Reservation Dogs star Devery Jacobs wasn’t a fan of Killers Of The Flower Moon
Reservation Dogs' Devery Jacobs found Killers Of The Flower Moon “painful, grueling, unrelenting and unnecessarily graphic"
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Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon is already getting major Oscar buzz, but the film’s quality and Scorsese’s stature doesn’t mean it’s above criticism. Some of the Osage crew members themselves offered thoughtful critiques, the most prominent being that while Scorsese is an undeniable storyteller, the tale would be better told by an Osage artist from an Osage perspective.
That’s the thrust of the critique from Reservation Dogs star and writer Devery Jacobs, though her comments are even more pointed. After seeing Killers Of The Flower Moon, she posted her reaction on Twitter/X, calling the movie “painful, grueling, unrelenting and unnecessarily graphic.” She wrote, “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 praised star Lily Gladstone and the other Indigenous actors as “the only redeeming factors of this film,” writing that “the Osage characters felt painfully underwritten” compared to the white antagonists. “I don’t feel that these very real people were shown honor or dignity in the horrific portrayal of their deaths,” she wrote of the historic tragedy perpetuated against the Osage depicted in KOTFM. “Contrarily, I believe that by showing more murdered Native women on screen, it normalizes the violence committed against us and further dehumanizes our people.” She added that seeing “the way that film nerds are celebrating and eating this shit up? It makes my stomach hurt.”
Noting that the Osage had a hand in helping bring the film to life, Jacobs said she nevertheless “would prefer to see a $200 million movie from an Osage filmmaker telling this history, any day of the week.” Indigenous people “exist beyond our grief, trauma & atrocities,” the actor pointed out. “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 concluded by acknowledging the real-life Mollie Burkhart and the many other Osage families who suffered from the Reign of Terror (“The pain is real & isn’t limited to the film’s 3hrs and 26 mins.”) “And a massive Fuck You to the real life, white Oklahomans, who still carry and benefit from these blood-stained headrights,” she wrote. “All in all, after 100 years of the way Indigenous communities have been portrayed in film, is this really the representation we needed?”
183 Comments
The movie you’re wanting would never get made.
Isn’t that sort of the problem she’s pointing out?I’m not sure how saying “yeah, well that’s just how it is” is a compelling response to “the way things are is pretty messed up”
Compelling or no, it’s true. It’s not as if Scorsese outbid an Osage filmmaker for rights to make this movie (are there any? There are fewer than 20,000 members of the entire tribe). From everything I’ve read he was also highly collaborative with the members and respectful of their input. But there is no “system” that prevents an Osage from becoming a filmmaker. And anyone who wants funding would need a track record.
or a gofundme
Well, I said what I said. So… I guess you just have to agree with me.^^^See how silly circular logic is?
Reservation Dogs would never have been made, until finally we reached a point in our society where it could be. Her movie absolutely could be made sometime in the future, but probably not without this movie being made first.
You’ve managed to point out something everybody here already knows and do it in the least constructive way possible. Impressive!
Far be it from me to challenge a Native person’s reaction to a movie focused on a Native story, but to her penultimate point, the “massive Fuck You to the real life, white Oklahomans, who still carry and benefit from these blood-stained headrights”…is that not also what this movie is trying to say? I completely understand how difficult it is to see these atrocities play out on screen, but I don’t think the movie is trying to glorify it as much as reckon with it, and the far reaching consequences that are still happening today.I agree that a Native voice would have a much different take that deserves to be seen…however, at this point I don’t think any Native director is going to get $200 million to film it. I HOPE THAT CHANGES, given the excellent output I’ve seen from Native directors, I’d love to see a Sterlin Harjo or even Jacobs herself getting that kinda bank to make a film. I just think it will be some time before a studio bankrolls the Native equivalent of a Scorcese, because he’s been making films for like over 50 years.Also, while I understand why it can be traumatic and difficult to see these atrocities committed against Native people, I also don’t think the right move is to ignore it. I think the very white people she’s giving a “Fuck You” too need to be reminded of the blood on their families’ hands.
Of course…maybe an Osage director tells the story in a way that doesn’t need $200m. Theirs might be half as long…and not centered on a pair of characters played by De Niro and Leo.
I was going by what Devery Jacobs said, her words were “prefer to see a $200 million movie by an Osage filmmaker” …
“Of course…maybe an Osage director tells the story in a way that doesn’t need $200m.”
Yeah, if it were an Osage director they wouldn’t have bothered with period accuracy or any other budgetary expenses beyond DiCaprio’s millions. An Osage filmmaker could’ve made this 200+ minute epic for about $60K, right?
“Far be it from me to challenge a Native person’s reaction to a movie focused on a Native story, but ..”
Good insight.
I can only have a certain amount of sympathy for someone who willingly triggers themselves like this. There’s absolutely no way I can buy she didn’t know what the movie would entail, and she could just not watch it if it would have that much of an effect on her.
