Leonardo DiCaprio - (Please Read First Post Prior to Posting)

[oxford25]

Jade & Akatosh  

 

Thks for LACMA pix  

[akatosh]

Higher quality pics from Justjared:

https://www.justjared.com/2023/11/05/leonardo-dicaprios-girlfriend-vittoria-ceretti-joined-him-at-lacma-gala-but-they-avoided-photo-ops/

 

[Jade Bahr]

On 11/3/2023 at 7:39 PM, akatosh said:

Yes please. More work for Leo!

 

 

Leonardo DiCaprio Offered A Role in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘The Movie Critic’?

 

I’ve sent a few emails out this morning to try to confirm this latest tidbit of information. I’ll update you if anything comes out of this.

A question mark was needed in that headline given that nothing has been made official and my sources tell me they haven’t heard anything about this Leo rumor.

So, the gist is that Daniel Richtman‘s reporting indicates that Leonardo DiCaprio was offered a role in Quentin Tarantino’s “The Movie Critic.” No word yet on whether he accepted the offer, Richtman says he’ll only know after the strike if it’s a done deal.

It happens that DiCaprio was already rumored to be part of Paul Thomas Anderson’s next film. The scheduling will have to be ideal for him to sneak in both of these films into his itinerary. Hopefully, the actor’s strike ends soon enough and we’ll be getting more concrete official word on this.

DiCaprio seems to only want to star in films directed by elite filmmakers. Do you blame him? He’s at the stage in his career where he can choose whichever project he likes. During the course of his 30-year acting career, he’s worked with Scorsese (6x), Spielberg, Nolan, Tarantino (2x), Eastwood, Cameron, Inarritu, Luhrmann (2x), Allen, Mendes, Scott, and Boyle.

There have been so many casting rumors about Tarantino’s “The Movie Critic” that only more confusion has arisen, the likes of Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, Kurt Russell and Paul Walter Hauser have all been mentioned.

“The Movie Critic” is set to be Tarantino’s 10th and, supposedly, final film. It was set to shoot in Los Angeles in September, but the SAG-AFTRA strike derailed that momentum. Tarantino has said that the script is done, so now it’s really just a game of wait and see.

 

[Jade Bahr]

Also an interesting take.

 

Killers Of The Flower Moon's Big Change Proves Leonardo DiCaprio Should've Played A Different Role

Killers of the Flower Moon made a huge change to the true story. The inaccuracy could've been fixed by casting Leonardo DiCaprio in a different role.

 

• Killers of the Flower Moon received glowing reviews for its visuals, performances, and exploration of important themes, but its historical accuracy has been questioned due to the casting choices.
• Leonardo DiCaprio's age made him a better fit for the role of William King Hale, the villainous mastermind, rather than Ernest Burkhart, the corruptible nephew.
• If DiCaprio had played Hale and a younger actor had played Burkhart, the film could have showcased even more compelling performances and given Martin Scorsese an opportunity to find a new go-to leading man.

 

Martin Scorsese made a huge change to the true story in his latest opus, Killers of the Flower Moon, and that historical inaccuracy could’ve been fixed by casting Leonardo DiCaprio in a different role. Killers of the Flower Moon marked the first time that Scorsese cast both of his go-to leading men – DiCaprio and Robert De Niro – in the same movie. The film chronicles a series of murders that took place in the Osage Nation as greedy white killers attempted to usurp the Native population’s oil fortune. De Niro plays William King Hale, the unscrupulous mastermind of the killing spree, while DiCaprio plays his corruptible nephew Ernest Burkhart.

 

Upon its release, Killers of the Flower Moon received glowing reviews from critics praising its visuals, its cast’s performances, and its exploration of important themes. For the most part, the movie has also been lauded for its historical accuracy. Members of the Osage Nation directly consulted on the film to ensure that its depiction of historical events and cultural details would be accurate. But the movie isn’t 100% accurate, particularly in its casting of the lead roles. Killers of the Flower Moon would’ve been a lot more true-to-life if DiCaprio had played a different role than Burkhart.

 

Leonardo DiCaprio Is Closer To William King Hale's Age Than Ernest Burkhart's

 

At the beginning of Killers of the Flower Moon, Burkhart is welcomed home from his military service by Hale, who invites him into his house and informs him about the wealth accrued by the Native community’s discovery of oil on their land. In real life, Burkhart was only 19 years old when he returned from the war, and he was just 28 when the Osage murders began. Since DiCaprio is 48 years old, he’s much too old to play this part accurately. Meanwhile, De Niro is 80 years old in his portrayal of Hale, who was only 45 years old at the time of the Osage murders.

 

This isn’t the first time that DiCaprio has played a character much younger than himself. He was 39 when he played the title character in Baz Luhrmann’s big-budget adaptation of The Great Gatsby, but in the original F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, Jay Gatsby is 32 years old at the time of his death. DiCaprio’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood character, Rick Dalton, was loosely based on Burt Reynolds. Reynolds was just 33 years old in 1969 when Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is set, but DiCaprio was 45 when he made the movie.

