Jade Bahr

However I will watch the movie again friday with my parents 🤩🍿 Can't believe my dad said yes to such a long movie. But he's a western fan especially critical/historical western so KOTFM will probably his new favorite Leo movie 😄

Leonardo DiCaprio is 2023's Most Promising New Character Actor At 48, the King of the World has found a compelling new lane playing men knocked around by life. Leonardo DiCaprio became a phenomenon in 1997 screaming, "I'm the king of the world." That oft-mocked line from Titanic followed DiCaprio throughout much of his subsequent career. Sure, when Jack (via James Cameron) coined that phrase, he was just a carefree youngster marveling at the good luck that landed him on the ship of dreams. But in the years to come, DiCaprio would play many men who actually do achieve something like king-of-the-world status, even if it’s a prelude to their (usually) catastrophic downfalls. Things have changed, though. Recently—and especially in Killers of the Flower Moon, DiCaprio’s sixth collaboration with Martin Scorsese—he’s moved away from these kinds of roles. And, frankly, it's an exciting time. Leo is doing some of the finest work of his career playing fools and schmucks, the kind of guys no one would ever mistake for being genuinely awesome. The age of Leo-as-loser started in earnest with his work in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. Following his biggest professional success to date—a Best Actor Oscar win for 2015’s The Revenant—DiCaprio took a four-year break, then re-emerged to tell a story about failure. DiCaprio’s character Rick Dalton worries that he’s a has-been, but he’s really an almost-was. Sure, he was the star of a Western TV series called Bounty Law for five years, but he’s more defined by the parts he didn’t get—like the lead in The Great Escape, which he lost to Steve McQueen. Dalton keeps telling himself he's "Rick fuckin' Dalton," but he lives with rejection hanging over his head. In what’s arguably the best scene in the movie, he berates himself in his dressing room after repeatedly blowing his lines on the set of the TV show where he's playing a villain-of-the-week. The tantrum is pitiful. He calls himself a "fucking miserable drunk," and bemoans the "eight goddamn fucking whiskey sours" he had the night before. It's a man at his absolute lowest who knows he's a piece of shit. The moment also felt like a turn for DiCaprio. His characters have reached low points before, typically from hubris, but they’ve never been quite so aware of their failures. The promise of returning to their former glory always sustained them. Rick Dalton's glory was always minor. Even the last act– in which Dalton, now a spaghetti-Western star, returns home to Los Angeles, and dispatches the Manson family before being invited up to Sharon Tate's house—offers an uncertain picture of Rick's triumph. Maybe he goes on to get cast in a Polanski movie, and maybe that night is as good as his life will ever get. Before his solemn turn in The Revenant, DiCaprio had been on a run of playing doomed titans. In 2013, he starred in both The Great Gatsby and The Wolf of Wall Street, respectively playing literary icon Jay Gatsby and disgraced stockbroker Jordan Belfort. Gatsby and Belfort are, if nothing else, smooth operators, and DiCaprio tackles them with a twinkle in his eye. While Gatsby is mysterious and Belfort is a little stinker, DiCaprio leans hard into their charm. Both characters throw the sickest parties ever and lord over them like bacchanalian gods. The biggest criticism of The Wolf of Wall Street was that Scorsese and DiCaprio weren't hard enough on Belfort, that an uncritical eye could still read him, despite it all, as a Dude Who Rocks. Both Gatsby and Belfort obtain their wealth and status through nefarious means, but they’re also cool. And this is a mode in which DiCaprio is extremely comfortable. It's one he deploys in Catch Me If You Can, way back in 2002—the first post-Titanic movie to really test what he could do. There he plays con artist Frank Abagnale Jr., who uses his boyish good looks and gift for sweet-talk to cash forged checks and pose as a doctor or an airline pilot. Time and time again, DiCaprio has played guys who experience monumental highs and even greater lows. The lows were what made the work dramatically stirring, but having been one of the most-desired celebrities who ever lived, he could also channel the feeling of having the world at your feet, only to lose it all. As Howard Hughes in 2004’s The Aviator, his second collaboration with Scorsese, he starts out palling around with movie stars and ends up an emaciated recluse peeing into jars in his screening room. Frank is finally caught, the feds catch up to Belfort, and Gatsby is shot by his pool. And yet at certain points in all of these films, these guys are living out some sort of dream. Ernest Burkhart in Killers of the Flower Moon never does that. From the outset, it's clear he's pretty dumb, and people around him treat him as such. In the very first scene they share, Ernest's uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro), repeats questions to emphasize how slow on the uptake Ernest is. This is a grim movie about the systematic genocide of the Osage people, but there’s a pitch-black humor to the way Hale and his lackeys berate Ernest throughout the film. The character has all the greed and ambition of a Gatsby or a Belfort, but none of the savvy, and DiCaprio, with his mouth near-permanently downturned, leans into Ernest’s confusion and his worthlessness. He plays the fool extremely well, and it's to the movie's benefit—for this story to work, you have to believe that Ernest is dim enough to convince himself he still loves his wife Mollie (Lily Gladstone) even as he orchestrates the murder of her family members. In turn, Mollie seems to love him because of his naivete. Ernest and Rick feel like echoes of one another. They’re both trying to emulate others they perceive as successes; they’re both their own worst enemies. (In between these movies, DiCaprio played an astronomer in Adam McKay's Don't Look Up, channeling his earnest passion for the environment into a self-deprecating performance as a nerd who everyone ignores.) In both parts, you can see DiCaprio wrestling with the limits of being Leonardo DiCaprio. For years, no matter how hard he tried to subvert it in his work, DiCaprio was defined by his beauty—as tragic as they are, Gatsby and Belfort are still desirable. Now, at 48– past the point where he can play with a Super Soaker in public without looking goofy—he’s embracing the character actor he’s clearly always longed to be, exploring what it feels like to get older and feel unwanted, allowing himself to be a punching bag, fully debasing himself and his image to the needs of the film he’s in. It's utterly captivating. In ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ Is Leonardo DiCaprio Playing a Dumb Hick, a Pitiless Sociopath…or a Muddle? A movie’s central character needn’t be someone we admire, but he should probably be someone we’re drawn to, someone we vibe with in sympathetic fascination, who we feel we know and understand even as he crosses over to the dark side. Few movies have lived