LOL. I love your sense of self importance. As if anyone gives a shit what you “buy” and how much sympathy you have. But as a person who no doubt has strong ties to the Osage people and their history, I’m sure we can all agree your skepticism is a valuable addition to the conversation.
My question as well. The trailer pretty well lays it bare and the book was a best-seller. There’s a difference between not wanting to be subjected to something yourself, and suggesting others shouldn’t have the option.
You have two options with this:Option A: She’s an attention whore, and moaning about this is both a convenient narrative and a way to get those sweet, sweet social points. Here you got a big movie made by a big name that connects to you on a cultural level, so nothing gets the buzz going like a little artificial outrage.Option B: She really, genuinely could be completely and utterly out of touch with reality. It’s surprisingly common with celebs who are in fucking love with themselves! Gwyneth Paltrow, Vanessa Hudgens, Oprah, Gina Rodriguez, James Corden since his sperm phase. She could seriously have walked out of Oppenheimer, and said something “Oh, I think Vin Diesel was fab as that plastic guy without a penis! What was his name?”
What the fuck? How about Option C: as an Indigenous actor, she wanted go see this prestigious movie that features other Indigenous folks and then gave her genuine opinion on it. You misogynist psycho.
Apart from the fact that fucking nothing is genuine about anything she’s said.Maybe your soap box would be a better fit for Resetera’s crowd.
I’m not the one on a soapbox—notice how long your comment was, projecting all this weird speculative stuff onto her and her comments, while my response was three sentences. Also, next time you’re ranting about someone expressing their opinion for what you perceive as just “for points,” you should consider how you feed into that cycle by immediately frothing at the mouth over it. What she said was not entirely unreasonable, and most people here seem to be able to understand where she’s coming from even if they don’t agree with it.
You called me a misogynist psycho completely out of the blue despite the fact that I never factored gender into this, brought it up, or even remotely mentioned it. Not even for one second did you ever plan to entertain any kind of refutation to her claims from anyone, and my comment just so happened to have triggered you a wee bit more; you already went into this with your guns loaded, except you utterly misread the room and put in the wrong bullets.I’m trans, you fucking dick. So fuck you, dismissed.
Have you ever considered shutting the fuck up? You know fucking NOTHING about this woman. Fuck off. Fuck you. Be better, you fucking piece of shit/
does her thoughtful critique really strike you as “triggered” or “artificial outrage?” I loved the movie, don’t agree with a lot of points but definitely see where she’s coming from with a lot of the points, but it’s not good for you just to write off whole sale
Or, and you’ll have to go with me here…
She’s a Native American actress and writer and director, of which there are VERY few, who, when presented with the fact that one of the most famous film directors in HISTORY has made a movie about her people, felt the need to see it.
Imagine someone made a film about your family. Would you feel the need to see it? To see if your story was done justice? Because for Natives, the Native community IS like a family. There’s a closeness and familiarity that comes from common experience, culture, joy, and struggle.
And then, after seeing it, and feeling its effect, she felt the need to comment on it publicly, being the public figure that she is, with the unique viewpoint of a Native film maker. And that reaction and viewpoint were both true and genuine to her as a person.So maybe instead of your two fucking ridiculous and offensive options, we go with the one that makes sense and doesn’t treat this person that you don’t know like trash.
Option 3: You punch yourself in the face until you break your hand.
Wild that you can’t even pretend to imagine someone might have a different opinion than you.I think her take isn’t great. But unlike you, I have no reason to believe that people who I disagree only have incredibly negative motivations for their disagreement.
I think as a prominent Indigenous person in the entertainment industry, there’s a level of expectation for her to see it and provide her opinion on it. Even for people who don’t feel pressure as public figures, there’s often an expectation from others in your cultural group that you’re gonna watch that buzzy movie that features your culture.Second, there’s a difference between having an idea what to expect from the trailer and then actually experiencing the whole 3+ hour long thing. She could have braced herself but found it more affecting than she’d anticipated.
This. She’s going to get asked about it constantly, so OP’s suggestion is that she respond ‘I didn’t watch it.’? Yeah, that’s going to go over well, I’m sure nobody would crucify her for that.
eh, she’s a rising star and a native american, makes sense she’s going to be asked about this movie a bunch of times and i’m sure there was pressure on her to see it and comment on it, at least in support of the Osage crewmen and native american actors
Sorry, First Nations!
I’m amazed by how often assholes share this take because they are constitutionally incapable of listening to other viewpoints.
How would she know exactly what the movie would entail without seeing it? If she criticized it without seeing it, y’all would be up her ass even more. Do you actually just want her to not voice her opinion at all?
Jacobs said she nevertheless “would prefer to see a $200 million movie from an Osage filmmaker telling this history, any day of the week.”I’d love this too, but a studio simply is not going to fund it. Marty’s probably one of the only living filmmakers who could convince Apple to cut that check. We need to find a more nuanced way to talk about who gets to tell these stories and how they’re framed, because Nolan caught a bunch of shit from ppl angry he didn’t show the Japanese suffering and now Marty’s catching stick because he did show the Osage suffering. If the movie was painful, grueling and unrelenting… maybe that was the point?
