Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival
CANNES, France—Wealth and those who covet it has always been a subject of fascination for Martin Scorsese, whether he’s making films about gangsters (Goodfellas, Casino) or adapting Edith Wharton (The Age of Innocence). And that fascination is once again on display in his remarkable new film, Killers of the Flower Moon, which just premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Adapting the book from David Grann about the series of murders that plagued the Osage nation in the 1920s, Scorsese has made a towering movie about America’s sins and the greedy men who perpetrate them.
It’s anchored by performances from Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert de Niro that both rank among their best, but the soul of the movie belongs to Lily Gladstone, who broke out in 2016’s Certain Women. Yes, Killers of the Flower Moon is about stupid and selfish white men whose egos and love of money drive them to heinous crimes. And yet Gladstone, a Native actress, consistently centers the story to remind the audience whose voices have been erased from history. She gives life to both her character’s pain and her spirit.
Scorsese and co-screenwriter Eric Roth have kept the large scope of Grann’s reporting, but shifted the focus. Whereas Grann used his narrative to tell not just the story of the Osage people but the emergence of the modern day FBI, which ends up bringing the perpetrators to justice, the filmmakers allow us to watch the acts unfold knowing exactly who is behind them. One of the villains in question is Ernest Burkhardt, played by DiCaprio, a World War I veteran with a teenage boy’s naivete.