Martin Scorsese

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: an epic tale of epic betrayal

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Photo caption: Lily Gladstone, and Leonardo DiCaprio in KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON. Courtesy of AppleTV.

Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour Killers of the Flower Moon is an absorbing epic of betrayal, betrayal on many levels.

In the 1920s, the Osage people, having been cast into the apparently worthless dry prairie of northern Oklahoma, have the good fortune to discover oil on their land. Suddenly, tribe members become instant, Pierce Arrow-driving oil millionaires. It doesn’t take long for tribe members to start dying mysterious deaths, with their oil rights passing to local Whites. Despite the entreaties of the Osage, local and state law enforcement is, at best, indifferent, and the bodies pile up.

This a true story that was essentially little known before a 2017 bestseller by David Grann. Osage country in the 1920s is an unfamiliar setting for us, the audience. Scorsese takes the time to bring this society alive for us. Bejewelled Native Americans are consuming luxuries while White men scurry around in menial jobs and hucksterish scams. Lazy nogoodniks are looking for gold-digger marriages to rich Osage women. We’re not that far along from an Old West of saloons, gunfights and Indian Wars, and, despite the new fangled automobiles, there are plenty of working cowboys.

A recent WW I vet, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives with few prospects. His uncle William King Hale (Robert De Niro) is an established bigshot, and takes Ernest under his wing. The uncle, who likes to be called King, is a major cattle rancher with a unique and longstanding relationship with the Osage, even speaking the Osage language and having an Osage drinking buddy. King enjoys being a Big Fish in a Little Pond, and is a very wily Big Fish.

Ernest on the other hand, is not at all smart, but he’s amiable and ambitious, and he’s lucky enough to meet Mollie (Lily Gladstone), an Osage woman, and marry up.

Mollie is very smart, a keen and clear-eyed observer of human behavior. She is strong willed and knows what she wants. She only has two vulnerabilities – her diabetes and a (temporary) inability to imagine the depth of someone’s worthlessness.

Gladstone’s performance is especially brilliant as she sizes up Ernest. Mollie is under no illusions about Ernest’s qualities, and she knows that he is attracted to her money. But he’s more good-hearted and less lazy than the other available White men, and he’s much better looking. She knows what she wants, and she knows what she’s getting. Near the end of the film, Mollie asks Ernest a question, and, upon his answer, Gladstone’s eyes silently sum up the entire story, with all its themes. It’s a superb, highly nuanced performance and certainly award-worthy.

DiCaprio ably portrays Ernest Burkhart, a protagonist who is a spineless dimwit. The centrality of Killers of the Flower Moon becomes the story of the weak-willed Ernest, pulled between his much smarter and strong-willed uncle and wife.

Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DiCaprio in KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON. Courtesy of AppleTV.

The story starts as a whodunit, but then it’s revealed who is responsible, and we are immersed into the portraits of the three main characters, with the story is framed against the greater themes. One of those themes is the racism that devalues the lives and welfare of Native Americans, and the even more universal human history of the powerful unapologetically taking from the less strong. And then there’s the exploration of trust – just whom can you trust and to what degree?

Heeding the plight of the Osage, the federal government finally dispatches an FBI team, headed by the pleasant but implacable former Texas Ranger Tom White (an excellent Jesse Plemons). The agency is so young that it isn’t yet known as the “FBI” but as the “Bureau of Investigation”. Solving the Osage Murders was an important early benchmark in FBI history (which is emphasized in Grann’s book but not explicit in the movie).

In this case, the villain is a sociopath who can hide in plain sight with audacity, and who recognizes, and is able to leverage, the racism in the environment. Tom White, however, is immune to bullshit, and hones in on the crimes, regardless of who the victims may be. And the villain’s soft underbelly is his reliance on some very dumb henchmen.

Again, this story really happened, and the characters played by De Niro, DiCaprio, Gladstone and Plemmons are actual historical figures. Another writer has noted that’s it’s interesting that, although this is a serial killer movie, Scorsese chose not to focus on either the murderous mastermind nor on the detective trying to corner him. Indeed, I’ve also read that DiCaprio was originally slated for the FBI role, but advocated to make the role of Ernest central enough for him to play.

The cast is impossibly rich, including Oscar winners and nominees De Niro, DiCaprio, Plemmons, John Lithgow, and Brendan Fraser, plus Tantoo Cardinal, who SHOULD have been nominated for Dancing with Wolves, among other work. Scorsese gets memorable performances from Cara Jade Myers, Louis Cancelmi (Billions, The Eyes of Tammy Faye) and Ty Mitchell. One of the most vivid performance is from Tommy Schultz, a guy with no previous screen credits.