I haven’t seen KOTFM but my understanding is that Scorsese did shift focus a lot more to Mollie and Ernest, initially it was focused on the FBI agent character. He did try to focus more on the Osage, and tell their story, but he is still a white guy, for better or worse. And unfortunately, you’re right that right now no Native director is going to get $200M to tell this kind of story.
The book is sort of bifurcated in that way – Hoover and what would become the FBI don’t come in until later, when the scope of the murders and lack of action by local or state police became evident and impossible to ignore. Bringing more of that part of the book into the film would have further diluted what was happening with the Osage. So it’s a weird complaint that he didn’t focus more on their story since he jettisoned much of what did not.
The book is all about Tom White the FBI guy. The movie is HEAVILY reworked perspective wise whichever I’d say is good.
Agreed – though for the record Jacobs is allowed her critique and I respect it! I would never try to speak for a Native person.
“though for the record Jacobs is allowed her critique”
Go back to being a pedantic editor rather than this condescending paternalism you’ve got going on right now.
I listened to an interview on NPR, and apparently Leo was supposed to play the FBI agent that was eventually played by Jesse Plemons; but Scorsese thought putting the big star in that role would shift the focus to him instead of the Osage people and the atrocities, and would make it seem like a “whodunit”. Unfortunately getting movies made is a business, and Scorsese can get a film like this made a lot easier than someone from the Osage nation. But he did have consultants and hired as many Osage people as wanted to be in the film. One critic said the movie would have been better as a mini series, where it could have gone further into seeing Hoover stop this investigation, not make it seem like the Plemons character saved the day, etc. I also listened to the original interview with the author of the book this film is based on. I didn’t know anything about this, and I sat in my car in the parking lot of a shopping center, sick to my stomach, listening to him describe what was done. This reminds me a bit of how people find out about historical events regarding the Civil Rights movement (like the children’s march in Birmingham) from Drunk History, or the events in Tulsa from that Watchman series on HBO. So much white washing has been done to the stories about Blacks and Native Americans, isn’t it better that at least somebody is getting these stories into the mainstream? If it prompts people to want to know more?
That was definitely the point While I certainly respect her view, I don’t agree that seeing those killings normalizes them. Seeing them and knowing for certain that they were done by white people just to steal their money (instead of leaving them ambiguous) makes them more horrific. Sometimes the violence in a gangster movie can be glamorized, but I did not feel that it was in this movie. It just made me mad that it was allowed to happen.
Hot take: I don’t think Scorsese ever /intentionally/ glamorizes crime in his films. His stories are always about people who get swept into the life (or are born into it) and no matter what success they enjoy, they eventually lose everything that really matters. The problem may be that he communicates the allure of ill-gotten gain so effectively that audiences come away thinking only about that high life.
I don’t think that’s a hot take, just an accurate one that pretty much describes “Goodfellas,” “Casino,” and a few others.This one didn’t really show Earnest and Molly living exceptionally well compared to those around them and King was always clearly evil in a way that wasn’t seductive except to greedy, lazy people like Earnest. No front row seats at the Copa or anything like that and it was a time and place where even the rich were kind of dusty and dirty all the time. That may have helped make the violence less “glamorous.”
It’s Truffaunt’s quote about all war movies ending up being pro-war. It’s exciting and there’s no way around that.
I agree with you. I don’t see how seeing atrocities normalizes them. Who saw Schindler’s List or Sophie’s Choice and thought, “everything’s fine here”. I don’t even know how to respond to a statement like that.Knowing that a bunch of asshole white men killed all these people just because they were making money off the oil ON THEIR LAND, and then the extent that the cover up went on, makes me mad as Hell. This isn’t some bullshit John Wayne movie about him fighting “Indians”. Those movies normalized violence against Native Americans.
Admittedly, I haven’t seen KoTF yet but I did read the book. I just don’t know how you treat Osage deaths “with honor and dignity” when those who committed the atrocities against them didn’t show them honor or dignity. I guess you could minimize the screen time spent on those deaths, but then you’d have a whole other group angry that the deaths feel tossed off or weren’t given enough impact.I truly think with these kinds of stories there’s just no pleasing everyone.
Well, for instance…
At what point does the violence depicted become more gratuitous than there to serve the story being told. Do I need to see a woman’s brain fall out of her skull as she’s being lifted out of the wreckage of her bombed home to both understand and be enraged by the wrongs commited against the Osage?
I’d say no…
I can’t speak to whether or not you personally need to see that imagery, but I think there is a conversation to be had about carefully deploying brutal violence to demonstrate inhumanity. There’s a difference between saying someone was murdered vs. saying someone was murdered by being repeatedly beaten, stabbed, tortured and mutilated. Both statements would technically be true, but only one sheds light on the magnitude of suffering. You can’t brutalize a people without being brutal. Backing away from depicting that only serves to continue its minimalization. But that’s just my opinion.
