Martin Scorsese on making Killers of the Flower Moon and collaborations with Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio
The revered director often makes films with menacing male characters and excessive violence wrapped in themes of power, ambition and treachery, and usually redemption. Killers of the Flower Moon, with De Niro and DiCaprio, is no exception.
Martin Scorsese has made more films with Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio than any other actors. Although they are from different generations and acting styles, he has formed long-running collaborative partnerships with both.
In his new epic film, Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorsese reunites De Niro and DiCaprio on screen for the first time in 30 years in a visually stunning and compelling story about love, betrayal, prejudice, power and greed.
The legendary director began working with De Niro on Mean Streets and Taxi Driver in the 1970s, continued with Raging Bull in the 1980s, and GoodFellas, Cape Fear and Casino in the 1990s. The relationship with DiCaprio began in the 2000s on Gangs of New York, The Aviator and The Departed – for which Scorsese won his only Oscar for best director. Scorsese, 80, tells Review that his association with De Niro goes back to when he was 16, introduced by fellow director Brian De Palma when they were in the formative stages of their careers.
“Somehow through Mean Streets (1973) and Taxi Driver (1976), particularly, we were drawn to the same subject matter, same psychological (and) emotional conflicts in people, in character and in ourselves,” he recalls. “And so, what happened with those films was that a certain trust developed and we found that in the material that we were dealing with, we would often gravitate towards each other.”
With Raging Bull (1980), about boxer Jake LaMotta, Scorsese reveals he initially resisted making it but De Niro persuaded him. “Listen, I really think this is for you,” he remembers De Niro saying. “We could really do something well together”.
Scorsese says: “I resisted that for a number of years, for different reasons. But, in any event, he really is the only one left alive who knows where I come from and who I am.”
That film won De Niro a fourth acting Oscar and earned Scorsese one of nine nominations for best director. De Niro’s standing through the 70s made him a power player with the studio, Scorsese says, and this enabled him to have final cut on Raging Bull. “He was protective of me,” Scorsese adds.
There is a trust between De Niro and Scorsese that is evident on screen in their later films and also The Irishman (2019). They have a commitment to the craft of filmmaking, setting aside any “vanity” and embracing a fearlessness in storytelling. That same faith underscores the relationship with DiCaprio.
It was De Niro who introduced Scorsese to DiCaprio. The two actors were working on This Boy’s Life (1993). De Niro said he was “a good kid” and they should find a film to work on. Scorsese says this is something De Niro rarely does.
“It turned out that Leo liked the movies we made,” Scorsese tells Review. “I worked with Leo on Gangs of New York (2002). I found a similar sensibility that myself and Bob had, and certainly a similar attitude towards fearlessness and trying anything. And, ultimately, a very strong trust with each other and pushing each other to different limits.”
“This is a gift because there is a 30-year difference in our lives and so we were able to push that and develop each other, into The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010) and particularly The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). And then, of course, Killers of the Flower Moon, where we try to take it to its limit. He would try anything and do anything, explore anything.”
Killers of the Flower Moon tells the story of the Osage Nation in present-day Oklahoma, who struck oil in the 1890s, and became tremendously wealthy. Those who could inherit their head rights, including by marriage, would become prosperous beyond their dreams. Exploitation through guardianship could also deliver riches. The discovery of black gold lured grifters and shonks to the town of Fairfax. A dozen murders of Native Americans in the 1920s followed and became known as the Reign of Terror.
The affluent Osage Tribal Council wanted answers. Hired private investigators made little progress. An appeal to the US government led to the dispatch of agents from the newly formed Bureau of Investigation. Eyewitnesses to the murders were paid off, disappeared or killed. Those responsible for the murders would stop at nothing to hide their crimes and protect their self-interest.
The film is based on the best-selling 2017 book by journalist David Grann. But Scorsese explains that he wanted more than a crime procedural. He wanted it to be authentic and worked closely with Geoffrey Standing Bear, the Osage Principal Chief, and immersed himself in their history, culture and tradition.
Scorsese realised the heart of the film was the love story between Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio), a war veteran working with his cattleman uncle, and Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone) of the Osage. He initially had DiCaprio playing investigative agent Tom White but they refocused the script.
“We were really more taken by the Osage culture and meeting all the Osage people in Oklahoma and spending time with them,” Scorsese says. “We found out that Molly and Ernest was really more of a love story. So it was a complete reworking of the story in that way.”