 

Leonardo DiCaprio's Age Proves He Should've Played William King Hale

 

 

Since DiCaprio is just a couple of years older than Hale was at the time of the Osage murders, that role would’ve been a better choice for him than Burkhart. Not only is the role of Hale a more natural fit for DiCaprio than Burkhart; it also would’ve given the actor a chance to take on a villain role, which he rarely gets to play. Hale is the real puppet-master behind the crime spree in Killers of the Flower Moon; Burkhart is more of a protagonist as his uncle manipulates him to do bad things. Burkhart isn’t a hero, but he’s not as much of a villain as Hale.

 

The most villainous roles that DiCaprio has played in the past, like Brandon Darrow in Celebrity, haven’t been all-out bad guys; they still have some semblance of a moral compass. Con artists like Frank Abagnale, Jr. in Catch Me If You Can and Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street (another Scorsese film) are closer to antiheroes than real villains. The only truly reprehensible, inhuman villain that DiCaprio has played is sadistic plantation owner Calvin J. Candie in Quentin Tarantino’s slavery-era spaghetti western Django Unchained. Playing Hale in the Killers of the Flower Moon cast would’ve given DiCaprio another chance to flex his underused villain muscle.

 

Killers Of The Flower Moon Could Have Given Scorsese His DiCaprio Replacement

 

 

Scorsese initially took DiCaprio under his wing as his new go-to leading man when De Niro aged out of being able to play some of the characters whose stories he wanted to tell. DiCaprio played roles that De Niro was too old to play in movies like Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, and Shutter Island. But now that DiCaprio is aging out of roles like Burkhart in Killers of the Flower Moon, it might be time for Scorsese to start looking for a new go-to leading man to replace DiCaprio in roles he can’t play.

 

If DiCaprio had played Hale in Killers of the Flower Moon, then the role of Burkhart would’ve given Scorsese the perfect opportunity to find a younger performer somewhere between the ages of 19 and 28 to replace DiCaprio as his typical lead actor. DiCaprio was 28 when he first worked with Scorsese. An actor in a similar age range, like Timothée Chalamet (who recently worked with Scorsese on a Bleu de Chanel commercial) or Tom Holland, could’ve stepped in to play Burkhart instead. Both Chalamet and Holland are 27, so they’d be the right age to play Burkhart, and it would be interesting to see them directed by Scorsese.

 

Killers Of The Flower Moon Would've Been Better With DiCaprio As The Villain

 

 

As it is, with DiCaprio playing Burkhart and De Niro playing Hale, Killers of the Flower Moon is a terrific movie that’s bound to take home some Oscars. They both bring their A-game to their respective roles and bring the dark master-and-apprentice dynamic of Burkhart and Hale to life. Despite having not worked together since they co-starred in This Boy’s Life and Marvin’s Room in the 1990s, DiCaprio and De Niro’s on-screen chemistry is as strong as ever, effortlessly bouncing off each other in the scenes they share. But Killers of the Flower Moon might have been an even greater movie if DiCaprio had played Hale instead of Burkhart.

 

DiCaprio gave a mesmerizing performance as a chilling villain in Django Unchained and Hale would’ve been an even more captivating character in Killers of the Flower Moon if DiCaprio had brought some of Candie’s menace to the role. Neither DiCaprio nor De Niro is really the star of Killers of the Flower Moon. The heart of the movie is the great Lily Gladstone, who plays Burkhart’s Native American wife Mollie. If DiCaprio played Hale and a younger, less experienced actor played Burkhart, Gladstone would’ve had even more room to shine.

[Jade Bahr]

For those who aren't into criticism here's a praise from tip to toe

 

Why Killers of the Flower Moon Is Leonardo DiCaprio’s Best Movie Yet

And here we thought Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio outdid themselves with The Wolf of Wall Street. Boy, were we wrong.

Hollywood superstar Leonardo DiCaprio has been on the acting scene since the 1980s, starting out with minor roles in television commercials and working his way up to '90s sitcoms, such as Parenthood. It wasn't until 1993 that DiCaprio landed his debut movie role as author Tobias Wolff in This Boy's Life, kickstarting a four-decade-long career worthy of an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and three Golden Globe Awards.

 

Since then, he's taken the entertainment industry by storm. Even if his first-ever Oscar was long overdue and the ripe age of 50 steadily creeps up on him, DiCaprio has repeatedly placed among the world's highest-paid actors. He may be most recognizable in his earlier roles, such as Romeo + Juliet and Titanic, but his latest venture proves to be one of his best — if not the best.

 

Scorsese and DiCaprio Are a Match Made in Filmmaking Heaven

 

After what has blossomed into a long and illustrious career, DiCaprio's most recent role came in Martin Scorsese's Western crime-drama Killers of the Flower Moon, based on the 2017 book of the same name by David Grann. Scorsese co-wrote the screenplay with six-time Academy-Award-nominated screenwriter Eric Roth, who worked on A Star Is Born and Dune. DiCaprio is joined by Robert De Niro, another long-time collaborator of Martin Scorsese, and Lily Gladstone, who lead an ensemble cast comprising Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, and Brendan Fraser.

 

Killers of the Flower Moon marks DiCaprio and Scorsese's sixth collaboration, the most popular of which is The Wolf of Wall Street, co-starring would-be Harley Quinn actress Margot Robbie, another Hollywood megastar. The plot of Scorsese's Western drama centers on the Osage Indian murders, also known as the Oklahoma murders, which occurred between 1918 and 1931. During this time, more than 60 Osage Natives were reportedly killed, and their murders were covered up by wealthy heirs to future fortunes. This was around the same time that the first traces of oil were discovered on tribal land.