Marty’s probably one of the only living filmmakers who could convince Apple to cut that check.But why did the film need a check that big? From what I heard, Leo was paid $30 million. Why did he need $30 million for this role?
Filmmaking is extremely expensive, especially a period piece where nearly every single location has to be built from scratch. Not to mention the huge cast, period costumes, props, antique cars, explosions, etc. And it’s a 3.5 hour movie shot over 99 days with a massive crew. For comparison, the average indie movie shoots for around 15-30 days. Leo’s salary is what it is, but for all that $200m seems pretty reasonable from my experience.
Because actors are compensated proportionately to the attention and potential revenue their inclusion brings to the project. DiCaprio is one of the few huge movie stars remaining, his presence in a film pretty much guarantees wide visibility and interest and hopefully profit, and so he is paid for that. It’s a ridiculous (maybe even obscene) amount of money for any one person to earn for a year of their life, but it is also measurable value. If actors made only a small, disproportionately low amount of money when the work they did raked in huge profits, well….that’s what the SAG strike is all about.
To squint and make a ridiculous attempt at doing an accent?
Part of the reason the budget was so large is likely because multiple actors would have demanded a higher salary to account for a lack of profit participation, given that this is produced by Apple and they probably wouldn’t have finalised the distribution model during pre-production.
This is sadly almost certainly true. An indie filmmaker could make the movie for sure, but it’d almost never get a wide release without Scorsese’s name (and Dicaprio and Deniro’s names) behind it.
“We need to find a more nuanced way to talk about who gets to tell these stories”Why would we do that when that strategy has produced very little progress in the lifetime of cinema?
Why would we do that when that strategy has produced very little progress in the lifetime of cinema?what is this supposed to mean?
Part of the point of these criticisms is that the effects of genocide are ongoing. That includes white domination of who gets to tell stories. The reason that only a white male director gets to tell these stories is because white male directors have benefit from that genocide.
“ Nolan caught a bunch of shit from ppl angry he didn’t show the Japanese suffering”Yeah, but those were mouth-breathers who were actively pretending we don’t have a list of acclaimed films about post-bombing Japan.
Hell just give more directing opportunities to Sterlin Harjo, the guy who directed Reservation Dogs. It’s bullshit to say that ‘there aren’t enough good Native directors yet’, it’s just that Hollywood doesn’t trust them enough to make an insane profit, which is all it cares about. How to fix this movie is to have it be directed by someone by someone with a Native perspective. Scorsese is great, but he’s always going to tell the white perspective, because that’s all he knows.
The “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” point is fair. Having a big name director/stars driving audiences to see the movie reminds me of the billy eichner romcom. Didn’t have any big names, a first time director and despite being considered “very important” culturally it did OK, but not fantastically.
They would if Scorsese exec’d it.
Maybe people should just take criticism like this less personally rather than asking for a softer way for critics to express their opinions?
I don’t agree with all of her points, but I understand and respect her view on this. I’m Jewish, I’ve seen Schindler’s List, it’s not a fun experience watching your people be oppressed and murdered on screen, and it’s probably even more difficult to watch it be depicted by someone who looks like the people who did it, even though obviously Scorsese’s intentions are noble. (Funny enough, Scorsese was supposed to direct Schindler’s List but eventually swapped with Spielberg, who was supposed to make Cape Fear). As for the movie, I liked a lot of things about it, it’s well acted and it looks amazing, but I felt like it did focus too much on the white characters, especially the relationship between Leo and De Niro, to the detriment of the Osage perspective, and even the more compelling relationship between Ernest and Mollie, who largely disappears from the narrative for the entire middle part of the film. It also felt like it lost the scope of the book, which has larger point to make about a changing country, one moving on from its wild west days to a more modern society, and how J Edgar Hoover used the Osage murders to consolidate power to create the FBI. All of that is either lost entirely or pushed way into the background. And it’s not like there wasn’t enough time to make some of these larger points, and give more time to the Osage, given the length of the movie. David Ehrlich articulated a lot of how I felt in his positive but also somewhat reserved review:https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/killers-of-the-flower-moon-review-1234865405/
Schindler’s List is a great comparison because, like this movie, it’s not really *about* the victims. There’s a reason that movie focused on Schindler, a non-Jew, rather than any of the workers in his factory. Obviously, the evils of the Holocaust are depicted, but they’re in the service of a story about evil and how one morally ambiguous man can be inspired by great evil to turn around and do great good.To me (and I only saw it a few days ago, so my feelings may change), KotFM is about white complicity. It is saying that we are all DiCaprio: we may think we’re less evil than the DeNiro’s of the world who fully orchestrate atrocities, but we’re still there, helping those men all along and profiting from their sins. We know what’s in that poisoned medicine, even if we lie to ourselves and pretend we don’t.I have great sympathy for someone like Jacobs who’s not only seeing the butchering of her people onscreen but is also forced to wonder why the biggest Indigenous-focused movie is decades is really *about* white people. That’s gotta be incredibly frustrating. And, same as the Jews in the early 90s who really hated Schindler’s List (Shoah director Claude Lanzmann, for example, had a scathing take), her opinion is worthwhile and understandable, even if one disagrees with it.Personally, I think both Killers and Schindler’s are both incredible movies. Are they the perfect examination of the Reign of Terror and Holocaust respectively? Of course not. How could they be? But, judged on what they are (examinations of a certain type of human evil), I think they’re both tremendous works.