out that dynamic more cathartically than the underworld dramas of Martin Scorsese. “Mean Streets,” the tale of low-rung Little Italy mobsters that Scorsese made 50 years ago (I think it’s still his greatest film), is about Harvey Keitel’s ladder-climbing numbers runner, but the most explosive character is Robert De Niro’s Johnny Boy, a self-destructive firecracker who doesn’t “give two shits about you, or nobody else,” a quality that would make him repellent if he weren’t so hypnotic. In “Taxi Driver,” De Niro’s Travis Bickle is a loner who can’t connect, but he connects with the audience in every frame. “GoodFellas” inserts us into the hungry soul of Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill, who craves being a gangster so much that he, along with the audience, spends the entire movie discovering how brutal the stakes are. De Niro’s “Ace” Rothstein in “Casino” is a Vegas power player whose broken marriage to Sharon Stone’s Ginger leaves us desolate, gutted, on the rocks. And in “The Irishman,” De Niro’s Frank Sheeran is a Mob soldier who is given the staggering order to execute Jimmy Hoffa, the man to whom he’s been a loyal bodyguard for years. But then there’s Ernest Burkhart, the lunkish hick Leonardo DiCaprio plays in Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Ernest, a veteran of World War I, shows up at the door of his uncle, William King Hale (Robert De Niro), saying that he loves money. He’s soon involved in all sorts of dirty business: stealing, arranging the murders of innocents, keeping his downcast grimace of a mouth shut in order to cover up a vast criminal conspiracy. Ernest’s actions, in their way, are Mob-like, yet Ernest isn’t presented as a violent man. He’s closer to a moral-idiot manchild who will do whatever his boss uncle tells him to do, because that’s the limits of his thinking. Beneath his terrible actions, though, who is Ernest Burkhart? As we watch “Killers of the Flower Moon,” what is it in him we’re being asked to identify with? What’s his desire, his journey, his relationship to the darkness? I’ve seen the film twice, and I’m still trying to suss that one out. DiCaprio, an actor of skillful precision, makes Ernest, on the surface, a genial yokel who lacks the imagination to think for himself. Early on, De Niro’s King Hale asks Ernest if he likes “red” (i.e., Native American women), and Ernest says sure, he likes all women. King wants to set Ernest up with Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), one of several sisters in the Osage Nation who are sitting on the headrights of powerful oil-rich land. Ernest is a step ahead of him; he’s been chauffeuring Lily around and flirting with her. So when the two get married, is it part of an unconscionable scheme? Or do they really love each other? The movie says both, but that’s a tricky one to wrap your head around, especially when Ernest starts participating, with the nonchalance of a handyman, in the brutal murder of Mollie’s sisters. The rationale — or, rather, the explanation — for all the homicide, apart from the naked greed that motivates it, is that the men committing the murders are racists. They don’t regard the Osage as full human beings; thus they can kill them as if they were swatting flies. Organized racial murder has often conformed to this pattern (think of the Holocaust), but Ernest, the hayseed who’s just following orders, has a shifting, eccentric relationship to the crimes chronicled in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” The film presents him as rock-stupid…except for the moments when he’s wily and street-smart. (It takes the Bureau of Investigation agent Tom White, played by Jesse Plemons, quite a while to crack Ernest open.) The film presents him as a money-grubbing varmint…except that he’s also a devoted husband who cherishes his family. Great movie characters, of course, can be rippled with contradiction; that’s what makes their stories rich and ambiguous. Just think of Scorsese’s Mob dramas, the “Godfather” films or “The Sopranos,” where ruthless killers are devoted to their families. But in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Ernest feels less like a character of dark or even tragic impulses than like a man who, in any given scene, is what the film needs him to be. When he’s asked to do the ultimate dark deed — to add poison to the insulin shots his wife is taking — he carries out the task with such methodical thoughtlessness that instead of the heart of darkness opening up before us, we may feel like we’re seeing the heart of darkness closed off. Our connection to Ernest as a character should be deepening, but instead we’re on the outside looking in. Can a man slow-kill the wife he loves, without a shrug, all because he’s a dunce yokel following orders? “Killers of the Flower Moon” has been hailed by many critics as a masterpiece, but I would say it’s a divisive movie. I wouldn’t call it love-it-or-hate-it. More like love-it vs. it’s-too-long-and-is-somehow-missing-something.” “Killers” isn’t the first Scorsese movie adapted from a work of nonfiction (“GoodFellas” was too, and “Raging Bull” was a brutal biopic). But it’s the first one to feel less like a drama than like an extended act of journalism. This happened, then this happened, and then this happened. Yet for a film rooted in the density of history, there’s a disorienting lack of background to much of what takes place in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” As presented, the rural Oklahoma community it’s set in is a vicious snakepit, up to its neck in the murder and exploitation of the Osage; it’s as if we’re watching a toxic local industry. That’s all real, but how did it get that way? In “GoodFellas” and “Casino,” Scorsese anatomized how the Mob worked. Here, we watch the movie with essential questions nagging at us — like how the guardian system operates (the Osage don’t control their money, except that some of them kind of do) or how William Hale brought this scheme of organized murder into being. How Hale himself, a public friend and benefactor of the Osage, evolved into a genocidal terrorist is never even addressed — his terse heartlessness is presented as a fait accompli. (That’s why De Niro’s very good performance of jaunty evil never spooks you; it lacks a layer.) And Ernest Burkhart’s compliance in the scheme is presented with the same quality of rote objectivity. It’s as if they’ve all been doing this their whole lives. Everything “Killers of the Flower Moon” shows us really happened, of course. The film is scrupulously true to the terrible facts of the Osage murders. Yet the answer to the “Why?” of how the Reign of Terror happened — that these men were heartless racists — is an accurate answer that still doesn’t always feel like a dramatically full answer. As we watch Mollie waste away, Lily Gladstone acts with a sorrowful bewilderment that haunts us, but the fact is that “Killers of the Flower Moon” is a movie that asks us to spend three-and-a-half hours in the shoes of her affectless deceptive scoundrel of a husband, who by the end we may feel we understand less than we did at the beginning. If the movie seems too long to you, maybe that’s because it’s like sharing space with a ghost.

