Killers of the Flower Moon director Martin Scorsese explains why the movie is different from his other movies. Based on the book of the same name by David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon tells the true story of the Osage Nation murders that took place in Oklahoma during the early 1920s. The Apple TV film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, and Robert De Niro, was met with overwhelmingly positive reviews for its strong performances and its handling of real-life events.
During a recent appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Scorsese reflects on what made Killers of the Flower Moon so compelling to him as a filmmaker and why it’s different from his past works.
According to the director, his latest film explored crime and evil in a way that none of his other films have in the past. Check out Scorsese’s full comment below:
“One of the elements that made it so compelling for me to stay with the project, because we worked on that script for so long, and I think what it was immersing myself in that world. I’ve made films about professional gangsters, we’ve had Cape Fear and that sort of thing, this is different.
“This is sort of quotidian, day-to-day evil, which may be something part of our human nature. I always thought, ‘How much in ourselves are we capable of that given the right wrong circumstances?’ Dehumanizing other people, all of that, without preaching it. But let’s get into the actual characters and see how they manipulate each other.”
Killers Of The Flower Moon’s Evil Explained
Why It’s Different From Scorsese’s Other Movies
Warning! Spoilers ahead for Killers of the Flower Moon.
DiCaprio leads the Killers of the Flower Moon cast as Ernest Burkhart, a relatively unintelligent and easily-manipulated man who falls in love and marries Gladstone’s Molly. Over the course of the film, the Osage murders begin to pile up, and it’s revealed that Ernest is not only involved in some of these crimes, but is also slowly poisoning his wife to inherit her headrights. Ernest is essentially doing the bidding of De Niro’s William Hale, who poses as a philanthropist and community leader while being the architect of the murders.
As Scorsese alludes to, murder and crime are themes that he has explored fairly extensively in his past movies, including the likes of Goodfellas, Casino, Cape Fear, and The Departed, among others. What really separates Killers of the Flower Moon from Scorsese’s other movies, however, are the characters, their depth, and their intersecting relationships. While Ernest is, by most counts, a despicable human being, the movie shows that there is real love between him and Molly. In a way, this makes his crimes even more disturbing to watch, because they feel that much more real.
Hale, on the other hand, is depicted as a purely evil figure. His manipulations are casual and matter-of-fact, and he clearly feels no remorse for the deaths and pain he is responsible for. Killers of the Flower Moon‘s runtime may be the longest of Scorsese’s career, but it’s ultimately in service of approaching violence, crime, and evil in a truly nuanced and complex way that makes the events depicted feel all the more harrowing.