That’s a really interesting take on the movie and Leo’s character. I had a hard time fully understanding his motivations throughout the film (besides the obvious greed) but if he’s meant to be a stand in for the “white moderate” (to borrow a phrase from Martin Luther King) that makes more sense. I might see the movie again (if I can find 4 hours to kill again at some point) and I might like it a bit more if I watch it through that lens.
Thanks! I definitely don’t know if this is the read that was intended (or even close to it), but it’s the interpretation that brought things together in my head.The instrumental moment for me is in the final conversation between Ernest and Mollie. She asks the big question: Did you poison me? However, she doesn’t seem to react to the answer in a big way. Same as how she didn’t really react to the courtroom reveals that Ernest was involved in her family’s murders and fully confesses to it.If she’s not reacting, to me, that means she already knows. And, if she already knows, then that means the scene is really about him. She’s asking him a question she knows the answer to to force him to confront what he actually did.The arc with the poison, as I remember it is as follows:1. The doctors give him the poison and tell him there’s something in it “to slow her down.” This is enough for him to give himself plausible deniability. What they mean is obvious but, in his cowardly mind, he can deny it.2. They give him something more powerful and speak more clearly about what it is. It’s harder to deny.3. Drunkenly, he gives himself the poison, peeking behind the mental curtain he’s hung up for himself.4. She forces him to confront the truth.To me, that’s the key thematic arc of the story. And, if so, then the story is about confronting one’s own complicity and guilt in a great evil. More broadly speaking, about white America doing so.
Again, this is just my hot take reading.
That is SUCH a fantastic take and very true. She would have forgiven him. Remember her about the letters in the river?
Do you think she would have forgiven him? I’m not sure. But her feelings seem purposefully up for interpretation at the end.What was the letters in the river? I don’t remember that bit (god, it was a long movie)
While I really agree a lot with what you said, we WANTED Scorcese to show it and if you knew the story ever since you were a kid, you’ll realize it is COMPLETELY OSAGE. Even the final act where Lily is sidelined. It was great to watch the bad man go down. I was at the premier and we clapped when the man in the black hat showed up, we weren’t offended. Finally someone was there to help us. We didn’t care what color they were.Also, since she didn’t grow up Osage (and I’ve heard only visited the reservation once) she doesn’t know what she is talking about. This movie showed the comedy of errors. And the real bad guy in the film? Money. Her words are hurtful because as someone said below, they think this will be a Greenbook. Couldn’t be further from the truth. She is making this to be an evil movie when I want it to win Best Picture so the story will never be forgotten.
I saw Shoah as a teenager and it affected me so deeply that I’ve never forgotten (or even fully processed) the emotional impact of its horrors. And after Shoah I thought that Shindler’s List was was completely pointless. In comparison to Shoah, Shindler’s List minimized the immensity and devastation of the Holocaust and Shindler’s List had nothing to say about its protagonist, why this man made a moral and brave choice is still a complete mystery at the end of the movie.
I feel it’s vital that Schindler’s was directed by a Jewish person, while Killers was not directed by someone of Osage heritage.
Personally, considering that so much of Schindlers is about German guilt, I would have been fine with a German person directing it to reckon with their history. And I say that as a Jew.But I can’t really argue with anyone who feels differently. I totally understand the feeling that that story NEEDED to be told by a Jewish person, same with Killers NEEDING to be told by a member of the Osage tribe. I think that’s a completely valid feeling, even if I don’t share it.I think, to me, it’s because filmmaking is a communal art and I don’t hold as much with auteur theory believing that a movie is purely the work of the director. But, again, deciding who is *allowed* to tell a story isn’t really a question with a right or wrong answer. It’s an opinion thing, and I totally get yours and, from the article, Jacobs’.
Yep, the Holocaust on film was also my immediate reaction (also Jewish).What’s interesting is that Scorsese, when adapting the book, realized not enough focus was on the Osage victims. (I enjoyed the book, and don’t think this is necessarily a slight on it; some things work in a nonfiction book that don’t work on screen where the characters and perspective are more central). He had enough insight to realize that. (Compare to Schindler’s List — where though Spielberg did have a sense of jewish victimhood and pain, and the directing does reflect it, the script and characters are not structured to receive sufficient focus). But, he’s still coming at it from an outside perspective and he didn’t conceive the story the way someone Osage would have.