At least it's doing better overseas. My local cinema is still showing it in their biggest hall. Maybe I get my parents to watch it again with me tomorrow. Desperate times need desperate moves. ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Only Makes $9 Million in its Second Weekend It's a real bummer to hear that Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” had a 61% dip this weekend, only grossing $9 million domestically. Its cumulative global intake now stands at around $88 million — on a $200 million budget (not counting marketing costs). It’s doing better business overseas where DiCaprio and Scorsese are big draws. Regardless, I don’t think Apple cares that much about these disappointing numbers (the company makes an average of $1 billion in profits every day). They greenlit ‘Killers’ for prestige and awards, but having a major star like DiCaprio in your film, not to mention great reviews, and barely making a dent at the box-office can only mean something went horribly wrong here.

She's the devil so... lol They're obviously still in their horny phase 😄

I started the Britney book. It's fine but not great. It's honest though.

One of my favorite Mel Gibson movies. Great cast and a great study about kidnapping (despite from the very bloody Hollywood ending).

^Never speak bad about Keanu Reeves (more in particular wish him dead) or Karma knocks you off your own feet right away. Too soon? 😇 Matthew Perry apologised to Keanu Reeves – but something still seems left unsaid

Shredded by Freddy. Oh boy. But it's a beloved horror franchise just like Scream, Halloween and Friday The 13th 🎃 Box Office: ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ Heads for Monstrous $78M-Plus Opening (...) Martin Scorsese‘s adult-skewing Killers of the Flower Moon, now in its second weekend, is looking at a third-place finish behind Freddy’s and Eras Tour with an estimated $10 million (a 57 percent drop). Apple Original Films produced and financed the $200 million film, with Paramount handling distribution duties. The movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro, is counting on being a slow burn as Oscar season unfolds. Source

Sad 💔

Elizabeth Turner back in Leos circle. Or maybe she never left. I remember how popular she was at bellazon back then and how outraged most of the users were in light of the Leo dating rumors. It was actually kinda hilarious

Well to be fair Calvin was killed in the middle of his evilness. He never really got the chance nor time to regret anything. If devils survive they mostly regret their bad doings at some point just like King Louis in TMITIM another anti human character of Leo.

Leo DuckCaprio back in LA

I disagree. They are both terrible human beings no doubt but at least Candie never made a secret of his evilness while Ernest hided his true face behind a mask of pretended love and careness (well at least in the movie). The proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing. When he reveals his true face it's already too late. The worst of all enemies in my book.

