Killers Abound, from Flower Moon to Green Border, Weekly Reel #61
Diving headfirst into a more meta approach to the receptions of "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "Green Border" and highlighting interesting social concerns among critics and audiences.
News of the Week: the one positive of the SAG-AFTRA strike, aside from the material benefits solidarity will hopefully bring to the union, is the collapse of star actor PR campaigns, which tend to dominate the Fall festival and Awards pre-season film world. As such, critics, producers, and directors now have the power to develop the narratives on the public reception of each film’s release and awards viability. My only naive hope is that they retain some of this juice even after PR campaigns begin again.
Watch Now
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023, Martin Scorsese, USA) is a masterpiece with one of the stranger critical receptions. Before getting into that, a brief what’s-it-about: Flower Moon is the adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, an excellent nonfiction true crime book written by David Grann (non-Native). It tells the horrific story of the Osage Reign of Terror, which involved the killing of Osage Natives by non-Native white people, who hoped to claim Osage headrights (property rights doled out in quarterly payments; most of the Osage required non-Native guardians to receive them). Following the illegal ethnic resettlement of the Osage (among countless other tribes) to Oklahoma, they found oil under their high plains soil. They contracted non-Native-owned oil companies to pump the black gold and proceeds were equally distributed among the Osage members. Very quickly afterwards, the Osage became the richest per-capita community on the planet. That’s when the non-Native wolves came. Poisonings dressed as natural illnesses turned into shootings, stabbings, and an explosion, killing dozens of Osage Natives and providing the federal government an opportunity to use their newly formed Bureau of Investigation. Grann’s book details the meticulous steps Tom White (non-Native), lead agent of the Bureau on the case, took, which eventually led to the arrest of (most) of those responsible.
Jesse Plemons (non-Native) plays White in the film, Leonardo DiCaprio (non-Native) plays Ernest Burkhart (the main link between the Osage and the killers), Robert De Niro (non-Native) plays William King Hale (head crime boss of the non-Natives and Ernest’s uncle), and Lily Gladstone (Blackfeet, Nez Perce) plays Mollie Burkhart (Ernest’s wife and the heart of the film). In short, much of the original Grann narrative was axed to focus on a fictional dramatization of the latter three characters, while White, the focus of the book, is limited to the third act. This brings me to the film’s critical reception; here’s a handy guide to buzzwords and terms most critics couldn’t help not using (turn it into a drinking bingo game if you’d like): shifting of the story perspective away from White towards the Burkharts, runtime (either making a huff about it or playing the heroic “didn’t even look at my watch” narrative), plot description taking up sixty to eighty percent of the review, toxic marriage, white guilt, untold history, it’s actually Gladstone’s movie, thinking Scorsese (non-Native) was done with gangster epics after The Irishman, etc.—you can add your own.
One of the most insidious ploys used is to premise the film as a cinematic masterpiece in many ways, then deliver a swift drive-by by accusing the film of focusing on non-Natives (while at the same time making an ambiguous moral judgement on that decision) more than the Osage—the same narrative was used, but to a much smaller extent, questioning Margot Robbie’s (non-Native) “limited” screentime in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.
Here's a sampling:
Robert Daniels (non-Native critic) wrote that
this is inherently an Indigenous story. A white director taking it on brings with it deserved charges of exploitation and fears that another white person will once again whitewash Indigenous history. In “Killers of the Flower Moon,” those worries are not wholly unfounded. Though Scorsese took great lengths to bring on advisors, there are only so many blindspots one can fill. To Scorsese’s credit, in this film, there are very few (but they are glaring).
“The Killers of the Flower Moon,” a visceral epic, is the story of the wreckage of a people, the evil in white men’s hearts and the poison they spread, and the erasure that occurs when their stain touches you. It’s powerful, even when you’re left wondering if someone else could’ve spread that gospel.
Notice the snide double-hand: white director did this best but it’s not his story and someone else could’ve done it. So, then who? Also the clichés: “blindspots” and “glaring.”
Richard Lawson (non-Native) at Vanity Fair argues for a space of one’s own, that “for all of the episodic ramble of Killers of the Flower Moon, not enough space is provided to restoring palpable personhood to people so relentlessly robbed of it.” So what’s the solution? Anthony Lane, non-Native film critic for the New Yorker, concludes his review arguing that “next time, perhaps, an Osage voice will tell the tale anew.” Whose voice? Any Osage voice in general? And so it goes with others, all making similar arguments—to the point they sound too alike that shows a critical convergence, lending credence to the Tarantino (non-Native) theory that critics haven’t many singular opinions and viewpoints today that stand out from the rest (that’s a different discussion but one that can be appendixed with this one) and give them an identity.