 

DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart, a war veteran and member of his uncle William King Hale's crime ring who willingly participated in the Osage Indian murders. Burkhart was arrested twice and charged for the murder of Anna Brown in 1926, but eventually got paroled in 1959 and then pardoned by then-Oklahoman Governor Henry Bellmon. It's certainly a step outside the comfort zone for DiCaprio, who has never played it safe in his career, but likewise has yet to embody a real-life murderer.

 

Ernest Burkhart Is DiCaprio's Best Performance Across Four Decades

 

And it wouldn't be too presumptuous to say that Killers of the Flower Moon is DiCaprio's best work yet, including the critically acclaimed The Great Gatsby, the aforementioned Wolf of Wall Street, and even the Oscar-winning The Revenant. Martin Scorsese executes a vision that accurately and truthfully conveys the gravity of violence inflicted on Indigenous people by white colonial settlers, but DiCaprio at the helm is the secret weapon to hammering home Killers of the Flower Moon's powerful message.

 

It is Robert De Niro's William King Hale, the "King of the Osage Hills," who introduces DiCaprio's Burkhart to "the finest, the wealthiest, and most beautiful people on God’s Earth," as he calls them. Burkhart acts as the audience's senses, so many viewers otherwise unfamiliar with the Osage culture learn through him. When Ernest finds himself entangled in Hale's weaving web of lies, deceit, and brutality, DiCaprio's emotional range truly shines through. For a man like Ernest, hardened by the war and beaten down by life, his only spark of happiness can be found in his blossoming relationship with Mollie Kyle, whom his uncle later orders him to dispose of in a greed-driven quest for ownership of the Osage's oil headright.

 

Torn between the wealth promised to him by his uncle Hale and his undying love for his eventual wife, Ernest makes the toughest choice he's ever made, which DiCaprio conveys beautifully. It's the unsettling fear and confusion that he portrays through Ernest that truly shakes an audience to its core. We've seen such emotion from him before, such as Jordan Belfort's drug relapse and eventual divorce from Naomi in The Wolf of Wall Street. No finer performance has one ever seen than DiCaprio's stellar effort at acting drugged out of his mind.

 

Even Scorsese’s Associates Can’t Stop Gushing Over DiCaprio

 

Speaking to GamesRadar+ on the red carpet of the film's recent premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, Scorsese's friend and trusted editor Thelma Schoonmaker — who worked with Scorsese on his debut feature film, Who's That Knocking at My Door — commented on DiCaprio's performance, saying she knew it was going to be something special:

 

"Leo — I think really this time he's done his best work, given his best performance. Marty called me from the set on take one of him being on the stand — he told me we are just going to run it like that with no cuts to anybody else, except for one to the prosecutor."

 

DiCaprio's powerhouse performance along with Scorsese's unwavering vision has allowed Killers of the Flower Moon to fire on all cylinders and land with the same audience it seeks to expose.

 

This macabre tale of genocidal serial killings might leave a stain on the living legacy of the United States, but Scorsese must have known how relevant it was to tell a story such as this, and more importantly, tell it the right way. Perhaps the most compelling part of DiCaprio's performance is that despite the anguish that Ernest suffers, you still can't feel more sorry for him than the Indians he knowingly sent to their graves. If the conflicted feelings that arise towards his character aren't a telltale sign of another Oscar-worthy performance, nothing is.

[Jade Bahr]

More unused conceptual poster for Titanic. 

 

 

[Jade Bahr]

Still no deal.

 

 

[Jade Bahr]

If this movie just costed half his budget it would be a hit. Just saying. I still wonder where all this money went after watching it twice. Thoughts for those who watched the movie?

 

Killers Of The Flower Moon Achieves Rare Martin Scorsese Milestone At Global Box Office

Martin Scorsese's Killer of the Flower Moon, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, and Robert De Niro, passes an important box office milestone.

 

 

• Killers of the Flower Moon has surpassed $100 million at the box office, joining a select few of Scorsese's films to achieve this milestone.
• The movie, set in 1920s Oklahoma, revolves around the murders of the Osage nation following the discovery of oil on their land.
• Other Scorsese movies that have passed this milestone include Cape Fear, Hugo, Shutter Island, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

 

Killers of the Flower Moon has joined a rare group of Martin Scorsese movies as it passes an important box office milestone. The movie, which is based on the nonfiction book of the same name by David Grann, is set in 1920s Oklahoma and follows the murders of members of the Osage nation after oil is discovered on their land. The cast of the movie includes frequent Scorsese collaborators Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, as well as Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, Brendan Fraser, and John Lithgow.

 

Per Deadline, the Killers of the Flower Moon box office has earned $102.1 million worldwide as of Thursday. This makes it only the ninth of Scorsese's 26 narrative features to pass the $100 million milestone. The previous movies to have done so were 1991's Cape Fear ($182.2 million), 1995's Casino ($110.4 million), 2002's Gangs of New York ($183.1 million), 2004's The Aviator ($208.4 million), 2006's The Departed ($289.7 million), 2010's Shutter Island ($299.5 million), 2011's Hugo ($180 million), and 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street ($389.8 million).

