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2023 Oscars Best Picture Review: Killers Of The Flower Moon

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment
Lily Gladstone (L to R), Robert de Niro and Leonardo di Caprio star in Killers Of The Flower Moon, a true crime drama that’s also an ugly part of history.

Killers Of The Flower Moon is a film of a crime story we often forget. It’s one we need to be reminded of, especially because of the times we live in.

Let’s face it. American Fiction may show how bad the entertainment industry is at dealing with entertainment featuring African Americans. How easily we forget Hollywood has also had a terrible history in it’s depictions of Native Americans. I’m sure those “Cowboys And Indians” movies come to mind, and boy did they age badly! The depictions of Native Americans have been better over the years, but imperfect. Sure, we have Dances With Wolves, but stereotypes are still present in a lot of entertainment or Indigenous actors lack presence and proper depiction in films.

As bad as the depiction of Native Americans are in Hollywood films, it’s nothing compared to the treatment of Native Americans in its centuries of history. We’ve all learned the history. The influx of settlers and the ruling colonialists throwing them off their land, the various “Indian Wars,” the reservations created, their own Residential School system, it’s a sorry history. Sure makes those games of “cowboys and indians” you used to play an embarrassing memory, doesn’t it? Here, we have an incident that has gone forgotten over the years: The Osage Murders that happened almost a full century ago.

We see the story. The indigenous are forced off their land into anywhere. The Osage were one such people lucky to find their own wealth through natural resources. Soon, the Indigenous of Osage were wealthier than the white people. However court orders white guardians to guard their wealth. One man enters the community and plays an elder to get the wealth. His nephew even falls in love with an Osage woman he’s the driver of and eventually marries her. Then the crime happens,. Many Osage in the town are killed, including three of the women’s sisters. Even the nephew is prompted to give his wife insulin poisoned with heroin and she nearly dies. As she recovers truths are unraveled and soon the elder and his sheepish nephew face the music for what they’ve done.

This story’s presentation of the murders and the crime can be seen through many angles. The thing about the film is that it not only focuses on the murders but it also focuses on the greedy white men, most notably William Hale, who sought to take that very wealth. Over time, crime comes to the town of Fairfax, Oklahoma with murders coming with the greed. Sounds like your common mob story, but that’s what it became. A story of a white mob killing the Indigenous people for their riches. As much as this is about rich Indigenous people being killed in the name of greed, it also comes across as an unnoticed “Indian War.” You’ve heard the history. Hundreds of Indian wars between white settlers and the Indigenous peoples. The war ends with many of the Indigenous killed and they’re forced off their land. In this story’s case, it appears as a war over the riches and who should have control. Once again, white people feeling they should be calling the shots. And in the state of Oklahoma in the 1920’s. The Osage had many signs sensing something would be wrong. From white people showing up in their towns to the alert they received from the 1921 Tulsa race riots to marching in a parade along with the Ku Klux Klan just behind them. A lot of signals. And with these murders happening around the time the FBI was being formed, the film succeeds in making this incident look like the incident that pioneered the FBI to be instituted.

Even with this being a crime story, it’s also a love story of a love that blossomed and died because of this. Ernest Burkhart drives Molly and falls in love with her. The love appears genuine between the two. They marry with Hale’s blessing and form a family. Then tragedy comes with many of Mollie’ sisters and her family dying ugly brutal deaths. Meanwhile Ernest is constantly under Hale’s thumb. He’s constantly torn between the love of Mollie and his loyalty to following Hale’s orders, including his order to give Molly insulin laced with heroin. Mollie would have been the last of her sisters to die, but she survived. Over time, secrets unravel. That last scene between Ernest and Mollie narrowed the story down. What should have been love between the two became betrayal and near-murder.

This is another good achievement from Martin Scorsese. In all of his sixty-five years in film making, Scorsese isn’t afraid to dive into new territory or try new things. This film he directed and co-wrote with Eric Roth is a telling story of the incidents that happened and how it affected a peoples. It shows how a story of a crime committed in the name of greed from almost a full century ago is a case of the systemic racism many Americans believe to be the right thing and insist on having.

There are some Indigenous film critics that feel this story could have been done better if written by an Indigenous writer. I do agree an Indigenous scriptwriter would have done a better job of telling this story from the side of the Indigenous people. Nevertheless, this is a crime story. If you’ve seen Scorsese’s past works, it seems as though Scorsese is the master of crime dramas. He does an excellent job of showing the crime that happened and the greed that fueled it. He also succeeds in showing the Indigenous people in a dignified manner and stays away from the common cliches white writers normally give Indigenous stories. Even the ending as the present-day Osage people are shown celebrating themselves is a big change of pace and worthy of admiration.

