Cannes Film Festival
“Killers of the Flower Moon”: Scorsese’s western thriller
Robert De Niro (lr), Leonardo DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese at the 76th Cannes International Film Festival. photo
© Scott Garfitt/Invision via AP/dpa
Leonardo DiCaprio plays a fool, Robert De Niro a mastermind. Martin Scorsese’s new film is shocking – especially because the story is based on true facts.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, plus the topics of money and violence: In his new film “Killers of the Flower Moon”, US director Martin Scorsese resorts to tried and tested means. The result is a western thriller with a shocking story based on true facts.
The three-and-a-half-hour Apple production premiered at the Cannes Film Festival over the weekend. “It was a gamble to track down this incredible story that is truly a reckoning with our past,” DiCaprio said in Cannes on Sunday.
“Killers of the Flower Moon” tells the story of the indigenous people of the Osage, who became the victims of a great crime in Oklahoma in the 1920s. Members of her tribe were systematically murdered after large amounts of oil were found on their land. Many white Americans were involved and helped cover up the crimes. “It’s not about who did it, it’s about who didn’t do it,” Scorsese said Sunday. The murders were not investigated for a long time, after all the FBI investigated the matter. The film is based on a non-fiction book by journalist David Grann.
The Supreme Chief of the Osage, Standing Bear, was also in Cannes on Sunday. “My people have suffered greatly,” he said. “The effects are still being felt today.” The film team helped to regain trust.
The film tells of the ruthlessness with which the indigenous people were controlled, robbed and killed. The land assigned to the Osage as a reservation was considered barren. What nobody knew at first: It contained gigantic oil deposits. The residents became immensely rich. This, in turn, did not sit well with some white neighbors.
It centers on DiCaprio as Ernest Burkhart and De Niro as his uncle William Hale. He owns a ranch on the Osage Reservation and has great influence in the region. He pretends to be a great friend of the Osage, but is only after their oil rights. In return, he arranges for his nephew’s sisters-in-law to be murdered, followed by numerous other relatives. Ernest is married to an Osage woman, Mollie (Lily Gladstone), and lets his uncle turn him into an accomplice. The film tells of the greed that drives white men to unspeakable deeds. From racism. But also of a love story, which gives the whole thing more complexity.
De Niro plays a villain who seems absurdly ruthless. Until you remember that it actually happened in one way or another. DiCaprio, on the other hand, plays an impressionable, slightly goofy man who has a much wiser woman at his side. He loves her dearly, but that doesn’t stop him from letting his uncle use him more and more. The dynamic of the two men, despite all the gloom, also has funny moments.
Before “Killers of the Flower Moon” can be seen on Apple TV, it will be released in German cinemas on October 19. It is worth seeing this film on the big screen. The vast landscape of Oklahoma is captured by impressive camera work, plus great costumes and atmospheric blues and country sounds. And Scorsese insisted on appearing in front of the camera himself for a brief moment.
Trailer for the movie