 

How Much Money Can Killers of the Flower Moon Earn? (And Does It Matter?)

 

The Killers of the Flower Moon release has achieved a rare accomplishment among Martin Scorsese movies, but it still has quite a way to go before it earns back its hefty $200 million production budget, let alone publicity costs. This will become increasingly difficult as the holiday season heats up and brings a raft of blockbuster movies that will provide major competition. This includes the impending November 10 release of The Marvels and the combined debut of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Trolls Band Together, and Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving on November 17.

 

It doesn’t seem entirely likely that the movie's total box office will rise as high as any of the comparable titles that passed $100 million. This means Killers probably won’t make more than Hugo's $180 million, let alone $200 million. This is because many of Scorsese’s other $100 million features were bolstered by international box office, which frequently earned significantly more than their domestic grosses. However, Killers of the Flower Moon’s international numbers are merely keeping pace with the domestic numbers, perhaps because of the uniquely American setting. Read the comparative international totals of those titles and Flower Moon below:

 

 

When its current domestic gross is compared with its international difference, 2023's Killers of the Flower Moon pales in comparison to the majority of Scorsese’s previous $100 million titles. However, the fact that it has already earned this much might be all that matters. Killers has been released in theaters before it makes its streaming debut on Apple TV+ at a later date. The large budget will likely be offset if the movie drives subscribers to the platform, especially if it becomes a contender during the 2024 season, making any potential theatrical losses negligible after this milestone achievement.

 

 

 

[akatosh]

Apple originally did not plan a (wide) release in theaters so they did not expect any profit. So everything the movie does at the box office is just a bonus. Additionally I think no promotion from the actors prevented a lot of sucess at the box office.

[Jade Bahr]

It seems people wonder the same. I'm also pretty sure if expensive movies like KOTFM and Napoleon bring no money at all, no oscars (hello Oppenheimer and several other strong contenders this year) and no new subscribers for apple they won't do such movies anymore.

 

‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Box Office: Is Martin Scorsese’s $200 Million Epic a Hit or Flop?

 

“Killers of the Flower Moon,” Apple’s first major theatrical release, has generated $120 million globally after three weekends of release.

 

Is that a good result for a movie backed by a streaming service? A terrible outcome for a glowingly received, $200 million crime epic directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro? Or somewhere in between? Everyone who follows the movie business has a different take, so parsing these ticket sales could take longer than the film’s daunting three-hour-and-26-minute run time.

 

“I don’t see how its current global box office puts it in a position to turn a profit,” says Eric Handler, a senior media and entertainment analyst at Roth Capital Partners. “It will need to drive a lot of new subscribers to Apple TV+.”

 

If a traditional studio released “Killers of the Flower Moon,” it would be branded a flop. And Scorsese’s latest still requires a big turnout to be considered a commercial winner. After a disappointing 61% drop in the film’s sophomore outing, revenues rebounded to decline just 25% in its third frame. It’s a promising sign the audience hasn’t totally dropped off.

 

But the reality is that it’s less cut- and-dried for streamers because these companies have different metrics of success. Apple, for one, isn’t judged by Wall Street based on the money it makes or loses on its films, nor does it place the same emphasis on box office as it does on streaming subscribers. As tech giants like Amazon and Apple warm up to the big screen and release movies in a traditional sense (each company is reportedly planning to invest $1 billion per year on theatrical films), that’s scrambling the idea of what is hit-or-miss at the box office.

 

“I don’t think we’re going to know how this turns out for weeks,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research, referring to Scorsese’s latest. Beyond the box office, Apple is hoping that shiny trophies will validate the price tag for “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Awards season doesn’t kick off in earnest until later in December and early January when Golden Globe and Oscar nominations are announced. “The challenge for the film,” Gross adds, “will be holding up through November and into December.”

 

Amazon faced a similar situation with Ben Affleck’s sports drama “Air,” which grossed $90 million worldwide on a $90 million budget. It didn’t get into the black during its theatrical run, but the film added on-demand rentals and other revenue streams that wouldn’t have been possible by going directly to streaming. However, these triumphs or failures are opaque. Streaming services do not report numbers or financials beyond now reporting box office grosses.

 

“We’ll never know how Apple and the streamers really allocate their production costs and how they tie their subscription income to production,” Gross says. “We don’t know if they’re getting a subscription bump or seeing other benefits.”

 

Any $200 million drama is a bold bet in today’s theatrical landscape, and analysts say a traditional studio would never be able to justify the economics for “Killers of the Flower Moon.” They also point out that a big-budget film that’s geared toward adult crowds and set during a dark period of American history wouldn’t exist at all without Apple footing the bill. Paramount Pictures was originally going to finance the film but brought in Apple to fund the project after production costs kept on rising. Instead of mopping up a sea of red ink, Paramount is walking away with a distribution fee from Apple. This way, they’re making money no matter what “Flower Moon” earns at the box office.

 

Movie theaters, too, are pleased even though ticket sales are lower than anticipated. Sure, the ultra-long run time means that cinemas can’t book as many screenings per day, but it’s not like there’s much else to show during this drab fall season.

 

“‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ is a huge win,” says Chris Randleman, chief revenue officer of the Texas-based Flix Brewhouse chain. “It’s a very long, three-hour-50-minute movie with trailers and ads, so the fact that as many people are seeing it in theaters is great.”

