For Martin Scorsese, one highlight of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” his epic adaptation of David Grann’s best-selling true crime tale, is that it pairs for the first time the two actors that define and bookend his career: Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.
“Killers” charts the murderous rampage in 1920s Oklahoma that decimated the Osage Nation tribal members who, because of oil on their reservation, were among the richest people in America. But the indigenous natives could not sell their stake, it could only be inherited.
That saw white men, including DiCaprio’s Ernest Burkhart, marry and murder Osage women to acquire their fortune. The killer conspiracy is led by the benevolent-seeming Oklahoma entrepreneur William King Hale (De Niro). What makes Burkhart so conflicted is that he genuinely loves his Osage heiress Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone).
In a virtual global press conference earlier this week Scorsese, 80, noted, “It was very important for me as soon as I saw the book,” that he answer the question: “How truthful can we be and have truth and dignity as best we can? One way we can deal with that is by getting in touch with the culture of the Osage.
“For me I wanted to play with that (Native American) world in contrast to the white European world. We went out and talked with the Osage. They were naturally cautious. We weren’t going to fall into the trap of the cliche of victims or the ‘drunken Indian,’ yet tell the story as straight as possible.”
That story centers on a truly twisted core, Scorsese explained. “Molly loved Ernest, it’s a love story. So the script shifted that way and Leo decided to play Ernest instead of King.
“What I wanted to capture was the nature of the cancer that creates this easy-going genocide. That’s why we went with the story of Molly and Ernest. For me instead of coming from the outside to find who done it, it’s a story of sin by omission. Silent complicity. That afforded us the possibility to open the picture from inside out.”
It was 50 years ago that with De Niro, as star Scorsese’s “Mean Streets,” announced an original, new filmmaker. The duo would go on to score with, among many, “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “Goodfellas” and “Cape Fear.”
It was De Niro who suggested Scorsese take a look at his teenage costar – DiCaprio! — in “This Boy’s Life.” “It was casual,” the filmmaker recalled. “Although he rarely gives recommendations.”
That eventually led to Scorsese-DiCaprio collaborations, from “Gangs of New York,” “The Aviator” – “That’s where we really clicked,” Scorsese said — “The Departed” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
