of Killers of the Flower Moon is one of its great assets.
The benefit of any well told, long story is immersion. The longer you live with characters, experiences and emotions, the more effective and impactful they become. It can feel more experiential. As opposed to the more visceral shorter film. Both can be effective, but the strength of the longer film lies in its length. This is the exact beauty of Killers of the Flower Moon. It is long, there is no doubt about that. It also feels long, but that length is purposeful. It allows us to fully understand our characters, their situation and their subsequent emotions. For a film as heavy as this one, that carries as much historical weight and subtext as this one, it’s important to have time to fully feel everything.
It feels wrong to say that there is something that Leonardo DiCaprio can’t do, but his Ernest Burkhart can’t exist as effectively in a shorter film. This is one of the most compelling characters I’ve seen in a film in some time. He’s compelling in the way that the best characters always are, particularly villainess ones. Ernest does some despicable things, truly horrible, especially when taking into account who he’s committing these atrocities against. However, he feels more misguided than nefarious. He’s not smart enough to recognize his actions and that he’s not in control. Lead astray by the simplest and most obvious of desires. Brought to this despicable place by a man who is truly nefarious, William Hale (Robert De Niro).
None of this is to excuse or justify his actions, and the film certainly doesn’t aim to do any of that. It does, however, offer an understanding of how he gets there. Not every person who does something evil is truly evil. The complexity of that statement is found in Ernest Burkhart. How we get to that complexity is through time and an incredible performance by Leonardo DiCaprio. The amount of time we spend with Ernest allows us to understand who he is. How truly simple he is and how easily he can be manipulated. We walk through all the stages of that and see him turn from a regular guy to the man who inflicts all these atrocities. He becomes a cautionary tale. All of this lands like a ton of bricks because of how long we spend with the character. The investment heightens the emotion and the experience. It feels real, and that feeling is paramount to the film.
In speaking of the importance of emotions and experiences, Mollie Burkhart’s is even more important. The trauma inflicted on Mollie speaks volumes on multiple different levels, none more important than its representation of the needless trauma inflicted on the Native people. While some can argue that the representation of this suffering is hard to watch or tiresome, it seems that the further our society moves away from historical truth, the more important these depictions become. What Mollie goes through is gut wrenching, and very hard to watch, its representation reminds us of its reality. For some it may be the only reminder of that. As for its effectiveness, that too lies in the hands of an outstanding performance (this time from Lily Gladstone) and time.
Ernest might be the “lead” character, Mollie is the true protagonist. Both in its main themes and in its plot structure. For the latter, she is the emotional connection. We connect with her and her people and see the film through their experiences. Ernest is doing terrible things but we respond the way we do because we connect emotionally with Mollie. The weight of this experience is quite heavy. Scorsese pulls no punches in depicting Mollie’s horrifying experience, or the larger Osage community.
The brutality of the physical actions, its motivations and the larger thematic subtext it represents is hard to watch. This is in large part because of the amount of time we spend experiencing it with Mollie. We sit in that suffering, mourning and agony, and the longer we do the heavier it all feels. There’s intention behind it, because we are meant to feel this weight. It drives not only the emotions of the film, but the thematic resonance. It’s through the stillness of Lily Gladstone’s gut wrenching performance, and the time spent there, that we can gain a deeper, even more personal, understanding of this experience. It is very powerful.
Powerful is such a great word to describe a film like Killers of the Flower Moon. Alongside other great adjectives, it fits perfectly because the film leaves a mark. It’s the type of film that becomes a reference point in your relationship with the artform. A film like this can change and shape worldviews. While it may sound reductive to say it will open some people’s eyes, it will, as great art can. The fact of our societal situation is that our understanding of history is no longer simple. Much like our relationship with entertainment, everything is up for debate. In which case, everything has its place.
For some, the suffering depicted in this film is too much and provides little benefit. For others it can be the catalyst to change their minds or spark a realization. There is power on what Scorsese does here because there is power in great storytelling. I am in no position to tell a master storyteller how to tell his stories, or for how long. I’m glad he told this one the way he did. We got a three and a half hour work of art from a genius, and it was pitch perfect.
