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]
".... 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.