Here's a simple exercise in giving a voice to those who non-Natives purport to “look after”: what do Osage and other Native people have to say? Or as Ruby Hansen Murray (Osage Nation columnist for Osage News and Osage language learner) puts it: “The joy of seeing the language spoken, and our people on screen sits side by side with the intensity and violence of the story. We have our reactions as Osages, and then we will have to listen (or try to tune out) misinformed hot takes from non-Osages and non-Natives.” Shannon Shaw Duty (Grayhorse District Osage Editor of the Osage News) reviewed Flower Moon quite favorably, writing that “the scenes with the sisters spending time together, the mother and first daughter sequences, all while speaking in perfect Osage language, is very beautiful. Honestly, every scene that showcases Osage language and culture is captivating.”
Vincent Schilling (Akwesasne Mohawk, founder and editor of Native Viewpoint) wrote an enthusiastic review, who contextualizes the white savior myth in Flower Moon better than any non-Native critic:
As I sit down to write this review, I have to say that as a Native American journalist, film critic and author, Killers of the Flower Moon is like nothing I have ever seen before. I am 56 years old in 2023 and have watched my share of Westerns with Native Americans in the films. Some have been terribly inappropriate and even offensive. And while others have been historically accurate, these films were highlighted by white saviors or other unfortunate themes
White, brilliantly played by Jesse Plemons, is not a white savior created by Scorsese and screenplay writer Eric Roth to save the Osage, but rather White is a true representation of a real character in history, who existed in a time where white men did make most of the decisions in the 1920s. So yes, White is coming to investigate in order to uncover the reasons for the continuous series of murders of the Osage people in the 1920s, but the presence of White is not to quell the guilt of white writers or filmmakers, but rather to accurately portray history.
More enthusiasm (his review is a joy to read):
There are several actors in this film I have known for years, and to see them in this movie, gives me a joy I can hardly describe. And while so many in this world are trying to silence history, Scorsese brings the ugliness of history to the forefront, and within that effort, is great beauty. Watching the last minutes of the movie, which included a creative end and an amazing heartfelt cameo, I felt a completeness overcome me, and I realized, at 56 years old, as the sound of a Native drum filled the theater, that I never ever thought I would see a film like this.
Rather than harping on non-Natives receiving more attention than Mollie and her Osage family, it would appear that the largest production ever for Native actors and extras, community artisans, Osage language consultants, which brought in huge profits for Osage county during the worst of the lockdowns and now a tourist destination that the Osage can use to get funding and bank loans for developing underdeveloped infrastructure—not to mention seeing one’s own people on the big screen in major roles—is actually favorable to those whose people are being represented, rather than New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles non-Natives. The non-Native critics point out, unironically, that more attention was placed on the Ernest and Mollie relationship in the script by Eric Roth (non-Native) and Scorsese, away from White (originally supposed to be portrayed by DiCaprio), after (and this is the point they tend not to mention) Scorsese & Friends visited the Osage, ate their food, experienced their rituals, and developed a bond. This isn’t to say that all Osage and Native perspectives are the same; Christopher Cote (Osage language consultant for the film) provided an amazingly nuanced position, now a widely circulated clip, following the film’s premiere.
Let’s keep going, but how about those Native members who worked directly on the film?
Geoffrey M. Standing Bear (Principal Chief of the Osage Nation) consulted on the film with Scorsese and had this to say about him at the official Cannes premiere press conference:
I asked Mr. Scorsese 'how are you going to approach the story?' And he said, 'I'm going to tell a story about trust. Trust between Mollie and Earnest, trust between the outside world and the Osage, and a betrayal of those trusts. Deep betrayal. And my people suffered greatly. And to this day, to this very day, those effects are with us. But I can say on behalf of the Osage, Martin Scorsese and his team have restored trust, and we know that trust will not be betrayed.
