Killers of the Flower Moon -- A Movie Review

 

 

     So do these two pictures look like they're of the same guy to you? I mean, I know the hairstyles are different and one has a mustache and the other doesn't. But really?! 

     Truth be told, the first photo is of Leonardo diCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon, and the other is of Matt Damon in Oppenheimer. So, okay, I don't go to the movies often, and I don't follow Hollywood news about which actor is feuding or sleeping with whom or who is now, will be, or once was married to whom. So I got confused. I actually watched all of Killers of the Flower Moon thinking I was seeing Matt Damon as the male lead and thinking he was doing such a good job. Actually I thought he did a good job in Oppenheimer, too. Which he did, but it was diCaprio who did a good job in Killers of the Flower Moon.

    

     This fall I was so excited about Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon that I could hardly wait for them to come out. 

     Both films are about real people and real events. Oppenheimer, of course, hit the theaters first and I hated it. I'm not a fan of comic-book-superhero-movies. I don't go to see them. I had no idea who Christopher Nolan is, but now I certainly do. Had I known back then, I probably would have understood the 4th of July fireworks and sex and flashback sex not to mention, the chaotic visuals and noise that were suposed to be going on in the scientist's mind. It was a fantasy/adventure story for juvenile males instead of a serious film about one of the two most life-on-Earth-altering developments of World War II.

     I had been waiting for Killers of the Flower Moon since the book came out in 2017. (Read my book review of it here.) But after seeing Oppenheimer, I decided not to see Killers of the Flower Moon in the theater. I would wait until it went to streaming, then if Hollywood screwed it up to the point that I needed to rant and rave and throw things, I could. Without legal ramifications.

     Last week a family member sent me a link to a Rolling Stone (October 18, 2023) article about a 2019 meeting between Scorcese with members of his production team and leaders of the Osage Nation held in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Then I checked to see who the screen writers were. Eric Roth, Martin Scorsese, and David Grann. Yes, David Grann who wrote the book in the first place. And an excellent book it is.

    So when the movie opened Friday, I went to my local theater -- ALONE. Just in case I needed to leave before it was over. 

     It was the 4:25 showing and the theater was fuller than I expected. Mostly older people. They were a noisy group before the film started and I dreaded being in the theater with a bunch of people in party mode for what I considered (and hoped) would be a serious film about a time in our country's history when corrupt people in high places spread terror and death among the Osage people in my native state of Oklahoma. By the end of the movie, the theater was quiet.

     

     Rather than taking on the whole Osage Nation's story of terror and death at the hands of certain rich and powerful white men as Grann's book does, and its focus on the FBI's investigation, Scorsese focused on one family -- Mollie and Ernest Burkhart, her three sisters Anna, Minnie, and Rita, and their mother Lizzie Q. They were full-blood Osage with headrights. The Osage were already rich from leasing their grazing lands, then oil was discovered. The Osage, as a nation, became the wealthiest people in the world.

      Some background to explain Osage headrights, from Osage Nation Lands and Minerals Fact Sheet:  "Because the Osage had purchased their own reservation land, they were exempt from the individual allotments under the Dawes Act. Under the wise leadership of Chief James Bigheart, the Osage insisted on the following unique provisions in their Osage Allotment Act of 1906:

(1) Instead of allotting just 160 acres to each person and selling the rest, as other tribes had been forced to do, the Osage allotted all their reservation land to their people. This gave 657 acres each to the 2,229 registered Osage (Grann 52). 

(2) Reserved Communal Mineral rights:

(a) They “reserved” - held back from allotment - their mineral rights: the right to mine or produce oil and gas, rocks, and minerals from under the ground was not allotted, and so was

never lost.

(b) They retained communal ownership of these reserved mineral rights, so all subsurface

minerals belonged to the entire tribe instead of individuals. Instead of leaving to chance who

might get rich later from oil and gas being found on their particular allotment, all tribespeople share equally in any mineral wealth (Wilson 62).

Each received a “headright” - right to a share of the whole mineral interest (oil) income - which could be passed on from generation to generation."

     The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) continues to be responsible for collection and dispersal of the income from Osage lands. From 1906 to 1978 the BIA allowed non-Osage to inherit headrights and to receive the income that goes along with them. 

     Add to that: "On March 3, 1921, Congress passed a law requiring the Osage to pass a measure of competency proving they could manage their funds responsibly. If they couldn’t, they would be appointed a guardian until a legal age. This immediately opened the door for con artists, unscrupulous businessmen, and corrupt lawyers and bankers to siphon off funds from annual royalties. Several Osage people were swindled out of their individual headrights without knowing the full value of their contracts. Many Whites even married their way into rich Osage families to exert their legal rights as spouses and obtain guardianship that way.
     ".... As with any appointed guardianship, if the ward died before the legal age of competency, the guardian could petition to inherit their estate." [From the National Archives]

     And that, friends and neighbors, was the impetus for the Reign of Terror against the Osage Nation which was the basis for Grann's book and Scorsese's film Killers of the Flower Moon.

     These are the real people on whom Scorsese focused his film:

 

           The sisters Rita, Anna, Mollie, and Minnie               Their mother, Lizzie Q

      Ernest Burkhart              William King Hale             FBI Agent Tom White

Rita and her husband Bill Smith's home after it was blown up.