He literally lived on the Reservation just like David Grann before him. this is absolutely from the Osage side.
I think it does make the point about the changing country. In a lot of ways, this was a standard Scorcese mobster movie, just set in 1920 Oklahoma instead of 1980 NY or Boston. In the scenes where King is setting up all the guys he hired and can testify against him to get killed, I could practically hear the Layla Piano Exit playing in my head. To me, he was showing the “Old West” moving into the modern world. Also centering on cars a lot and showing people using strings of electric lights to reduce their fears shows modernity creeping in.
It’s reasonable to bring up Schindler’s. Yet it does drive home the important point being made, because that movie was directed and produced by Jews, whereas this had some Osage participation and input.I also dislike watching Schindler’s List. Although it’s still better than that Robin Williams holocaust movie.
Shame we never got Jerry Lewis’s
The problem is that there aren’t a lot of Osage left. There are only 4 actual 100% due to what happened in the movie. It is why Lili Gladstone was contravercial pick for the movie from the Osage perspective. She isn’t Osage. Osage were one of the first tribes to accept Christianity, because we are just very inclusive. (we don’t all follow, but it is a big part of our past). Scorcese did us very right by the film. The Osage Nation members allowed the story to be presented by Marty. We had a big part in the production. Please don’t say there should have been an Osage (not simply native american) direct the film. We don’t have a Spielberg.
the most prominent being that while Scorsese is an undeniable storytellerIs this what you meant to write? Shouldn’t it be something like “undeniably gifted storyteller?”I’m legit asking because sometimes english surprises me.
A lack of editors means mistakes like this undeniable.
Absolutely nothing wrong with it as is.
The sentence is technically correct. You can not deny that he is, in fact, a storyteller.
And KOTFM is by any metric inarguably one of the movies of all time.
Some might even say it’s an all-time movie, as I don’t expect it will stop being a movie any time soon.
Since no one else seems keen on giving you a straight answer (or, at least, not a thorough one), I’ll chime in.You’re right in pointing out that this phrasing is unconventional. Most people would say “undeniably gifted storyteller” since the modifiers are more cleanly divided and transparently understood.“What is he?”
“He’s a storyteller.”
“Is he good one?”
“Yes, he’s gifted.”
“Is there dispute at how gifted he is?”
“No, he’s an undeniably gifted storyteller.”You get the idea.That said, though, the way it is written now is also still a grammatically correct sentence; it just leaves much of its intended meaning up to implication and subtext rather than overt, obvious signifiers.Basically, it’s implying that just like many jobs, being a storyteller is inherently an impressive skill. This implication is casually understood because that’s how job titles work: most people know that doing a job well is inherently pretty hard, so if someone has earned the right to be called by that job title, that must mean they’ve mastered the ability to do the job so well that people would want to apply that job description, making it easier for folk to call on them to do that job again. (Apologies if that was a long-winded sentence).So by saying that Martin Scorcese is an “endeniable storyteller,” it’s saying that not only is he good at his job (telling stories), but that his being good at that job is pretty much undisputed.So that means that, yes, you could for example also say “Mario is an undeniable plumber,” and instead of thinking you’re bad at speaking English, people will instead understand your meaning as “Oh, they’re saying this guy Mario, who’s a plumber, is good at his job.”Hope that helps. :)…Also, my condolences for learning English as a second language. Being a mix of at least three different language roots (and counting), it really is a frustratingly obtuse, contradictory, ambiguous language that is regularly as clear as mud. Good luck!
It depends how much work you assume “storyteller” is doing. If you consider it a synonym to raconteur, it doesn’t really need an additional adjective.
I mean technically it is undeniable that he’s a storyteller.
I haven’t seen the film yet, so I can’t say whether or not the Osage characters were underdeveloped or underutilized. But if the events displayed were graphic and tragic, that’s because the real-life events were too, and it’s important that it doesn’t get forgotten.Noting that the Osage had a hand in helping bring the film to life, Jacobs said she nevertheless “would prefer to see a $200 million movie from an Osage filmmaker telling this history, any day of the week.” Indigenous people “exist beyond our grief, trauma & atrocities,” the actor pointed out. “Our pride for being Native, our languages, cultures, joy & love are way more interesting & humanizing than showing the horrors white men inflicted on us.”This is something I sort of agree with. The obvious counterargument would be “Well the film probably wouldn’t make money,” but KOTFM likely won’t make money either, so why not?And even if you disagree with her, it’s important to not just dismiss her opinion (the same applies to Jacobs too). Isn’t the point of capital-C cinema to generate these types of discussions, even if they’re uncomfortable? Not to just simply praise someone for making it and just leaving it at that.
This is something I sort of agree with. The obvious counterargument would be “Well the film probably wouldn’t make money,” but KOTFM likely won’t make money either, so why not?But it probably will win Oscars.Which is still its own nightmare of why white men are most likely to win awards, but Scorsese brings the prestige, for better or worse.I do agree that more needs to be done to get studios to a point where there is the indigenous equivalent to Scorsese.
it will be green book all over again.