For those who wondered after the movie... like me. In short: Ernest also fucked up the life of his living children. What a surprise. What Happened To Mollie & Ernest’s Children After Killers Of The Flower Moon Killers of the Flower Moon is based on a true story, which means the story continues through Mollie and Ernst’s kids after the movie has finished. "Killers of the Flower Moon" tells the true story of the Osage murders while focusing on the Burkharts and their legacy. James "Cowboy" Burkhart, son of Ernest and Mollie Burkhart, grew up, married, and had children after the events of the movie. Elizabeth Burkhart, the daughter of Ernest and Mollie, remained in Osage and later moved to Fairfax, but little is known about her fate. Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon tells the true story of a series of murders in the Osage Nation of Oklahoma during the 1920s, specifically through the lens of Ernest and Mollie Burkhart, and although the movie ends in one particular way, the story actually continues in real life through the Burkharts' children. Killers of the Flower Moon is famed director Martin Scorsese's most recent release. It is based on the 2017 book of the same name, written by David Grann, and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemmons, and Robert De Niro. While Killers of the Flower Moon focuses heavily on the Burkharts' roles in the Osage murders, the movie acknowledges the family they built over time. During the span of the film, Ernest and Mollie fall in love and have three children together. Though not much is seen of these children, they definitely impact Ernest's actions throughout the film. For example, when one of their children dies of whooping cough, Ernest is moved to testify in court. Ultimately, though Killers of the Flower Moon eventually ends, the legacy of the Burkharts and their story continues on through what happened to Mollie Burkhart and her children, James 'Cowboy' Burkhart and Elizabeth Burkhart. What Happened To James 'Cowboy' Burkhart After Killers Of The Flower Moon Ernest and Mollie Burkhart's son James Burkhart grew up and started a family after the end of Killers of the Flower Moon. According to an article by The Washington Post, James, who went by the nickname "Cowboy," married and had two daughters, Doris and Margie. Although James was a loving father and a kind man, he had a quick temper that could make him erratic and violent. Of her father, Margie said, "He was a complicated man." James was also a long-time alcoholic. Often, he would drink to such excess that his young daughters would have to drive home from the bar, one working the pedals and the other steering. Ultimately, James' vices and shortcomings came as a result of what his family faced when he was a child. At just 9 years old, James' father Ernest went to prison for conspiring to kill members of the Osage nation in order to steal their oil. This was not just a traumatizing betrayal, but led to James and his family being ostracized by the Osage. The Burkharts were never the same after Ernest's sentencing, and this led to James' predilection for alcohol and fighting. According to Margie, James could never quite forgive his father for what he did. What Happened To Elizabeth Burkhart After Killers Of The Flower Moon Unlike her brother James, not much is known about the fate of Elizabeth Burkhart. James' daughter Margie mentions Elizabeth in The Washington Post, referring to her as aunt Liz, but nothing else is explored about the Burkharts' daughter. It seems that Elizabeth remained in Osage, Oklahoma after the events of Killers of the Flower Moon, and later, moved to a town called Fairfax in 1940. She also married a man named Claude Henry Shafer. It is unclear whether Elizabeth had children, and her date of death in unconfirmed. However, it can be assumed that, like James, Elizabeth was deeply impacted by the events of Killers of the Flower Moon.