 

Even if its future projects are shorter and more commercial, Apple has made clear it will spare no expense in landing top talent. Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon,” starring Joaquin Phoenix as the French ruler, also cost $200 million and will be released by Sony in November. The company also bought Matthew Vaughn’s spy thriller “Argylle” for $200 million. It will be distributed by Universal in 2024.

 

Apple is one of the deepest-pocketed companies in the world, and its spending habits in the entertainment space are often jokingly called rounding errors. Does it matter to Apple if its theatrical releases aren’t making money?

 

“Apple making a $200 million movie is like you buying a cup of coffee and spilling it,” says Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s film school. “But it’s not making their brand look good if films underperform at the box office.”

 

Some experts argue that anything Apple earns at the box office is pure profit because the company wouldn’t have collected any of that money by going straight to streaming. Galloway disagrees, pointing out that Apple is spending tens of millions of dollars to have Paramount (and Sony and Universal) put — and keep — its movies in theaters. It’ll shell out even more for awards pushes. As a result, the break-even point – which would be $500 million to $600 million for a movie of this size and scope — keeps moving farther and farther away.

 

“If you have flops [like this] at traditional studios, heads get lobbed off. Balance sheets get studied more carefully,” Galloway says. “Apple and Amazon are learning these things.”

 

 

[Jade Bahr]

Strike/negotiations update

 

[akatosh]

Warning for spoilers :

“killers of the Flower Moon” : Q&A with Martin Scorsese and His Staff

Q: How and when did you learn about the story and decide to bring it to the big screen?

Martin Scorsese: I was given David Grann’s book back around 2016. I think we were about to do “The Irishman” around Los Angeles. I was thinking, after reading the book, of doing this first because of the CGI and the youth application process for The Irishman. Leo and I looked at each other, and we realized that, with Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Bob DeNiro… If we wait two years, it would be harder and more expensive to learn [the technology], so we better do it now. In the meantime, Eric [Roth, co-writer] and I were working on the script and I was drawn to it on one level, but the title itself, “Killers of The Flower Moon,” — having come up with “Silence” and the feminine nature of the moon, in the case of “Silence,” in terms of Christianity, the emphasis by the end, of the feminine nature of Jesus — that was interesting. 

Then you just supposed it with “The Killers of the Flower Moon,” that the title seemed to really conjure up images that I sort of slipped back into when I was younger. The western genre was so important to me — all sorts of westerns. When I was growing up, I ended up with “The Wild Bunch” with [director Sam] Peckinpah. but it’s a very different situation now. In any event, I was drawn to that to make a long story short. We tried to get a script from David Grann’s beautifully written book. The idea was of Leo Dicaprio playing [BOI agent] Tom White. As we worked on this over a period of a couple of years, I tried every possible angle to do something that I hadn’t already seen that I would be interested in directing. It just seemed to me that when the Bureau of Investigation comes into the small town of Fairfax or whatever, they try to uncover who did what. I said to Eric, it wasn’t a matter of who, it’s a matter of who didn’t. 

So I wanted it to be everybody’s collective guilt including ours. And ultimately, in meeting with the Osage, that was another big issue. I said right away that I had some experience with indigenous people and a native American reservation out in Pine Ridge back in 1974. It was a traumatic shock and I was too young. I didn’t quite understand it, but I never forgot the poverty, the anger, desperation and sadness of it. It stayed with me for years. Even here, in New York, I think it was the Harlem Tunnel. It used to have a stencil above it that says, “wheels over Indian trails” and as all the cars were going in, that thing stayed up for years until it finally washed away. But I’m getting to the point now. 

All this was on my mind for many, many years and with this, I felt a sense of obligation to what happened in the ’70s. In any event, I began. I said the first thing was that I had to meet the Osage and see what they wanted to do with this, which we did. We went there a number of times, and on one of those times, the people, the grey horse, gave us a very big dinner, like 300 people [were there]. Members of the community got up and spoke. Don’t forget, these are people who are still members of the family that you see in this picture — the Burkharts, the Roans, and so many others. So it’s an extremely sensitive situation. 

I wanted to get it right by them, but I also wanted to get the story right. During that time, a number of people got up and talked about the situation between Ernest and Mollie. Don’t forget, they said it wasn’t just the evil villains that [made up the story] — basically Ernest and Mollie were in love. That struck me saying, well, [Ernest] he’s in love. He’s maybe doing all these [horrible] things and yet she did stay with him until after the trial. Even the FBI guys were there, the investigation guys in David’s book. They said she was still there. She’s in the courtroom, she’s still with him. What is going on? 

What is going on isn’t doing well and how has that played out? Ultimately, we took the script as far as I could, coming from the other angle outside in. Leo and I looked at each other a week later and he said, “Where’s the real heart of the story? The heart of the story is that they love each other.” He said, “I should play the other part of Ernest.” I said, “Yeah, that would break it because we took it as far as I was concerned, took it to its limit from the other angle and it wasn’t good.” It’s just that I wouldn’t have interest in directing that [way]. I like seeing the police procedural, et cetera. I said, “But do you realize what that means? We’re going to go in now, take the middle of the script and rip it inside out.” We decided to stay with the project and rework the entire thing for the next year and a half. That’s what we learned from doing it.