One of my favorite musicians, Jason Isbell, plays a key character, and he’s excellent. There’s one scene where Isbell’s and DiCaprio’s characters are isolated in a parlor and have a verbal confrontation. Although DiCaprio’s character has the best lines, it’s an acting standoff, and you really can’t tell that one of these guys is a movie star and the other is just learning the business. Very impressive.

Speaking of musicians, this was the last time Robbie Robertson composed music for a film, and his score is magnificent. Robertson, of course, had been a close friend and collaborator of Scorsese’s since The Last Waltz (and was also a Canadian of Cayuga and Mohawk heritage). Blues harmonica great Charlie Musselwhite and rock star Jack White also have acting cameos.

I rarely mention a movie’s sound mixing, but the extraordinary sound mix when Ernest, in a panic, buttonholes King at a boisterous town street party, strongly contributes to the storytelling.

What of the three hour, twenty-six minute running time? I agree with the critical consensus that Killers is long, but never slow. After all, it is an epic, even several epics braided together.

Killers of the Flower Moon is an excellent movie, and will receive lots of recognition. I’m sure that it will be nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award (although it’s not nearly as good as Oppenheimer IMO) and will garner Oscar nominations for Lily Gladstone and Robbie Robertson, who will be favorites in their categories. Other Oscar nods are likely.

Killers of the Flower Moon is in theaters, and will stream on AppleTV sometime after December 4, perhaps as late as January.

THE IRISHMAN: gangsters – an epic reflection

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Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro in THE IRISHMAN

I know that I’m late to the party with these comments, especially since I saw The Irishman at its first Silicon Valley screening. Since then, I’ve been ruminating on why it’s so good.

The titular Irishman is Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), a WW II vet, who starts out as a truck driver who diverts his meat deliveries to his own “buyers”. He meets Mafia leader Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci), who mentors him, and Sheeran becomes a professional hit man. Through Bufalino, Sheeran also becomes close to Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). Like Hoffa, Sheeran and Bufalino were real people. Scorsese takes Sheeran’s life through the decades in this gangland saga.

The Irishman is based on real events. Even the Frank Sheeran appreciation banquet with Jimmy Hoffa and Jerry Vale really happened. Of course, Scorsese ‘s solution to the What Happened to Jimmy Hoffa mystery is imagined, but it does conform to one of the more credible hypotheses.

Besides Bufalino and Sheeran, the characters of real life gangsters Tony Pro Provenzano, Fat Tony Salerno, Angelo Bruno and Crazy Joe Gallo figure in The Irishman’s plot, and we also glimpse Allen Dorfman, Tony Jack Giacalone, Joe Colombo, Sam Giancana and Albert Anastasia.

There is plenty of familiar mob lore – I particularly love the reference to a nickname, “the OTHER Whispers“. But this is a less glamorized Mafia than is usual for a gangster flick – the violence is decidedly unheroic. The toxic impact upon family members is unvarnished.

The Irishman is also a comment on the decline of the Mob. By the end, for all the omerta, we’ve reached a world where these guys (except for Frank Sheeran) routinely rat each other out. When we see the aged Sheeran in the retirement facility, we understand that his storied criminal career hadn’t gotten him any more creature comfort than if he had retired with the Teamster’s pension of an honest trucker. – and he might have instead had the support of an affectionate family.

DeNiro is excellent in The Irishman, as are all the cast members. I really enjoyed Steven “Little Steven” Van Zandt in his cameo as crooner Jerry Vale. British actor Stephen Graham has gotten a lot of plaudits for his as Tony Pro. Four other performances stand out for me.

Joe Pesci has made his acting career playing hair-trigger, tinderbox gangsters. In contrast, his Russell Bufalino is completely contained and ever in control. At one point, Hoffa refuses his request, and Bufalino does not explode or threaten; Pesci’s eyes barely register that Bufalino has made n irreparable decision.

Al Pacino, of course can play chilly (Michael Corleone in The Godfather or volatile (in Dog Day Afternoon and thirty other roles). Here, he perfectly captures Hoffa’s strong will, audacity and smarts (the key to his success) and his hotheadedness (his Achilles heel). This is one of Pacino’s many Oscar nomination-worthy performances.

Anna Paquin and Marin Ireland play the grown-up versions of Sheeran’s daughters. Sheeran’s murderous life has impacted them in ways that he will never understand. As adults, the daughters are no longer afraid of their father and become estranged from him. Paquin shows us her character’s feelings with very few lines. In one brief but riveting monologue, Ireland tries to connects the dot explicitly.