The acting of Leonardo Di Caprio as Ernest is good, but this is not his best effort. I’ve seen better acting from him before. Nevertheless he does succeed in making you question the history. Did Ernest truly lover Mollie? Or did he marry her to get her riches at the cost of her life? Ernest did have involvement with murdering her sisters and their families, but did he want to intentionally kill Mollie with her laced insulin? Di Caprio’s acting will make you question. Of all the acting, the standout is the performance of Lily Gladstone. She succeeds in making it look more like Mollie’s the film’s protagonist as Mollie’s the one caught in the middle. Lily does an excellent job of acting without overacting. Her performance really tells a lot of the story of a women going from being in love to going through unimaginable tragedy to almost being a victim herself to herself achieving her own independence. She’s also good at conveying despite braking free, there’s still the hurt of betrayal left behind. Also excellent is Robert de Niro as William Hale. Having worked with Scorsese many times, de Niro does a good job of showcasing Hale as the community “elder” who’s a crime boss when people aren’t looking. That’s something common in mob stories, but de Niro succeeds in making Hale look like exactly that.

Additional good acting performances come from Cara Jade Myers for her performance of the rebellious Anna Kyle, Jesse Plemons as investigator Thomas Bruce White, and Tantoo Cardinal as the grieving and sick mother Lizzie Q. Rodrigo Prieto does a great job with the cinematography. Thelma Schoonmaker does a great job with the editing, but it does leave you questioning whether the film should be 3.5 hours long. The production design is excellent in recreating 1920’s Fairfax. Jacqueline West does a great job in costume design in accurately recreating the Indigenous costumes flawlessly. Finally the score and music composed by the late Robbie Robertson add to the drama of the story and the triumph at the end.

Killers Of The Flower Moon is a great story showing how a crime spree is very reflective of systemic racism. It also does a great job not only recreating the story, but showcasing the people that were in the middle of it, both perpetrators and victims.

Oscars 2015 Best Picture Review: Spotlight

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

Spotlight stars Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton and MArk Ruffalo as journalists ready to settle the score.
Spotlight stars Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo as journalists ready to settle the score.

I’ll admit I saw Spotlight two months ago and I’ve been procrastinating at writing my review. Now that the Oscar nominations are out–actually only an hour ago– this is a better time than ever.

The film begins in the 1970’s of a priest being fired from his job as a teacher at a Catholic elementary school in Boston. Fast forward to 2001. The Boston Globe has a new editor, Marty Baron. He first learns of the investigative Spotlight team of the paper headed by Walter ‘Robby’ Robinson.

Baron gives the Spotlight team a story to chase: a story of a priest sexual abusing children and Cardinal Bernard Law knowing about it and doing nothing about it. It first starts as a pursuit on a single priest who was continuously moved around from school to school. Over time it they would uncover that there were many priests who also committed acts of sexual abuse on school children and they were all covered up by the Archdiocese.

This is one story they had to get to the bottom of. However they’re limited in terms of resources. Plus they need permission to access sealed documents and have a trial or even an inquiry happen and they doubt they can get it from a Catholic judge. They talk with a head of a victims rights group who himself was abused, they talk to other abuse victims, they talk to a lawyer who’s handling the cases of some of the victims and they even find through an ex-priest who tried to rehabilitate pedophile priests that there could be as 90 sex offenders in the clergy. Further research uncovers additional priests moved about upon their actions being revealed and being listed as ‘relocated’ or ‘resigned.’

In September 2001 it appears the Spotlight team is finally ready to release the story. Then 9/11 happens which makes every other news story in the world take a backseat and cause even a further delay of the story being printed. However the wait works for the better as one of the Spotlight reporters, Michael Rezendes, uncovers proof through publicly available documents that Law knew all about the abuse going on and ignored it. Then a major victory. The judge grants them the right to look into sealed documents. Just as they are about to print the story, Robinson confesses he published a list of pedophile priests in 1993 but he never followed up on it. As the story is published, it creates history.

I’m sure that some people would be nervous about this film and declare it ‘anti-Catholic.’ In fact if I were a conservative conspiracy theorist, I would say Spotlight is a film released by an anti-Catholic director who wonders where all the Catholic hate from liberals went once Pope Francis came to power and wants Spotlight to bring it back. But I’m not a conspiracy theorist nor am I a conservative pundit. In fact the film has received positive feedback from Vatican Radio and even the current Cardinal of Boston praised it in showing how the Archdiocese had to confront its wrong.

I will say that I’ve seen bigger even more savage attacks on the Catholic Church in films in the past, especially from Martin Scorsese. In fact I remember watching 2002’s The Magdalene Sisters where the nuns were depicted as total monsters. I feel films nowadays are less anti-Catholic than that of 20 years ago or even 40 years ago. In fact one thing I give the film credit for is that it looks at all sides. It may portray Cardinal Law as a conniver but it wasn’t hard on depiction of the priests. In fact one scene that stuck out to me was when one of the alleged priests was interviewed. He not only appeared confused in how he didn’t know what sexual abuse was but admitted that he was raped as a boy. That not only shocked me but left me wondering how many of the abusive priests were themselves sexually abused as a boy?