The film showcases an ensemble cast with commanding performances by DiCaprio alongside De Niro as William Hale, the uncle of Burkhart, and Jesse Plemons as White. Gladstone gives a star turn as Kyle. Smaller but critical roles are portrayed by John Lithgow and Brendan Fraser.
The film, which will have a cinematic release before streaming on Apple TV+, slowly unravels to reveal the real story behind the murders. It is both subtle and powerful. It prompts, as almost all his films do, character examination and reckoning with the past. It is, as ever, about humanity and its flaws. Although 3 hours and 26 minutes long, it never flagged and remained absorbing when I viewed it last month. It pays to immerse yourself in the story and allow the master filmmaker to do his work.
Many of Scorsese’s films reflect his Italian-American Catholic upbringing on the lower east side of Manhattan. Stitched together, they can tell the story of America, infused by his experiences, observations and curiosities. As he unspools his career, via Zoom, Scorsese is energetic and talks at a rapid-fire pace.
His more than 40 films and documentaries have an atmospheric intensity about them, often with menacing male characters and excessive violence wrapped in themes of power, ambition and treachery, and usually redemption. This latest film reflects these elements, and Scorsese makes no apology for it.
“The violence is not going to go away,” he rationalises. “You have to know what we are capable of. You have got to see it. I really think so. One doesn’t have to revel in the violence, you know, but that is part of human nature. And to deny that, to push it away, makes it worse.”
There is also a stylistic creativity in Scorsese’s films that include long sweeping camera shots, jump cut editing to give pace or freezing a scene or slowing it down to underscore a key moment, and set to contemporary music. Among the gritty crime and mafia-style films is range and reinvention.
There have been documentaries on Bob Dylan (2019), George Harrison (2011), the Rolling Stones (2008) and Fran Lebowitz (2010). And a diversity of films such as New York, New York (1977), The Color of Money (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1998), The Age of Innocence (1993), Kundun (1997), Hugo (2011) and Silence (2016).
“With each film, I to try find a new way, or an interesting way, of dealing with narrative – telling a story,” Scorsese expounds. “I’ve tried many different things. You don’t necessarily say, ‘I‘m going to go and try something completely abstract.’ You have to find the visual and oral way of how the story should be told through your heart, in a way, how you feel about it.”
Killers of the Flower Moon is a western-style epic drama. It is something Scorsese always wanted to make. He recalls growing up in the 1940s and ‘50s watching classic films of the genre, which were not often faithful to the Native American story. How they were treated, and the power dynamics they experienced, reminded him of Little Italy in New York. It is also about a clash of cultures which, he says, should resonate with audiences.
“Cinema opened to me many different worlds,” he says. “I was always interested in other cultures and the way other people think. I wondered what it would be like to be a colonised person … finding the story of the Osage to represent all the indigenous people in the world … made it, for me, something really special.”
Living in New York, Scorsese says he is outside the mainstream of Hollywood and rarely goes to Los Angeles. He laments the rise of streaming, has been a critic of CGI heavy superhero films and the dominance of franchises. He is pleased that Oppenheimer and Barbie drew large audiences to theatres. And he asks that his newest film should also be a cinematic experience.
“It does offer some hope for a different kind of sentiment to emerge from what’s been happening in the past 20 years because people will go to a theatre again to enjoy the films,” he notes. “And in the case of Killers of the Flower Moon, it should be seen on a big screen.”
“People say, ‘Well, it’s three hours.’ Whatever. Come on. You could sit in front of a TV and watch something for five hours, and I’ve done it. You know, also, there are many people who go to the theatre to see a play that runs three-and-a-half hours. You give that respect; give the cinema respect.”
Turning 81 next month, Scorsese is carefully choosing his next projects. He will continue collaborations with De Niro and DiCaprio, including a biopic of Theodore Roosevelt with DiCaprio as the 26th US president in the works. Killers of the Flower Moon is his 10th film with De Niro and sixth with DiCaprio.
“They work very differently, by the way,” Scorsese tells Review. “With Bob, it’s a little quieter, meaning sometimes less talk, it’s all action. With Leo, we talk a great deal about many different aspects of it, and it’s part of a kind of working through rehearsal. But I’ve been very fortunate with the two of them over the years.”
Killers of the Flower Moon is in cinemas.