Al Pacino in THE IRISHMAN

Hoffa is an especially interesting character who really hasn’t been captured onscreen as well as he is here. Hoffa was a strategic genius who recognized that putting every Teamster workplace under a single, unified national contract would give the union unmatched bargaining power – from the capacity to essentially shut down all of the shipping and transportation in North America. To accomplish that, he needed the Teamster locals on the coasts to temporarily stagnate their higher pay until the lower-paid locals in the middle of the country could catch up. Because the East Coast locals were mobbed up, he needed – and sought – the cooperation of the Mafia. So, his dalliance with the mob was strategic, aimed at getting him power for his members, not to personally enrich himself as would the garden-variety crook.

Netflix’s investment allowed Scorsese to use a computer special effect to alter the appearances of DeNiro (age 76), Pacino (79) and Pesci (76) so they could play flashback scenes of their characters thirty years before. I knew this technique was used before I saw The Irishman, but I didn’t notice it.

The Irishman is a three-and-a-half hour movie. As The Wife noted, that is indulgent. But it doesn’t drag, and I enjoyed every minute of Scorsese’s masterwork. I saw it in a theater, but The Irishman is streaming on Netflix.

Here’s a bonus treat: Jason Gorber dissects the soundtrack in The Slash.

ROLLING THUNDER REVUE: A BOB DYLAN STORY BY MARTIN SCORSESE: doc and playfully not

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Scarlett Rivera and Bob Dylan in ROLLING THUNDER REVUE: A BOB DYLAN STORY BY MARTIN SCORSESE

So you think you know what you’re going to get from a movie titled Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. Indeed, Scorsese documents Dylan’s 1975 Rolling Thunder tour. But he also, in what critic Jason Gorber calls an “anti-documentary” adds some fictional flourish, as befits Dylan’s longtime trickster persona.

Now for the documentary, which gives us a look at a mid-career Dylan (on the downside of his superstardom). The talking heads are great: lots of Bob Dylan himself, his sidemen, performers Joan Baez, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Ronnie Hawkins and Ronee Blakley, and even the subject of a Dylan song, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. There’s a hilarious encounter between ex-lovers Baez and Dylan, as they mull over who left who.

There are explosive concert performances of Hurricane, Isis and A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall (but also a disappointing version of the tour’s signature song, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door).

Baez aside, the real co-star of the Rolling Thunder Revue was violinist Scarlett Rivera, whose violin licks elevated almost every song, especially Hurricane. My favorite Dylan performance – One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below) from the live album – is really more Rivera’s song than Dylan’s. In Rolling Thunder Revue, we get to hear from Rivera – and about her and her spirited personal life.

And now for the playful part – Scorsese has dotted this “documentary” with stuff that is not true. The performance artist Martin von Haselberg claims to have shot the concert footage for a pretentious art film that was never made, which Dylan credits to Stefan van Dorp. Hasleberg didn’t shoot it and van Dorp doesn’t even exist. The guy identified as the tour promoter is actually a movie exec. And Sharon Stone was too young to have been on this tour, although she spins a ROFLMAO faux anecdote about Just Like a Woman.

Michael Murphy, who starred in Robert Altman’s political mockumentary Tanner, is shown as a real Congressman Tanner. And did Scarlett Rivera really have a sword collection? Was Allen Ginsberg really a good dancer?

The critical praise for Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese has been rapturous, with one respected critic pegging it as the best doc of year. This reeks to me of Scorsese worship. I’m not sure I would recommend Rolling Thunder Revue to a general (non-Baby Boomer) audience. It does do a great job of taking us backstage for the inside morsels – and it is creatively sly.

Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese is now streaming on Netflix.

BTW I highly recommend Peter Sobczynski’s comprehensive essay on the Cinema of Bob Dylan in rogerebert.com. It’s kind of spectacular.

DVD/Stream of the Week: The Wolf of Wall Street

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wolfWhat do you get when testosterone-fueled and morally challenged stock salesmen discover how to make piles of easy money by defrauding investors? Well, when Martin Scorsese tells the tale, we get three hours of full throttle, hilariously bad behavior. The Wolf of Wall Street is the story of a (real life) guy who found out how to make a fortune scamming middle class investors – and then a bigger fortune scamming rich investors – on penny stocks and shady IPOs. It’s a wild ride that is destined to end in a perp walk, propelled by enormous amounts of recreational drug use. In fact, the movie is really about excess – the sales meetings here make the toga party in Animal House look like an Amish barn-raising.

This is not economic story-telling. Scorsese indulgently lets his scenes run on and on – not so we lose interest, but just so he can milk out every drop of spectacle. Although he could have told the story in two hours instead of three, he just couldn’t resist supplying three hours of exhilaration. Fine by me.