     The movie starts off with a scene of the rolling grasslands of Osage County. It is still, to this day, beautiful country, where you can see as far as you can look. 

     The film treats Mollie and her family like people, not stereotypes. Lily Gladstone as Mollie and Tanttoo Cardinal are excellent. Leonardo diCaprio portrays Ernest Burkhart with a depth of emotion appropriate to a man who knows the difference between right and wrong. And Robert DeNiro plays William King Hale from Hunt County, Texas, without ever betraying his own personal history as a New Yorker and an ethical man.

Some of the dialog is actually in Osage. Keeping in mind these events happened in the  Roaring 20's when every Osage County town was a boomtown, so the costumes, forms of transportation, and rowdiness are representative of the times.

(Just a couple of side notes: oil doesn't come spouting out of the ground. It may pool or puddle. And if a well is being drilled it may be a blow-out. But a spindly little geyser? No. I guess Hollywood just had to have its kitsch. Just pretend you don't see that. Same with the weird inclusion of a radio play with Scorsese's cameo at the end. A radio play? Well, actually, yes. Grann explains in his book -- the radio play not Scorsese, he's not THAT old -- actually happened. "In 1932, the FBI began working with radio program “The Lucky Strike Hour” to dramatize its cases. One of the first episodes was based on the Osage Nation murders.")

It's a good movie. I definitely recommend it with the caveat that it is a serious movie about real people and real events. A terrible time on our history that we must not allow to happen again.

 

  

                                    

  

     

The Wheels of Justice

 

Artist's rendering of a Protective Order hearing

before Judge Chutkan in Trump’s D.C. case, 

from CNN

     Jay Kuo, in his Status Kuo Substack, reminds me to patience. He explains the steps in the process toward justice. Steps toward justice, the wheels of which I’ve heard many times in my long life, turn slowly. 

     Too many times this process seems not only slow, but like a maze. A maze whose every turn I fear will be a dead end.

     Kuo’s step by step explanations remind me that we are a nation of laws. Laws that our Constitution requires protect all of us, including a criminal defendant. 

     I know that’s not how it always works. I’m old, not devoid of common sense. And I’m certainly not immune to the fear that the rich and powerful among us can and, too often do, get away with all kinds of stuff and the ex-President might, too. 

     I know, I know. In Trump’s case, rich may be much less rich than we’ve been led to believe and powerful may be more about those with actual money and power who support him.

     Kuo reminds me that the slow legal process leading to justice must be meticulous and methodical. He reminds me that the steps being taken in this particular case are and must be “by the book.”

     Because these trials involve an ex-President, they can be seen to be without precedent. Which doesn’t seem right to me, just because an ex-President is the defendant. He should somehow be better than an “ordinary” person? Nonetheless, it is on the bases of precedents, that the judicial system moves. And, it appears that the courts are going to have to rule that the extant precedents do apply to the Trump cases. Those slow wheels. Those slow wheels.

     In that same long life, I’ve lived, I seem not to have learned the lesson of patience. So, Jay, keep reminding me and maybe I’ll live long enough to see justice served. 

             If you would like to read Kuo’s article, go to
         https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/taming-the-online-terrorist

        If you would like to read Kuo’s article, go to https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/taming-the-online-terrorist

 

Plastic? PLASTIC!

 

        From Jokes and Pokes on FB

Plastic! Our polyester clothes, water jugs and jugs of kitty litter. Drinking straws and stir sticks at our favorite coffee shop. Even 'paper' cups are, more often than not, plastic coated. Parchment paper and butcher paper? Yep, plastic coated. Hey, though, Cut-Rite wax paper is NOT. Plastic coated, that is.

In Colorado we pay 10 cents for what they call single-use plastic bags to carry whatever we buy home in. (I know. I ended that sentence with a preposition.) But I do reuse those bags when I clean the kitty box. (I’ve been saving them since before Daddy died, because he knew they’d eventually be outlawed or restricted somehow, so I have a lifetime supply in that little skinny closet at the end of the counter in the kitchen. And what’ll I do after that runs out, well it’ll be cheaper to buy a box of single-use trash-can liners than to pay 10 cents apiece at a store for one.)

I actually like people bringing their own bags. It’s more interesting while you stand in the check-out line, because you can check out other people’s bags. Some of them are pretty or odd, great big or little bitty. Of my bags, my personal favorites are the one from Lucile’s Creole Café in Littleton, CO. It was for carry-out food during the old CoVid days, so it’s a nice big size. Yes, the food was in plastic or aluminum trays with plastic lids. And the smaller bag from Pops convenience store/gas station/diner/motorcycle rider destination in Arcadia, OK. It had a couple of souvenir t-shirts in it. They launder nicely so it’s safe to say, they’re polyester/cotton blend.

I’m getting better about remembering to put my bags back in the car after the stuff is put away. And when I forget them in the car and have to walk back to get them. Well, that’s just extra steps and that’s good for me, right?!

I’m not sure what the solution will be to reduce our dependency on plastics, but I have every faith that someone will solve the problem and someone else will find a cure for at least some of the cancers, and several someone elses will broker lasting peace in the Middle East and in Ukraine and in the U.S. Congress.

photo from Discover Magazine