Almost an hour and a half of queue to enter a cinema? One would not make such a wait to eat at a recommended restaurant, but to see Killers of the Flower Moon, the new film by Martin Scorsese, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro as protagonists, yes.
And if it rains, as it happened at times, too.
Leonardo DiCaprio, arriving at the red carpet of the film. His is the most obnoxious character he has ever played. Photo Reuters
Both the Sala Lumière, where the Gala was held and the three artists mentioned were present, and the Debussy (reserved for the press) were full, with tickets sold out for four days, they were barely put to book online.
DiCaprio, Scorsese and De Niro: At the end, there was a 9-minute standing ovation in the room. Photo Reuters
The story is real, and we will see how it was adapted by the director, who had not set foot in the Sala Lumière since After Hours, in 1985. Although barely shorter than The Irishman, his previous film, the 206 minutes of the adaptation of the book by journalist David Grann do not feel in the body. Scorsese is one of the few Hollywood filmmakers who passed the 70 years (he is already 80) who modernized, who has no ups and downs or films to regret.
In the 1920s, members of the Osage Native community were the richest Americans per capita after they discovered the oil wells beneath their inhospitable lands. Of course white supremacists were not going to agree with this, and a series of horrendous murders and disappearances began to follow.
Tomorrow will be the day DiCaprio and the rest of the team speak to the press. Photo Reuters
The film shows how these deaths remain unsolved, and even how a death is labeled a suicide, when we see that woman shot by a man who then puts the gun in her hand.
In Fairfax, that area of Oklahoma, arrives Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio, hairstyle to the Calculín). When he gets off the train, they are waiting to take him to see his uncle, a kind of landowner, but without oil. Bill Hale (Robert De Niro) asks her to call him as before: King. He's the most despicable guy in the area, one who gives a good thing, but who runs the town, sheriff included, and is behind the deception of at least one Osage family.
There's a scene that De Niro and DiCaprio share that's going to make people talk...
And this is how this newcomer "hero" of the First World War (although he was only a cook) finds a way to progress, and get rich. His uncle soon convinces him that he should marry Mollie (Lili Gladstone), whose wealth being Osage is very high. And, curiously, little by little his sisters and his mother are dying.
The calculation is simple: all the fortune will pass to the Hale family. To Ernest, of course. And if anything were to happen to him, to his Uncle King.
The trio, at the entrance of the Sala Lumière. The film will be released in theaters only in October (the long weekend). AFP Photo
It was not difficult to defraud the Osage, since they were certified as "incompetent" and needed some assigned target to manage their funds. Another form of exploitation is to sign insurance policies, as King does with Henry Roan (William Belleau). And we already intuit what King is going to do.
Violent, but not so violent
All in all, Killers of the Flower Moon is not one of the most violent films of the director of New York Gangs – OK, there is a shattered head from the back of the neck. As true as that the natives whenever they can assure that those who have committed these murders will be charged. Because they know that in the government nobody cares about clarifying the murders. And they're going to have to pay to get someone to investigate.
Leo and Lili Gladstone, his character's wife, a wealthy Osage native.
We said that Scorsese privileged something over other aspects of the novel. It is not so much the investigation of the newly formed FBI, with J. Edgar Hoover at the head (who is only mentioned), or about a white savior (agent Tom White, who makes up Jesse Plemons), nor does it follow the victims, the Osage.
Nope. Scorsese, who always loved the bad, the corrupt, those who can commit acts of violence without moving a hair – more if they do not get their hands dirty, but order them. The director of Taxi Driver chose one point of view – that of the criminals, and not the others. He usually does it in his films about gangsters, why shouldn't he do it with those of DiCaprio and De Niro?
Two old friends, Scorsese and De Niro, worked together on "Taxi Driver" and "Casino," among others. Photo Reuters
DiCaprio has the most disgusting role he's ever chosen in his career, and none of this has anything to do with frowning most of the footage. He must make decisions that run him from the moral, and as in Once upon a time... in Hollywood, where Tarantino made him cry on camera, he must be vulnerable here. Weak, but if you will, ruthless.
But what is a luxury is watching De Niro, how King tricks DiCaprio's Ernest with his viper tongue. They are two different types of performances, which Scorsese knows how to handle with a firm hand.
And there is a scene, that of the chas chás from De Niro to Dicaprio that will surely be talked about a lot when it is released in theaters (and on AppleTV+, later), starting in October.
Ernest starts out looking naïve, but DiCaprio's character screws up...
And so much is the difference between what Scorsese focuses on De Niro and DiCaprio, that both Jesse Plemons and the recovered Brendan Fraser (although it seems to come out of the filming of The Whale) can hardly do anything with their roles.
And the Osage? Well, thank you, they are something like extras at someone else's party, even if the director chooses to open and close the film with the native community.
De Niro is the one who handles the reins in Fairfax, the small town where his nephew (DiCaprio) arrives.
Mexican cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, who has been Scorsese's eye in his latest films, shines in every choice of colors, and there is particularly a scene that dazzles. Bathed in gold, actually a yellow raging by fire, in which there is a burning field, with the figures of peasants choppy.
Perhaps too extensive, Killers of the Flower Moon is a spectacle to watch on a big screen. We will remember it in October.
See also
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