I had never thought of Leonardo DiCaprio as a comic actor, but he does a fine job in the lead role – driving what is essentially a comedy. Speaking of comic actors, this may be Jonah Hill’s finest performance – he plays the top henchman, a character who wears horn-rimmed glasses (without corrective lenses) just to look more WASPish; no one can play schlubby desperation or drug-impaired overreaching better than Hill. There is a huge cast, and some of the year’s best acting gems include:

  • Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights and so brilliant in The Spectacular Now) as the FBI agent targeting DiCaprio. In particular, Chandler performs an exceptional scene on a yacht, where the agent lets the con artist (and the audience) think that his con is working – for just a bit. Top notch stuff.
  • Matthew McConaughey, at the height of his new-found acting powers, as our hero’s first mentor in amorality;
  • Rob Reiner (!) as the hero’s emotionally explosive but common sensical dad;
  • the stunning blonde Australian actress Margot Robbie as the Brooklyn-bred trophy wife; and
  • Joanna Lumley (a top model in London’s 60s Mod scene and popularizer of the Purdey bob hairstyle) as the trophy wife’s conveniently European aunt.

I’m certainly going to add this to my Best Drug Movies. Multiple scenes make this the best Quaalude movie ever, and one extended ‘lude scene with DiCaprio and Hill had the audience howling for several minutes.

Is this one of Scorsese’s best films? No – but it is one of the most entertaining and certainly the funniest.  The Wolf of Wall Street is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Hugo: Scorsese’s revelatory 3D tale

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Martin Scorsese’s Hugo is both a delight and a lessons in the possibilities of 3D in the hands of a master filmmaker.  The story follows a young orphan living in the bowels of a 1920s Paris train station who strives to survive by his wits, keep his independence and solve the puzzle of an discarded automaton.

Scorsese’s use of 3D is revelatory.  We feel entirely transported to WITHIN the worlds of the station, of its industrial inner workings and Paris itself.  When the orphan walks into a bookstore, we are immersed ourselves in the many stacks of books.  Scorsese’s 3D always works to advance the story, not to distract us with assaultive gimmicks.

As an extra treat for movie lovers, the very story becomes one of movie making, film as art and film preservation.  We see the early movie magic of George Melies, especially his 1902 A Trip the Moon. We also see Lumiere’s 1896 The Arrival of a Train, and the main characters even sneak into Harold Lloyd’s 1923 Safety Last.

Sacha Baron Cohen is very, very funny as the boy’s foil, the bitter and preening station policeman.  The cast is very good, with the most pleasing turns by Emily Mortimer, Helen McCrory and Richard Griffiths.

Hugo makes my list of Best Movies of 2011.

Congrats, Roger Corman!

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This week’s DVD release of Roger Corman’s Sci Fi Classics is my occasion for celebrating the prolific low-budget producer Roger Corman.  So far, Corman has produced 395 titles –  mostly shameless and delicious exploitation movies for the teen market.  In one four-year period, he produced The Student Nurses, Private Duty Nurses, Night Call Nurses and Candy Stripe Nurses – and 21 other movies!

Corman’s great gift to us all is his mentorship of young and talented filmmakers.  Filmmakers who got their first assignment from Corman (called “the Corman Film School”) include Oscar winning directors James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, Curtis Hanson, Ron Howard and Martin Scorsese.  Not to mention cult directors Paul Bartels and Monte Hellman (Corman produced Hellman’s Warren Oates classic Cockfighter).  And Chinatown screenwriter Robert Townsend.

Jack Nicholson first got some attention playing the masochistic dental patient in Corman’s 1960 Little Shop of Horrors.  Nicholson showed up again in Corman’s 1967 The Wild Angels (biker gangs), 1967 The Shooting (trippy Western) and 1967’s LSD flick The Trip (more on that tomorrow).

Probably the best movie that Corman has produced was St. Jack (1976), directed by Peter Bogdanovich.  Corman had given Bogdanovich his start, and in the intervening 12 years Bogdanovich’s star had risen (The Last Picture Show, What’s Up, Doc?, Paper Moon) and fallen (Daisy Miller).   Ben Gazzara and Denholm Elliott delivered great performances in this story of a hustling American expat running a GI brothel in Singapore during the Vietnam War.

Roger Corman’s Sci Fi Classics includes three films that I haven’t seen (or don’t remember seeing): Attack of the Crab Monsters, War of the Satellites and Not of this Earth.  Although I may not have seen them, I can tell you that 1) they don’t have fancy production values; 2) they are fast paced and not too long; and 3) they’re a kick.