 

Q: How did this differ from any other project that you’ve worked on with Martin?

Thelma Schoonmaker: Well, of course, wonderful richness and getting to understand something about the Osage culture was a great gift and it will be with me for a long time. That is the main difference. But I think the way that Marty wanted to let people absorb the characters so that the scenes are at a different pace, maybe, than some of [his] other films. People have been telling me recently how much they love that we settle in with a scene like the first dinner between Mollie and Ernest. They love that and I think that was one of the big pacing differences in the film. The great challenge of course, was to help figure out how to get the love story interwoven with the rest of the film. And you got tremendous help from Lily [Mollie] and Leo during the shooting.

Martin Scorsese: We actually kept reworking the script with Lily and Leo… And the Osage were working with us — keeping it in order for me because there are so many duplications, repetitions and confusions. T shere were many things that we had to condense so many things from transcripts that I wanted to use; transcripts of what happened after the fact, and so it really was organic. To the very end, the last scene with De Niro and DiCaprio in the jail, that was written the day before.

Thelma Schoonmaker: I [loved] the way the actors were working with Marty. Leo’s wonderful improvisation after he’s in bed with Mollie and she says she can’t sleep and he’s away too much — and he tells her he loves her and then, when she kisses him and wants to make love, he says, “Oh, you want to wake the kids up?” It captures it. I loved that. It’s a wonderful improv and, of course, I’ve worked on many movies of Marty’s with fantastic improv, which I love to cut. There wasn’t that much on this one.

Martin Scorsese: I’m getting to the point where improv has been so confused as a word. It’s not really improvisation. It’s a behavior and if the people are together, they’re really working together. I’ve been in situations where people are not going to work together and you feel it. You see it here, they don’t improvise, they behave.

 

Thelma Schoonmaker: When we had the first screening for the leaders of the Osage nation, there were six, I think, is that right? Something like six people [there]. The chief turned to Leo at the end of the movie and said, “You made a human being out of [him]. That was stunning. And we considered the horrible things that happened.” I think what Marty and the actors were doing throughout the shooting was writing — and rewriting was really critical. Then, of course, he wants to go back to her when Brendan Fraser [as Hale’s attorney] blows up the trial. He goes out into that big field with her and they need, that’s what he wanted to do — to go back to her. I was told he actually spent the night there.

Martin Scorsese: Paramount backed out after I changed after we decided to change the approach to the story and go with Ernest’s [story]. They loved the original script. When I brought the first draft of the newer version [to them], understandably, they weren’t enthusiastic. I pointed out, no matter how many times you say this, if you do your own films and show rough cuts to somebody, you never know what they’ll perceive. You can talk about all the problems and, all of a sudden, it’s a rough cut. Don’t look at this. 

Then they see the movie when it’s finished and say, “Wow, what a difference.” You’re hardly changing that; you just finished it. I said, “I told you that this version is just the beginning and then what we’re going to do every day is work on it, go through it and work and change the script.” They had to back out, understandably too, they just couldn’t [believe it] and were enthusiastic, but they came back in though. One of the problems that we all had was the issue of COVID. 

And, we were up shooting in Oklahoma, of course, which was a great place to shoot. The only thing is — I would advise — being very careful because the summer months are extremely hot. It was 100 degrees and a lot of the scenes were done in 110 degrees. Actors were wearing three-piece suits. The native Americans were wearing three-piece suits plus blankets. There were some days that were extraordinarily difficult because of that, but we had no choice. Then we went back to Oklahoma in June to shoot. The reason we didn’t do it allegedly was that COVID was getting even worse. We couldn’t. We literally were like, “Now we’re out of there and we’ll come back with COVID.” That was it.

 

Q: Ellen and Rene, as advocates for diversity, it’s rare to see indigenous people in roles that don’t necessarily call for indigenous people in other movies. One of the excuses is that you can’t find indigenous actors out there. Can you dispel that quickly? There are so many available and in bringing everyone together, especially Lily Gladstone. She’s great in the movie — she kills it as well.

Ellen Lewis: I had worked with Rene on a previous project called “Godless,” a limited series. I knew that Rene knew about indigenous [people actors] and how everything had to be authentic because that’s how we do all the projects; that’s how we approach it. I called Renee immediately and said, “I hope you’re going to be available on the weekend, do this and use all your depth of knowledge.” We started early, and Renee started sending films to me so that I could familiarize myself. 

Lily [Gladstone] was somebody who Rene knew well. We’re in 2019. Before the pandemic started, Rene said to me about Lily and watching “Certain Women” — I had seen the film. It was great because, very early on, I was able to say to Marty, “Don’t worry about Mollie. I think we’re going to be OK because we knew what we were looking for.” What a relief and what a gift that Rene knows this community so well. We met so many wonderful actors during these open calls in Oklahoma that were amazing. The Osage and everybody in Oklahoma, were amazingly skilled actors. These are not unknown people.

Rene Haynes: We had about maybe 63 credited characters in the films that were indigenous and only about 14 of them were actors that I had worked with or cast previously. About 39 of those were completely new discoveries from those open calls which were immensely successful. We’ve actually auditioned some of those actors since then for other things and the Osage community showed up for our open call. Then they really delivered on the screen.