And finally, to invoke Lily Gladstone, the emotional center of the film and point of contact between non-Natives and Natives, who non-Native critics like to defend but don’t bother listening to what she’s said (also at the Cannes press conference):
Who else is going to challenge people, to challenge their own complicity in white supremacy on such a platform, expect for this man here? Other artists are doing that work. People listen to what this one says. So turning the lens, turning the big lens, the most golden ones into areas where our communities, you know, we're speaking of the 1920s Osage community, really, we're talking about Black Wall Street and Tulsa. We're talking about a lot in our film. And why the hell does the world not know about these things? Our communities always have. It's so central to everything about how we understand our place in the world. We also still need... We also still need this. You know, we need these allies. We need these allies. You know, it's so - yes, it's certainly there was the interest there. But I think I mean, I'm just giving you more credit. And you were there as a human being, not as a not as somebody who was studying people. You were, we were immersed there and there's no other way to tell these stories.
I’m struggling to think of another film that had such a strong presence that was so real of Native women, Indigenous women. I love my sisters, the actresses who play my sisters and the love that Mollie had for them, because we spend enough time with them and see them as a family in the story that we feel the impact.
Perhaps Native critics and writers can have the space to voice their opinions next time at The Playlist, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, and other influential media publications rather than being relegated and unheard on the national level (unless a film like Flower Moon comes along) at their non-ad supported, independently funded sites and organizations.
Killers of the Flower Moon is playing in theaters.
Save for Later
Green Border (2023, Agnieszka Holland, Poland/US/France/Czech Republic/Belgium/Germany/Turkey) is an oddity in the contemporary film scene, one that directly, without metaphors or allusions, confronts a molten-level political issue (that’s still happening), one that has the energy of a filmmaker a third of Holland’s age, and one that Holland doesn’t care to be nuanced enough to plan for future film grants from her country of birth. It was enough to receive the Special Jury Prize at Venice while firmly residing in the once-in-a-lifetime viewing category. The title, as any Euro can guess, refers to the Belarus-Poland border where Belarus's sockpuppet, Lukashenko, decided to flood the EU with refugees. The border crisis broiled Polish politics into a thick stew of unnuanced resentment on both sides, which Holland decided to spike. Before the film was released (only three weeks before a major parliamentary election) in Poland, but only after it gained recognition in Venice, battalion formations lined up across from another and took aim.
The two and a half hour plot, which also happens to be the story, revolves around a group of refugees (mostly a three-generation Syrian family and an Afghan woman) and Poles (a border patrol guard, a psychologist who lives near the border, and a young group of humanitarian workers providing the refugees aid). Broken into four unequal parts, it crisscrosses between the different groups during the times they meet, hoping to provide a name and face to people often obscured through media headlines. The first act of the film revolves mostly around pushbacks, the practice of sending refugees back and forth over the border by border guards on both sides, oftentimes resulting in mortal injuries and always against international law. The second act continues representing these pushbacks (which are portrayed brutally and painful to watch), but now with slightly more about the Poles surrounding the issue. And the final act brings it all together for an ironically happy (and cringy) ending that is unnecessarily enhanced by an epilogue.
Because of the many different vantage points, the refugees hold most of the screen time in the first half and the Poles with the second half. While this ambitious structure proves to be useful in conveying a more nuanced account of all sides, it fails to induce an arc or much of a motivation beyond their originally intended purpose. The one character with an arc—not counting the border guard’s obvious-from-a-mile-away change, the psychologist (Maja Ostaszewska), is formally introduced an hour in and rushes into action but doesn’t fully pay off during the resolution.
The big problem with the film is deciding who this is for. Those who care deeply about the border crisis, on both sides, are deeply entrenched in their own opinions while those who’ve been carefully avoiding the issue will do the same with this film. This issue is made worse by the characters being mostly surface-level caricatures, which will only fuel the criticism against the film showing naughty Polish border guards abusing children and pregnant women. This in turn gives pro-border guard sentiment enough fodder to build an argument that the humanitarian side will have to argue against, thereby losing credibility by stooping to that level in the first place. If the film is for those sympathetic with the refugees, then I’m not sure showing them getting the shit beat out of them isn’t anything more than a form of (Catholic) self-flagellation. Nobody else will want to watch this misery porn meets message film.
Another Q, why is it in B&W? Is Holland hoping to get another foreign film Oscar nomination—Cold War and Ida, the latter winning the award, were two of the last four Polish films nominated and filmed in B&W. It neither matches the documentary aspirations of the film nor renders the injuries starker than the shock of them should have been. I’m only hoping Holland isn’t suggesting that the issue itself is a black and white matter…
Green Border has no planned releases outside of Poland right now.
Pass
The Pillow Book (1995, Peter Greenaway, Netherlands/UK/France/Luxembourg) sucks but you can watch Ewan McGregor’s penis sway back and forth a bunch.
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