So KOTFM will be Leos first financial "debacle" (lol) in... 13 years? At least it was very profitable for Leo LOL Apple’s $44 Million Open For ‘Killers Of The Flower Moon’ May Not Matter You may have missed it this past weekend, but a little art film hit theaters, telling a little-known but painfully true story about white people being horrible to indigenous people, again. It was hailed as a hit after hauling in $23.2 million domestically over the weekend, and $44 million worldwide. That's a solid opening for a limited-release film grappling with a challenging subject, especially given the problems theaters are facing since the pandemic. It's even heart-warming to think how an up-and-coming director has connected with the movie-going public through his complex, deeply crafted work illuminating an important story. Except, of course, that Killers of the Flower Moon is anything but a little art film, and its 80-year-old director Martin Scorsese is no up-and-coming auteur. He’s made some of the last half century’s most celebrated movies, from Taxi Driver to Raging Bull, Goodfellas to Casino, The Departed to Wolf of Wall Street. So it was a success, right? Well, not really, at least under the standard calculus of Hollywood theatrical releases. In fact, if Killers had come from a traditional Hollywood studio, like almost all of Scorsese’s previous projects (Netflix distributed his last epic, The Irishman), and had an opening weekend like this one, it would almost certainly be regarded as a financial debacle. Studio executives likely would blame the poor economic climate, the industry’s strikes and post-pandemic hangover, or some other gremlin (when in doubt, blame marketing), as they prepared to write off a nine-figure sum, and likely the company’s entire quarter. That’s because Killers cost a widely reported $200 million to produce, 10 times the budget of even a relatively well-funded arthouse film. And marketing from Apple and Paramount PARA -1.8%, which Apple is paying to distribute the film in theaters, likely will top another $100 million, given its wide release in more than 3,600 U.S. theaters. Killers will be challenged to have a profitable run in theaters. There’s that expansive length, 3 hours and 26 minutes, which makes it difficult for theaters to run more than one showing in an evening, instead of two or more with a shorter project. And the day-to-day dropoff in box office isn’t promising either. From Friday to Saturday, domestic grosses dropped 13%, and from Saturday to Sunday, it fell another 30%. So much for positive word of mouth on social media. There’s even the distribution fee Apple is paying Paramount, which eats further into Apple’s share of box office. It’s true that the film was warmly received by those who did see it. By the calculations of BoxOfficeMojo, Killers had the 42nd-best opening weekend of all time among R-rated films, and the 53rd-best such weekend of any October release. Rotten Tomatoes’ survey of critics gave it a 92% “fresh” rating; the audience scores were nearly as good, at 85% from more than 1,000 people. It’s absolutely Apple’s biggest awards contender in this strike-addled Oscar season. Scorsese personally has 14 previous Oscar nominations. Though he, puzzlingly, won only one of those previous nominations, on The Departed, his films have attracted plenty of other awards and nominations too, and will almost certainly get a houseful of nominations again this time. And that matters for Apple’s obvious quality-over-quantity strategy, relying on awards and critical praise to communicate value for TV+. More awards equal more subscribers, especially for a company that’s always made its mass-market products premium experiences with premium prices. But it's hard to see the box office haul for Killers as an achievement. Apple and Paramount gave Killers the 50th-widest release of any R-rated film ever, on 3,618 screens, according to BoxOfficeMojo. Basically, if people wanted to see Killers, it was available on a nearby screen. That wide release translated to a per-screen average, that other measure of art-film success, of $5,216. In art-film terms, that’s kinda meh. But ask an industry analyst what all this means for Apple, as I did Tuesday at a conference on streaming video advertising on the Warner Bros. Discovery lot in Burbank, Calif., and they scoff about whether it means anything at all. One analyst shared in conversation that Killers’ nice but hardly huge opening weekend isn’t a loss for Apple until it says so. And if ever Apple decides something like Killers is actually an issue, traditional Hollywood media companies better look out. As the analyst noted, Apple reported $111.4 billion in free cash flow last year, has a market capitalization of $2.7 trillion, and is one of the world’s most valuable companies. Selling literal boatloads of iPhones (232 million last year) gives the company some considerable leeway when side hobbies like a streaming service hit a speed bump. It’s just harder to figure out what Apple is doing with TV+. It’s not like CEO Tim Cook was in the room Tuesday with other media company CEOs in restarted negotiations with the striking actors of SAG-AFTRA. TV+ just matters a lot less to Apple than, say, Disney+ does to Disney’s stumbling fortunes (and Disney CEO Bob Iger was in on the strike negotiations). True, Apple TV+, has had some undeniable successes, like Ted Lasso’s two Outstanding Comedy Emmys, and CODA’s Best Picture Oscar. Series such as The Morning Show, Severance, For All Mankind, Foundation, Silo and Shrinking have gotten critical and pop-cultural notice. The service’s library, however, remains painfully thin, despite four years of notoriously heavy spending on originals and acquisitions. That library looks particularly underfed compared to competing services from Hollywood media companies that have been making movies and TV shows for a century. Even fellow tech giant Amazon buffed up Prime Video, spending $8.5 billion on MGM and its vast library of film and TV. Apple has generally declined to lay out a business case for Apple TV+, other than make it part of the Apple One bundle of services that it sells. Apple One also includes, at its beefiest, the iCloud backup service, Apple Music, the Apple Arcade game service, Apple News+, and Fitness+ as well as TV+. The “premier” tier provides all six services for up to six people, for $32.95 per month (Apple just raised prices on Apple One, TV+ and Arcade on Wednesday). Apple has used the streaming service as part of its long-running strategy to expand its Services division, which includes all the Apple One services plus profitable ventures such as its Apple Care warranties. The company won’t report its latest quarterly results until Nov. 2, but in August, Apple reported Q2 Services revenues of $21.2 billion, thanks to more than 1 billion subscriptions of all kinds. Again, that’s for just the quarter. For perspective, those quarterly revenues equal nearly as much as the entire market capitalization for Warner Bros. Discovery ($24.6 billion). So when we try to evaluate whether a grim, 3.5-hour historical drama from an acknowledged master is a “flop,” it’s important to remember one thing: as long as people keep subscribing to TV+ and Apple One, maybe encouraged because Killers wins an Oscar or two, who cares? It. Just. Doesn’t. Matter. At least until Apple decides it does matter. Then, as that analyst warned me, Hollywood better look out.

If someone wants to see him brooding and horny and naked netflix is the right place for you:

Better than I thought. Just watched it for Leandro Limas pretty naked ass. And he's naked a lot LOL Because damn he's freakin hot

