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It’s the genteel kindness of the white characters in Martin Scorsese’s new film Killers of the Flower Moon that hit me hardest. The ease with which they could both comfort and kill their Osage friends and families. The veneer of love and compassion that masked envy and a disbelief that people they deemed “incompetent” could live better lives than themselves.
The Osage people at the heart of the film persevered against a sustained assault and genocide. They fought to thrive in a world they did not create with rules that were not their own. And yet, they are not at the center of their own story.
Instead, Killers of the Flower Moon is once again told through a white lens, despite concerted efforts by Scorsese and co-screenwriter Eric Roth to incorporate Osage voices. Osage language consultant Christopher Cote, who worked on the film, argued that it would have been better to tell the story through Mollie’s (Lily Gladstone) eyes, but would have needed an Osage director to make that happen. Reservation Dogs star Devery Jacobs recently said that the white characters were portrayed with greater “courtesy and depth” than the Osage characters.