Yeah, if Green Book had included the horrific violence inflicted on Black people in the Jim Crow South.
If this movie wins Oscars (and it will, most likely), Scorsese and DiCaprio need to pull a Brando and designate a Sacheen Littlefeather (or rather, someone with actual Native connections) to collect their awards for them. Without the Osage tragedy, they don’t have a story.
Lily Gladstone is the actual frontrunner of the group.
But it probably will win Oscars.Will it? Because that same thing has been said about multiple movies and only one can win in each category. I haven’t seen this, Barbie, or Oppenheimer, but someone has to lose. Is Scorsese better than Gerwig this year?
Lily Gladstone is frontrunner for Best Actress.DeNiro is seen as a possible spoiler for Ryan Gosling in Supporting Actor and Scorsese and Nolan are neck and neck for director. I also wasn’t meaning to imply Scorsese would win – look at how many times he lost – so much as the fact his name gets eyes on the movie.There are also technical awards like production design and costume that could be a toss up.
I don’t doubt Gosling will be nominated, but until Killers of the Flower Moon Supporting Actor was RDJ’s to lose. Now he has serious competition from De Niro, not to mention any other breakout performances yet to come (a la Andrea Riseborough last year.)When it comes to Best Director/Best Picture, I can see the Academy giving one to Nolan/Oppenheimer and the other to Scorsese/Killers of the Flower Moon.
The obvious counterargument would be “Well the film probably wouldn’t make money,” but KOTFM likely won’t make money either, so why not?I would also argue that a film told by an Indigenous filmmaker focusing on the Osage perspective also simply might not have cost $200 million. A smaller risk might have made the reward worth it.When I think about just how big the scope of the story is (which is why I don’t think a movie told entirely or even mainly from the Osage Nation’s perspective would have worked), and how many different ways there are to tell the story, my takeaway is that the real missed opportunity was to not make this a mini-series. That way there would have been slightly less pressure to cast movie stars like De Niro and DiCaprio, but you still could have had recognizable stars as their characters, and then devoted even more time to Mollie and her family.
When I saw the running time that’s exactly what I thought: why not create a series and then you can make it six hours long. Scorcese hates ‘streaming’ even though The Irishman was funded by Netflix and this movie by Apple TV. I don’t understand his objections, really – his odd rant about “curating.” Streaming content is the future and it can be just as brilliant as anything made exclusively for film audiences.
The Osage characters probably were underdeveloped to a degree, but the movie has a truly overwhelming amount of characters, and I had a lot of trouble identifying and differentiating many of the white characters, and very little trouble keeping track of named Osage characters. At one point, the movie time skips and there’s three times as many white people floating about all of a sudden, and I had no idea who they were. I had to look up Myrtie and Willie Hale on IMDB because I’m not sure if they’re ever named or even addressed by anyone in the film, but they’re often in the wings emotionally reacting to what’s happening to the real characters
The counter-argument is problematic because it gives studios an excuse for making “progressive” movies that don’t actually do anything to help or promote the talent of the people whose stories they’re telling. After a certain point, that’s just exploitative.
And even if we accept that Scorsese had to be attached as director to get the funding, there are significant creative positions below “director” where he could have made decisions that would have allowed for a more balanced perspective. Instead he teamed up with a white screenwriter to adapt another white guy’s book about an essentially Osage tragedy. I do believe his intentions were good and that he made more of an effort than a lot of white filmmakers would have to make sure Osage culture was depicted correctly on what ends up being the periphery of the film. I also believe it’s necessary to point out that that’s just not good enough, especially in 2023.
Really, the frustration here is that this is how most movies about minority groups and virtually all major studio movies about native groups are made, and that’s entirely justified. Scorsese’s obviously a great storyteller, and if this were one movie in a rich cinematic tradition where Osage voices were put on the same level as white ones, it would be a fine movie about Ernest Burkhart. But instead it’s part of a long legacy of movies that tell other people’s stories only in terms of how they affect white people. That one of the stars of Reservation Dogs is bringing this critique should really focus it for people who have seen both, because the difference in the portrayals of native characters is fucking stark.
I would all the characters Osage and otherwise outside of Molly and Earnest are not fully developed (Maybe to a lesser extent Robert Deniro’s characters. I say this as someone who really enjoyed the movie. I just think the movie had a narrow focus on those three characters.
What’d she think of Prey?
I googled and found this neat article. She and Amber Midthunder are hanging out and getting lunch:
https://ca.style.yahoo.com/devery-jacobs-indigenous-representation-elle-interview-171232472-171232390.htmlSo presumably she didn’t hate it.
Sooo….she’s not a fan of how Native people were treated throughout history, which this movie shows.Shiiiiit. Should we tell her about every film about slavery ever made?
https://www.thewrap.com/snoop-dogg-slams-roots-i-aint-watching-that-s-video/
Option A: Bitch because you feel your struggles aren’t seen.