What Indigenous Artists Are Saying About Killers of the Flower Moon‘ Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, based on David Grann’s 2007 book of the same name, tells the true story of the Osage Nation and the crimes committed against their people in 1920s Oklahoma. Scorsese’s goal in telling the story was to refocus the narrative on the Osage themselves, rather than the early days of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Despite having an endorsement from Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear of the Osage Nation, the film, in its second week of release and trailing closely behind Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, is beginning to widen into a bigger and deeper conversation about, as Chief Standing Bear calls it, “challenging history.” Devery Jacobs, who starred in Hulu’s acclaimed Reservation Dogs, critiqued the film, calling it “painful, grueling, unrelenting and unnecessarily graphic.” Jacobs, who is a Native actress from Canada and activist, shared “strong feelings” in a Twitter thread on October 23. “I don’t feel that these very real people were shown honor or dignity in the horrific portrayal of their deaths,” she wrote. “Contrarily, I believe that by showing more murdered Native women on screen, it normalizes the violence committed against us and further dehumanizes our people.” “Indig ppl exist beyond our grief, trauma & atrocities,” she said. “Our pride for being Native, our languages, cultures, joy & love are way more interesting & humanizing than showing the horrors white men inflicted on us.” In a statement from October 20, Chief Standing Bear said the atrocities laid bare the truth. “Killers of the Flower Moon is an Osage story of trust and betrayal as directed by Martin Scorsese,” Standing Bear in a statement. “While watching, you need to know that this is a true story. Many Osage lives were lost, and whole family trees were forever altered. The film lays bare the truth and injustices done to us, while challenging history not to be repeated. We honor our ancestors who endured this time by continuing to survive and ensuring our future, guided by our Wahzhazhe culture and traditions.” Gianna Sieke, an Osage Nation princess from 2021 to 2023 who worked on the film, discussed the difficulty of the history portrayed with Today. “It does tell our dark history, but it’s also including things that no one really knows, and it hasn’t been expressed to Osage people and anyone because it’s a dark history,” Sieke said. “People don’t really talk about it that much. And because of that, [the movie] has made a really big impact. Families are learning to cope and understand.” Regarding a scene in which Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone) learns about a family tragedy, Osage Nation Congress member Brandy Lemon, who worked as a liaison between the film and the Osage community, told Today she “still wasn’t ready for it.” “It just hit me in the gut so hard, and every time I watch it, it still does,” she said. Another point of discussion became Scorsese’s choice to make Ernest Burkhart, a white man who committed the film’s central crimes played by Leonardo DiCaprio, the main character. Christopher Cote, an Osage language consultant on the film, told The Hollywood Reporter on October 19 that “Martin Scorsese, not being Osage, I think he did a great job representing our people, but this history is being told almost from the perspective of Ernest Burkhart — they kind of give him this conscience and kind of depict that there’s love,” he said at the film’s Los Angeles premiere. “But when somebody conspires to murder your entire family, that’s not love. That’s not love, that’s just beyond abuse.” “I think in the end, the question that you can be left with is: How long will you be complacent with racism?” Cote said. “How long will you go along with something and not say something, not speak up, how long will you be complacent? I think that’s because this film isn’t made for an Osage audience: It was made for everybody, not Osage. For those that have been disenfranchised, they can relate; but for other countries that have their acts and their history of oppression, this is an opportunity for them to ask themselves this question of morality, and that’s how I feel about this film.” Devery Jacobs Criticizes Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’: The ‘White Perspective’ Was Centered "Being Native, watching this movie was f*cking hellfire," the "Reservation Dogs" actress tweeted. Actress Devery Jacobs is speaking out against Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.” The “Reservation Dogs” star took to Twitter to address the 1920s-set epic that follows the real-life killings of indigenous Osage after oil was found on their land in Oklahoma. Lily Gladstone stars as Mollie Burkhart, who alerted the federal government of a series of murders. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as her husband, who helped a criminal mastermind (Robert De Niro) plan targeted attacks to inherit head rights. “I HAVE THOUGHTS. I HAVE STRONG FEELINGS,” Jacobs tweeted. “This film was painful, grueling, unrelenting, and unnecessarily graphic.” She continued, “Being Native, watching this movie was fucking hellfire. Imagine the worst atrocities committed against yr ancestors, then having to sit thru a movie explicitly filled w/ them, w/ the only respite being 30min long scenes of murderous white guys talking about/planning the killings.” Jacobs wrote, “I don’t feel that these very real people were shown honor or dignity in the horrific portrayal of their deaths. Contrarily, I believe that by showing more murdered Native women on screen, it normalizes the violence committed against us and further dehumanizes our people. I can’t believe it needs to be said, but Indig ppl exist beyond our grief, trauma, & atrocities. Our pride for being Native, our languages, cultures, joy, & love are way more interesting & humanizing than showing the horrors white men inflicted on us.” Jacobs called out Gladstone’s performance, which has garnered the actress Oscar buzz. “It must be noted that Lily Gladstone is a an absolute legend & carried Mollie w/ tremendous grace,” Jacobs wrote. “All the incredible Indigenous actors were the only redeeming factors of this film. Give Lily her goddamn Oscar.” Yet, Jacobs pointed to Osage character being “painfully underwritten” compared to De Niro and DiCaprio’s respective parts. “But while all of the performances were strong, if you look proportionally, each of the Osage characters felt painfully underwritten, while the white men were given way more courtesy and depth,” Jacobs penned. “This is the issue when non-Native directors are given the liberty to tell our stories; they center the white perspective and focus on Native people’s pain.” She continued, “For the Osage communities involved in creating this film; I can imagine how cathartic it is to have these stories and histories finally acknowledged, especially on such a prestigious platform like this film. There was beautiful work done by so many Wazhazhe on this film. But admittedly, I would prefer to see a $200 million movie from an Osage filmmaker telling this history, any day of the week.” “Killers of the Flower Moon” star Gladstone previously told Vulture that the film is “not a white savior story” and instead centers around “the Osage saying, ‘Do something. Here’s money. Come help us.'” She added that “you don’t say no to that offer” to star in a Scorsese film, but there’s a “double-edged sword” when it