Martin Scorsese: There’s a person I want to point out. There’s a scene at a roundhouse where they [the Osage] are sending Barney McBride to London, I mean, no, Washington. There’s a guy who plays Chief Bonnicastle, Yancey Redcorn, and the guy next to him, the big guy, is Everett Waller as Paul Red Eagle. At one point, he started speaking. I said I needed a reaction from the people to what Yancey was saying. I walked off set for a second, and then, I heard this incredible speech being made. DeNiro came out and said, “Do you know what’s going on in there?” I looked, and he’s giving a rousing speech to the people I was going to photograph.

I ran back in, and we started shooting him. I said, “I need you sitting down, can you do it sitting down?” What you see in the film — he makes two long speeches which are impromptu and unwritten — in which he talks about, [them] rolling over our dead babies. “The Osage are out there dying and I say, go out there and die with them, don’t let them die alone.” And we’re sitting there… This guy, it’s amazing. Many times we never asked for a great life. We would just ask for a life. We just asked him, so he speaks for everyone and we just let it run. The thing about that is the guy you said could be a problem. But I knew that I had that first. I had that first experience on Pine Ridge where everybody was like that. I didn’t know, I honestly didn’t think I was going to get out of your life in 1974. I’m a New York kid from… What am I doing here? Whatever, it’s that way. That’s why I say he’s tough. I said, “Go ahead, go get him,” and we just let him break and used every frame of that.

Thelma Schoonmaker: His language was so poetic; he sort of massacres the English language in such a beautiful way. And he’s a lawyer, he represents the nation before the Supreme Court and things.

Martin Scorsese: When we saw him — after he saw the film — it was very moving and we embraced. He said he had tears in his eyes. I wish my mother had seen this at all.

 

Q: What did you draw on for inspiration for the indigenous costume dresses that were killer all throughout the movie. Are you going to release a line of Robert De Niro goggles [in the scene where he’s driving]? Is there a good line of clothing coming out soon?

Jacqueline West: We relied on research, starting even before I came on. I’m an art historian. I love research. It’s my favorite part of starting the movie of actually crawling in and getting to live in another time. The photographs and all that but what’s novel about this project is that the Osage were the only people from, maybe the royal family in England, who could afford to make home movies at $1800 a minute. The home movies were absolutely revealing of how rich they were, not just economically, but how rich their lives were.

Not only how they dressed, but the things that [they had] — all their accessories, their airplanes, cars and then you get to look at how they got dressed when they got in their cars, when they flew their planes, how they dressed for archery, for golf. And how their children dressed. They also loved family because family was so important to them. I could rely on the blankets, and get actual blankets from the time. 

All I had to do was send these archival photographs to them and they would reproduce them like the actual blankets that Mollie wore, that her sister wore and that Lizzie wore. I went from there, it was all about the research and making it authentic and then reading the beautiful script. That was pretty much finished when I came on. I read it like about seven times until I knew the characters. What I do, what I try to do when I join anything I’m working on is take them shopping. They dress themselves. When you’re dressing somebody from the inside out, the choices they’re going to make [are important]. That’s how I approached it.

Julie O’Keefe: When I came on board, it was in March. Jacqueline had all of these different closets that she’d set up. I walked into the office, and, of course, for the Osage, there were many different ways that you can wear a blanket. For a man, it’s 44 different styles depending on the life event that’s happening to you. And for a woman, you can choose between blankets and shawls, depending on the weather, but it depends on what you’re doing. If you’re going to go do business in town, you may wear it one way. 

If you’re going to church, it may look different. When Lizzie Q dies and you see these black shawls they have on which were actually in a lot of these trunks, it was in my own family and you would open it up and you see all of these French cut jet beads that would be in rows. The gossip was the voice within our tribe was basically you can tell the wealth of a person by how many rows of beads are going down the back of that shawl. They’re putting them on and going into town. What I was struck by when I came into Jackie’s studio was the thousands and thousands of photographs that she had. 

The thing I loved best when I saw what she was going towards with the sisters was that you have Lizzie Q who didn’t grow up needing money. She would come off the buffalo trail where she basically hunted and then survived. You have a situation where you move from Missouri. We chose that place where we were because the buffalo went there. There were tall, six foot grasses with all these minerals under the ground. There was a water source. We had no idea that, later on, the government would come in and kill all the buffalo. 

That’s what we were thinking about — survival. You look at children being taken away to these military and missionary schools and they’re coming back. The thing that’s most striking is that you think that you have a person who’s native to a country that’s been taken out and made an immigrant in their own lands. You have English-speaking children coming back who have not been allowed to speak their language. They’re helping the parents survive just like we see today with immigrants that come over into our lands. You see how Anna, who’s the oldest, now has this life. Jackie takes her and puts her in contemporary clothing. 

She’s decided to commit to that and she’s moving forward. Most of the time, for women, it’s for safety. We’re trying to survive. You see Molly, she’s decided to stay traditional. She shows herself in these clothes and represents the world in her tradition. Then you see Rita and Minnie and they have contemporary clothing on. They still have this piece of Osage culture that they want to maintain. They represented that with a blanket around their modern clothing. You see that a lot even today. But these are the different ways of human struggle because you see a group, this family, trying to acclimate to a world that’s being forced on them. They’re trying to do that and emulate what they see around them.

 

Q: Share with us what you want people to take from the movie, from this experience for you?

