It needs to be done. Martin Scorsese has achieved the equivalent of the great American novel on screen. At Cannes last year, it was as if he wanted to show all the contenders what cinema was. The audience was left speechless. The other directors breathed a sigh of relief:
Killers of the Flower Moon
was not in competition. The film sits there a bit. We discover the foundations on which the United States was built. They are called murder, lies and greed.
Brief reminder of the facts. Uprooted from their original lands by the government of the time, the Osage tribes were allocated arid lands in Oklahoma which turned out to be saturated with oil. Divine surprise. The Indians are so rich that they don't know what to do with them. They drive in chauffeur-driven cars, play golf, travel in private planes, generally descending into alcoholism. One detail: they benefit from their fortune, but are placed under guardianship. The whites will use a variety of means to rob them, the most reliable being to marry a squaw. The 1920s begin. Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns from the front. His is low. This lover has a rigorous schedule: partying all night and sleeping all day. This program has its limits, even for a boy who did not invent gunpowder. Fortunately, his uncle puts him back on the right path. Hale (Robert De Niro) rules the region. Scruples do not stifle this cattle lord who claims to worship the Osages.
Inheritances change hands
On her advice, the nephew agrees to marry the sweet Mollie, with her long braid and her colorful blankets which serve as shawls (Lily Gladstone, with her look to break hearts, impassive like a heroine in a Greek tragedy). The Indian woman has diabetes. The brave Ernest injects him with insulin mixed with poison. Around them, suspicious deaths follow one another. Inheritances change hands. This bizarre massacre ended up worrying Washington. The FBI, which is in its infancy, dispatches its agents. Their presence is annoying. How can insurance scams, arson, sudden disappearances and explosions continue under these conditions? Morality is requested to leave the premises quickly.
Martin Scorsese looks at his country's original sin. This nation was born in blood and black gold. This deserved a 3:26 fresco; 206 minutes of a broad, macabre, sinuous, magnificent film. History passes by, impenetrable. John Steinbeck is not far away, even if the screenplay adapts a book by David Grann. The project required up-to-the-mark actors.
As a villainous godfather, Robert De Niro is sovereign. Next door, Don Corleone looks like an altar boy. It is Evil in its purest form, a concentrate of corruption and contempt. The power of his interpretation would be overwhelming if he did not have in front of him a Leonardo DiCaprio who has sufficient shoulders to resist him, with the same stubborn air, the same way of raising his lips in a circumflex accent. We are witnessing a passing of the baton live, as rarely happens on film.
Monsters in Stetson
DiCaprio gained weight, gained confidence. His pouting expression expresses villainy and dismay, that of a man trying to save the little soul he has left. These two Stetson monsters existed for good. The mythology is there, with a final sequence where the director appears in the flesh. The past is a devastated plain, a field of flames and desolation. Contraband whiskey flowing freely, brothels overflowing with customers, maroon doctors, crooked sheriffs, this gothic tale is as full as an egg. It's a monument. Scorsese salutes you. The master has nothing more to prove. Nobody makes films like that anymore. No one dares anymore. If cinema is dead,
Killers of the Flower Moon
is the most beautiful announcement.