comes to telling stories of Indigenous people. “You want to have more Natives writing Native stories; you also want the masters to pay attention to what’s going on,” Gladstone said. “American history is not history without Native history. It was clear that I wasn’t just going to be given space to collaborate. I was expected to bring a lot to the table. That’s what being equitable is — not just opening the door. It’s pulling a seat out next to you at the table.” How ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Fails Native Americans Like Me Despite Martin Scorsese’s best efforts, ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ can’t escape its fundamentally white lens. It’s the genteel kindness of the white characters in Martin Scorsese’s new film Killers of the Flower Moon that hit me hardest. The ease with which they could both comfort and kill their Osage friends and families. The veneer of love and compassion that masked envy and a disbelief that people they deemed “incompetent” could live better lives than themselves. The Osage people at the heart of the film persevered against a sustained assault and genocide. They fought to thrive in a world they did not create with rules that were not their own. And yet, they are not at the center of their own story. Instead, Killers of the Flower Moon is once again told through a white lens, despite concerted efforts by Scorsese and co-screenwriter Eric Roth to incorporate Osage voices. Osage language consultant Christopher Cote, who worked on the film, argued that it would have been better to tell the story through Mollie’s (Lily Gladstone) eyes, but would have needed an Osage director to make that happen. Reservation Dogs star Devery Jacobs recently said that the white characters were portrayed with greater “courtesy and depth” than the Osage characters. As a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, I couldn’t agree more. Killers of the Flower Moon presents an unflinching account of greed and apathy fueled by America’s thirst for oil and the progress that came with it in the early 1900s. Americans replaced their horses with cars, and their candles with electricity powered by oil that improved their lives with the conveniences we take for granted today. And it was Osage men, women, and children who paid for Americans’ newfound prosperity. The U.S. government deported the Osage people and other Native Americans from their homelands to Oklahoma in the 19th and early 20th centuries to make room for white settlers moving west. The Osage people had no choice but to give up the world they knew and start new lives. They arrived in Oklahoma as the oil-based economy took shape and negotiated terms that enabled them to sell parcels of land while keeping ownership of the minerals beneath them. The Osage people did not expect to find any oil, let alone end up with the highest per capita wealth in the country. They lived the “American dream” of electric-powered prosperity better than white Americans ever dreamt possible. But white settlers followed the money, devising ruthless schemes to take Osage land and oil for themselves. This is the world that Killers of the Flower Moon presents its viewers. It is a three-and-a-half-hour barrage of senseless killing masterminded by William Hale (Robert De Niro), a white patriarch who embedded himself within the Osage community. Hale called himself “King of the Osage Hills” and a “true friend” of the Osage people as he planned their deaths. Hale persuaded his nephew Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) to woo and marry Mollie Kyle (Gladstone), who came from a wealthy Osage family. More than 60 Osage people, including many members of Mollie’s family, lost their lives to mysterious poisonings or shootings before J. Edgar Hoover’s newly created Bureau of Investigations intervened and brought Hale and others to justice. The devastation of the Osage people was a means to an end, a trade-off the settlers were willing to make. Long before the movie came to screens, it took a white author, David Grann, to give this story the national profile it deserves in his 2017 book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. However, Grann wasn’t the first author to tell the Osage people’s story; Chickasaw author Linda Hogan recounted it in her Pulitzer prize-winning book Mean Spirit in 1990, and 15 years later, Osage author Charles H. Red Corn gave his own people a voice in his book A Pipe for February. Neither of those books caught the attention of Hollywood in the way Grann’s book did. I can only hope the power and success of this film will give Native creators an opportunity to tell their stories to inform, educate, and entertain the wider world. But more than anything, Killers of the Flower Moon gives audiences a false sense of comfort. It is easy to condemn atrocities that took place a century ago and assure ourselves that we are better people today. However, this story and the moral questions it raises are as pressing for us today as they were then. As America and the wider world find new engines to power our lives, replacing oil with lithium, cobalt, and other raw elements, again, it is marginalized people who pay the price for progress. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) “modern-day slaves” scrape the depths of mines to extract the cobalt used in more than 90 percent of the lithium batteries that power our cars. The DRC should be one of the wealthiest countries in the world, a Norway of Africa, but it remains one of the poorest. Similar devastation is found where the quest for nickel, another vital element for electric car batteries, has destroyed villages and landscapes in Indonesia, Brazil, and other countries. The waste byproducts poison the water, kill food sources, and increase the risks of respiratory disorders and cancers for those living nearby. Native Americans are also facing the threats of today’s industrial progress. Earlier this year, the U.S. federal government approved what will be the country’s largest lithium mine. Several Native nations objected to development in Thacker Pass, a nine-square-mile region of northern Nevada that they consider sacred land. It was on that same land that U.S. federal agents killed between 30 and 50 Native men, women, and children in 1865. Members of these tribes sued the federal government to stop this development, arguing that they were not sufficiently consulted. They lost their case in July, and development continues. Killers of the Flower Moon raises painful questions that need urgent answers as we pursue our quest for energy, prosperity, and a sustainable future. No form of energy is truly “clean,” which means that someone will pay an economic, environmental, and social cost for its production. It’s far easier to make trade-offs in the name of progress when those trade-offs are made against people we don’t know in places we don’t see. As these cases show, this means that marginalized people will pay the highest price as others prosper. We can’t right the wrongs of the past—or the present—without putting those directly affected at the heart of decisions made. They must shape the options available, and they must share in the benefits realized, as the Osage people did when they were forced to Oklahoma. However, they must also be protected with transparency and legal accountability to ensure they retain their rightful benefits and that any development is undertaken with their permission on terms acceptable to them. They, and their world, must be respected as highly as the world of