#9: Killers of the Flower Moon
Release Date: October 20th, 2023
Format: Theater (Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, CA)
Written by: Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
4 Stars
Before I get to my thoughts on the movie, I must say that 2023 is probably going to go down as the 2nd or 3rd greatest year of cinema in my lifetime. 1999 is still tops, but right on its heels are 1994, 2007, and 2023. I think we’ve seen the Marvel and Star Wars universes not collapse per say, but rather saturate and exhaust the public to the point where a couple years ago movies like Parasite and Everything, Everywhere, All at Once were able to stick their knives in and draw some blood. It seems even mainstream movie goers want something visually and thematically diverse from these large, tent pole franchises. Just from teaching high schoolers, I used to hear them discuss Marvel when they would talk about cinema. Now they want to talk Saltburn. It’s been nice to see.
Okay, so Killers of the Flower Moon. It’s beautiful. It’s dark. Its characters are complex and simple and eternal in their motivations. I’m describing many of my favorite Scorsese movies right now as well.
On my second viewing, I’m confident that it’s a masterpiece. It’s nice to reach an age - 40-years-old - where I can appreciate a movie by a director twice my age. At 20-years-old I don’t think this movie would have meant much to me. I would have much rather watched Goodfellas or Casino or, born 20 years later, Wolf of Wall Street.
On my first viewing I wasn’t sure I quite understood the character of Ernest. The DiCaprio performance was fine, but I thought the character was confusing, abandoned in the no man’s land between the earthly, beautiful Mollie and the conniving, heartless Hale. Basically I thought he was too stupid to be a main character. He was at the mercy of whichever way the wind was blowing.
But on second viewing, I think Ernest is supposed to represent the capitulation of humanity to the time and place they exist. Ernest is not especially stupid. He’s not evil. He does love Molly, I think. But he’s also simple. He wants her money - he directly says so in the film - and he’s willing to ignorantly kill her to get it. She’s a native woman. He’s a white man. It’s the 1920s.
Would Ernest do this in the 2020s? No, he wouldn’t. Why wouldn’t he? He’d probably be educated differently. He’d probably be afraid of being caught by investigators. He would be surrounded by a different world where he would capitulate and be complicit to a host of different things. Most of us are Ernest.
Lily Gladstone joins Dominic Sessa and Da’Vine Joy Randolph from The Holdovers as giving one of my favorite performances of the year. She’s radiant in sickness and in health. Her final scene in the movie, where she gives Ernest an opportunity to be truthful with her, is absolutely perfect.
Lastly, I’m convinced that Scorsese is the De Niro whisperer. Not that De Niro doesn’t show up in non-Scorsese movies, but when I see that Scorsese is working with De Niro, I know he’ll get the best out of him. It’s probably because they’ve known each other since they were 16-years-old. De Niro is Robert De Niro, the greatest actor of his generation, in this movie, and since it’s 2024 and Robert De Niro is 80-years-old, I tried to especially appreciate his performance. I don’t know how many more times I’ll be able to watch a new De Niro performance in theaters.