Martin Scorsese: Well, for one thing, the point is to tell the story through the couple, through marriage. It’s the most intimate relationship anyone could have. There in the very secret intimacy of the kitchen and bedroom is this strong love, trust and betrayal all at once and how certain kinds of characters in the case, in the case of Ernest, who appeared to be a very weak man, could slowly slip into this corruption. I do think that when I said that it isn’t who did and didn’t do it — it’s all of us in a sense, in terms of one culture coming in from Europe. In a way, a lot of it has to do with complicity and how we let things slide and you accept a law be changed that shouldn’t be changed, whether it’s from the Supreme Court or from the Senate or Congress, how you accept that and then, OK, so there’s no more of this, they’re all over that state and are doing that. 

How did we let it slip and slide until finally we found out — we’re imprisoned in a way.That’s the same thing for Leo. The big problem is the corruption that exists in a society that isn’t rooted in a kind of morality or spirituality. I’m not talking about religion. I’m talking about spirituality. That’s where the corruption sets in and how to make our lives easier because we have to eat and we have to support families or we just have to live. We let things happen and I think that’s a lesson throughout history. It’s just a matter of saying, “Oh, this happened 100 years ago.” It’s 1921. To me, 1921 was only a few years ago and all of a sudden, it’s 100 years.

All right. People think it’s a period piece. To me, it wasn’t that much of a period piece. I saw people behaving the way I grew up, seeing some people were behaving [badly] and how a whole nation could go that way. You know, that’s another issue and it’s always to be alert, to speak out and act against this kind of thing where you feel yourself becoming complicit, but people get tired. It’s understandable. You have to live, you have to feed your family, you get tired so you accept certain things. But, this is the great danger in life.

 

https://cinemadailyus.com/interviews/killers-of-the-flower-moon-qa-with-martin-scorsese-and-his-staff/

 

 

Interesting that the  “Oh, you want to wake the kids up?” line was also improvised by Leo. It fit very well in that scene 😊

[akatosh]

Great analysis:

 

[akatosh]

FINALLY!!! The strike is over. Now get to work Leo!

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CzaJoEfuJgS/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

 

[akatosh]

 

Leonardo DiCaprio reportedly attached to Paul Thomas Anderson’s next movie as plot details emerge

 

Paul Thomas Anderson has been developing his next project for quite some time, with plenty of rumours swirling regarding an all-star cast said to consist of Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall and more.

 

As the SAG-AFTRA strike is still ongoing, nothing can officially be announced when it comes to the cast of Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, but scooper Daniel Richtman claimed on Patreon that Leonardo DiCaprio is indeed still attached to the movie. It’s said to revolve around a young girl of mixed ethnicity who is physically athletic and excels at martial arts. DiCaprio will reportedly play her mentor.

 

Plot details have been kept under wraps, but it’s been long-rumoured that the project will be an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland. Richtman’s plot description does seem to confirm that will be the case. He states that Regina Hall is attached to play DL Chastain, a character from the novel who is a martial arts expert and ninja. “She is the daughter of a military family that moves around the world,” reads the description. “While in Japan, she is approached by a martial arts instructor who teaches her the secret ways of the ninja, including how to kill with a touch that takes a year to work. She is recruited by mobster Ralph Wayvone to assassinate Brock Vond while posing as a prostitute, but accidentally gives the death touch to Takeshi Fumimota, who has been sent in Vond’s place after the plot was discovered.

 

During a recent virtual talk with Paul Thomas Anderson (via World of Reel), the director stated that he hopes to shoot the film in late January, with production expected to take place in California, Mexico, and Texas. The setting is said to be contemporary, which could indicate a change from the original novel which takes place in 1984. Anderson has previously tackled the world of Thomas Pynchon before with Inherent Vice in 2014.

It’s expected that the SAG strike will soon be resolved, so we should be hearing something more official regarding whether or not Leonardo DiCaprio will be joining Paul Thomas Anderson’s new movie.

 

 

https://www.joblo.com/leonardo-dicaprio-paul-thomas-anderson-movie/

 

[Sugarwater]

Thank you for all the news, videos, and pics!
 

As a psychologist serving the indigenous community and who deals with trauma, intimate partner violence, and PTSD on a daily basis, all this “but they loved each other” BS (especially from family members) has me pulling my hair out.

 

In other indigenous news, I got my Wilma Mankiller Barbie doll today. 

[akatosh]

Leo and Lily are expected to participate in a q&a on Sunday. Yay.

 

 

[oxford25]

Thanks to ALL for the latest Leo news & pix  :flower

 

While I don't expect Leo on a film set to well into 2024, at least with the strike over stars will start doing their usual award Q&A's for the various Academy guilds, so we should get new pix & vids from those events

 

 

Jade   I read your comment about wondering what attributed to the $200 million budget, having seen the film we know it wasn't due to elaborate sets or special effects, so I would speculate that $100 million of it was due to the fees paid to Leo, DeNiro ,and Scorsese

[Sugarwater]

9 hours ago, akatosh said:

Leo and Lily are expected to participate in a q&a on Sunday. Yay.

 

 

That’s great for us!  Poor guy is gonna be exhausted after celebrating his birthday the night before though. Maybe he’ll celebrate tonight instead.

[Jade Bahr]

Lily worrying about the impact of the movie on native women.