the companies that extract resources or the consumers who drive the cars that their land made possible. Achieving this will not be easy, but it is essential. Killers of the Flower Moon Is Not the Story an Osage Would Have Told. You Should Still See It. I’ve never seen a movie immerse itself in a culture like this film did with ours. I’ve always been so proud to be Osage. I’m thankful that I have a father that instilled that identity in me from a young age, as well as a non-Indigenous mother who has always reinforced it. But being Indigenous comes with a heavy load. All too often, it feels that we’re carrying on our ancestors’ Sisyphean task of struggling to become more visible and have our issues heard by non-Indigenous communities. So when I heard years ago that this story I had grown up hearing was being adapted into a feature film and that none other than Martin Scorsese was directing it, I was knocked off my feet. I also had conflicting thoughts. On one hand, this was an opportunity for us to have our history told like never before. On the other, it was being done by an outsider who hadn’t grown up with it like we had. In 2021 those nerves were somewhat quieted. That year, I decided that I wanted to get more involved with my tribe and be given a name. My recent ancestors chose not to follow traditional naming practices (an effect of colonization), so finding my family’s clan has required a ton of work that I’m still undertaking. But because our Wahzhazhe Cultural Center was busy with this film, they were hardly able to handle any other requests for a long time. Knowing that Scorsese and his crew were making use of them and many other resources on the rez began to ease my concerns and gave me hope that we would be properly represented. And represented we were. Before I saw Killers of the Flower Moon, I spoke with Jim Gray, a former chief of the Osage Nation. In our conversation, he told me that he’s never seen a film immerse itself in a culture like this one did with ours. Having now seen it, I have to wholeheartedly agree. Language was taught by our teachers, including Christopher Cote, who gave a wonderful interview after he saw the film at the Los Angeles premiere. The costumes were made by Osage artists. Everything feels authentic to the time period. As far as the story itself goes, I do not think that this is how an Osage would’ve told it. From all I’ve read about Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio initiating a shift in the story’s focus to center the Osage perspective rather than that of Tom White and the then-named Bureau of Investigation, I was hopeful that we would experience this tragedy through Mollie Burkhart (played sensationally by Lily Gladstone), the real-life Osage woman whose family was the target of one of the schemes of William Hale (Robert De Niro). Instead, the filmmakers opted to follow her white husband, convicted murderer Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio). While I am disappointed in this choice, I do think that viewing the plot through the lens of Ernest grants the non-Osage audience the opportunity to gain more knowledge and understanding of the murderous scheme as the movie goes on. Like Christopher said, I think it would take an Osage to make this film from the perspective of an Osage person. The problem is that, as Gladstone has said, no one is giving an Osage filmmaker Scorsese money to tell our story right now. I hope that as more and more Indigenous filmmakers are given opportunities, an Osage will have the chance to adapt Charles H. Red Corn’s novel A Pipe for February. The book tells the story of the Reign of Terror from the perspective of someone that lived through it, and I think it serves as a necessary companion to David Grann’s more journalistic Killers of the Flower Moon. As I was watching the film, I kept wondering how Scorsese would end it. After all, there’s no white savior here. We were not saved by what is now known as the FBI. Our people got through this by relying on one another. Many cases weren’t investigated, much less solved. It’s hard to put an end to a chapter that’s still present. To me, the finale just might be perfect. It elicited every single emotion I’ve ever felt when learning about the Reign of Terror. It made me so angry, so sad, and so disillusioned with our country’s justice system. It also serves as a painful reminder of how stories centered on nonwhite groups are often told. The affected population is all too frequently granted a mere footnote in their own story in favor of making sure the “good guys” are glorified for “saving the day,” regardless of historical accuracy. Additionally, I feel that this scene turns the camera both inward and onto the audience simultaneously. (Slight spoilers ahead.) The all-white cast of what seems to be a radio program delivers this story of depravity not only to an in-studio audience of the same demographic, but also to the (presumably) predominantly white audience in the movie theater. The message from Scorsese? To my mind, it’s that he knows that he and the viewers are and have always been complicit in these atrocities. It’s now up to the audience whether they understand and accept their culpability. There’s been so much made of the run time of this movie, but I wholeheartedly encourage you to see it. It doesn’t fly by per se, but it does maintain a good pace that I never found tedious. There’s a lot to tell here—my ancestors lived through more than a decade of this. A length of three and a half hours is more than justified. Besides, the masterful performances by everyone involved help to keep you locked in. It’s important to me that you, the non-Osage reader of this article, know that this is merely a chapter in Osage history. While the effects of the Reign of Terror still live with us today, we do not live as victims. We are a proud, resilient people and our tribe is a thriving nation. I know that for many of you, this will be your first exposure to our people. I do hope it’s not the last. For any non-Indigenous person seeing this film and encountering this history for the first time, I encourage you to be angry. I think it’s a very healthy emotion to feel when learning about an event like this. This is a depiction of greed, racism, and an attempted extermination of a people, after all. But rather than sitting and wrestling with that anger internally, I hope that you can turn it into a drive to get engaged. Indigenous communities still have many issues that affect us today. I hope you use your anger to help us fight for visibility and for change. Finally, I leave you with this: As the opportunity for Native peoples to have a voice in the entertainment space increases, more stories will come to light. Although some people will be content to plug their ears or bury their heads in the sand, that doesn’t change history. No matter what you want to believe, you cannot understand the formation of the United States as we know it today without first reckoning with and understanding the sins it was formed through.

Some people really don't have problems. Looking for the theaters? Is she for real? She is lucky so many theaters are showing this dead ass long movie at all. Weird move. Thelma Schoonmaker Says Theaters Showing ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ With An Intermission Is A “Violation”

I kinda respect what she achieved but I'm mostly not a fan of how she handeled things like her private/love life, public stunts/image, her crazy stans and criticism (she towards others and then when it backfires).