On a personal note, I will admit that when I first saw the film, I left the theatre asking myself “Jon, why did you return to the Catholic Church?” It was a dilemma for days but it did solve itself over time. In fact shortly after, I wrote on my Facebook page: “I gave the Catholic Church a second chance in 2003 and it better not blow it this time.” I will never excuse a priest for sexually abusing any child. I believe they should be brought to justice. In fact, Pope Benedict clarified the issue when he said: “Forgiveness is not a replacement for justice.” I know you can’t take back the past however you can improve the future. The Catholic Church has not become blind to the issue of sexual abuse. In fact I learned from one man who tried to enter into education for the priesthood he had to get a criminal record check, an HIV test and a psychiatric assessment. I’m happy that the Catholic Church is taking the best preventative measures to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

In fact off topic from the film, I will admit that sexual abuse and the various Diocese’s and Archdiocese’s bad handling of it is a problem but I will also say that it’s a problem that goes far beyond the Catholic Church. It’s a problem that exists in other churches as well, it exists within certain families, it exists within school and it even exists within children’s sports programs. In fact this decade’s biggest sexual-abuse-and-cover-up story came not from a Catholic institution but from coach Jerry Sandusky and the cover up from Penn State university. Makes you wonder why the priesthood gets a lot of defamation from the sexual abuse of those while children’s sports coaches don’t get the same defamation. A sex offender is a sex offender no matter what their profession or even if it’s not to do with a profession at all.  Same thing with Universities, especially since it’s only come to light that colleges have a known rape problem but they’re doing next to nothing about it.

Back to the film, I think the biggest thing the film was focusing on was the bad marriage of church and state. Separation of church and state is enforced in the American constitution but it’s not to say it does find its way mixed into politics one way or the other. In fact I don’t think Spotlight attacks the Catholic Church as a whole but actually attack the Archdiocese of Boston. The film presents how the Archdiocese of Boston has such a huge influence over the city. We’re talking about a city with a huge percentage of Catholics and with a history of the Catholic Church giving, providing and influencing the city. No wonder a city like Boston would have such high regard for the Archdiocese. No wonder most Bostonians would look at priests as father figures. No wonder also would that present the biggest difficulty in terms of getting the ugly truth out, especially with people having a high regard for the Church in power and with a Cardinal sweet-talking those determined to get the truth.

The theme of sexual abuse may be very prevalent in the film but I think the biggest focal point of the film was to show a group of reporters uncovering a scandalous story and bringing it to print. One thing is the film doesn’t make like the Spotlight team are the blemish-free good guys of the film. It’s made known near the beginning of the film that this information was given to them five years earlier. They themselves made a big mistake of their own by delaying the story. Sure, they did a whole whack of effort to finally bring it to press in 2002 but they could have done it sooner. I think that was the whole thing of Spotlight is that it was a movie disinterested in making the image of a hero out of anybody. Besides we already hear of the mistakes of having an image of somebody is a bad thing as one abuse victim admitted he looked at priests to be like God. I’m sure millions more have had that deluded image of the priest being like God in their head. However it also shows how easily people can be feel a sense of betrayal by a Church when such atrocities occur. You can’t really blame them for being that disheartened.

I give top credit to director/writer Tom McCarthy and his co-writer Josh Singer for directing a complex film that’s like a bunch of pieces of a puzzle that had to be put together. This is a story that’s set in the Spotlight room of the Boston Globe and set in various other places throughout and they had to both show all the different parts of the story and make them come together from time to time. They did a good job of making this complex story come together without straying off into unimportant territory. Also they did a very good job of writing a story of sexual abuse that was watchable. I’ve seen other films of sexual abuse that were more explicit like 1992’s The Boys Of St. Vincent. Mind you it was a 90’s thing to do explicit entertainment because envelope-pushing was all the rage back then because 1; you could never put enough nails in the coffin of the Hays Code and 2; because back then softening of scenes or leaving such things out was considered a form of ‘denial’ in art. Anyways these are not the 90’s anymore and watchability is values more. I’m sure if they showed scenes of abuse in the film, it would make it somewhat unwatchable for many. I feel they made a good choice of limiting the topic of abuse to conversations of victims with the journalists. Especially since the top point of the film is how they brought the story to press. Besides I don’t consider compromising elements in a film for the sake of making it more watchable to be a filmmaking weakness. It’s not the 90’s anymore and Tom McCarthy’s not among the likes of Lars Von Trier.

As for acting, there were a lot of great individual performances most notably from Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams but none of them owned the film. In fact another top quality of the film is that it’s a combined effort from all the actors to play parts that don’t steal the show and add to the story telling by making it look like a unified effort. Even acting of the smaller roles that that of the abuse victims were excellent and added to the story. Overall this not simply a film that’s well-crafted. This is a film that does capture your intrigue. It’s a combined accomplishment from McCarthy, Singer and the actors.

Spotlight isn’t strictly about the incident. It’s about getting the story to the presses and the battles the Boston Globe had to go through to break the silence and finally get the word out. Keeps you interested from start to finish.