Option B: Bitch because your struggles are up for everyone to see.Personally, I’d just go with:
Option C: Just bitch about shit. For the fuck of it. Don’t even bother with an argument, you’ll trip yourself up over it.Humanity continues to be a mistake.
k
Can you fuck off back to whatever backwoods sister-fucking OK shithole you came from?
Do you want to dig into the myriad criticisms of white directors focusing on slavery and using it for awards fodder?
Ever heard of Steve McQueen (the British one)? Julie Dash? Heile Garima? Henry Louis Gates Jr.? Kasi Lemmons?I’m gonna take that as a resounding no.
Black people have made slavery movies so that means criticism of white directors is irrelevant? What point do you think you’re making
Friendo, anyone can make whatever the fuck they want, as long as it’s respectful and reverent to history, and/or the source material. That’s my point. Go back to my original comment. It hasn’t been edited, it can’t be edited since it has replies:
Sooo….she’s not a fan of how Native people were treated throughout history, which this movie shows.Shiiiiit. Should we tell her about every film about slavery ever made?I never made this into an argument of what colored dude made what colored movie. Slavery is an uncomfortable, shitty topic no matter who you are. But you seem to be under this delusion that films about slavery are the wheelhouse of just old white guys whoring for awards. And because you can criticize a few of them, I guess it’s okay to apply that blanket logic to all of them, amirite?Friend, cuz, fam, fucking every film ever made is award bait. All shapes, all sizes, all colors. Everyone involved wants recognition for their work, some more than others.But now…let’s just shit on them because it makes for a better narrative! White guy makes a movie that portrays the inhumane treatment of Native Americans? Why, that’s exploitation! It’s offensive! …Even though…the movie makes a very, very important note to historically accurately depict the whites as the inhuman pieces of shit, and the Natives who faced grave injustices.But nah. The director is an old white guy, so fuck him. Who gives a shit what his intentions may be, or what message the film conveys.People don’t even watch shit anymore. They just jump on social media and fucking moan. The internet was a goddamn mistake.
But you seem to be under this delusion that films about slavery are the wheelhouse of just old white guys whoring for awards.I never said that slavery movies were exclusively made by old white guys dumbass, learn how to read
Criticizing a Scorsese movie for being too violent is kind of like criticizing the pope for being too religious. But I do understand why from her perspective she wouldn’t like it & I think I would probably prefer her version too, especially if it is as well-directed as her “Deer Lady” flashback episode this season on Reservation Dogs–which didn’t wallow in the horrific violence and death inflicted on the native children in the boarding school, I think a wise and tasteful choice.
“Criticizing a Scorsese movie for being too violent is kind of like criticizing the pope for being too religious.”Would be interesting to contrast critic’s responses to violence in movies between Scorsese and Tarantino.
“Criticizing a Scorsese movie for being too violent is kind of like criticizing the pope for being too religious.”
She didn’t criticize it for being too violent, she criticized it for being too graphic.
“Criticizing a Scorsese movie for being too violent is” not what she did.
She doesn’t seem to be critiquing the film in the sense that she’s saying the film is bad or poorly made. She seems to be saying that she would rather not see a movie about this subject. I don’t know if I agree with that because I do think documenting any groups trauma is important – how many people are hearing this story for the first time? – and it’s valid to continue to point to the need for more indigenous storytellers to tell their own stories, though I appreciate that Scorsese did connect with members of the Osage.
No she is saying that Marty didn’t take the appropriate care in directing the movie.
Which is a joke since per the tribe itself he always accepted their input.
“No she is saying that Marty didn’t take the appropriate care in directing the movie.
No, she isn’t. She said what she said, there is literally *NO* reason for you to put words in her mouth.
I was completely unaware of any of this story prior to reading the book. It’s a brutal one, but should absolutely be told. I think the suggestion that only an Osage filmmaker should have the right to do it is an unrealistic one, though.
She wants certain bits of history to go untold because it makes her uncomfortable.Golly gosh.I wonder who the fuck that sounds like.
“She wants certain bits of history to go untold because it makes her uncomfortable.”
No, she fucking doesn’t. She didn’t say that and you have no reason to put those words in her mouth.
“She wants certain bits of history to go untold because it makes her uncomfortable.”
No she fucking doesn’t. She SPECIFICALLY does not want it to go untold.
Next time you want to share your stupid opinion, maybe you could shove it up your ignorant ass instead.
You are literally too stupid to insult.
Implying she’s a fascist for criticizing a movie is wild
With many tragedies like this it’s a delicate balance between retelling so it doesn’t happen again versus gratuitous depictions and traumatizing people
Jacobs praised star Lily Gladstone and the other Indigenous actors as “the only redeeming factors of this film,” writing that “the Osage characters felt painfully underwritten” compared to the white antagonists. I’m not Indigenous, but I strongly disagree. For all of the screentime the white characters get, I thought they were the ones painfully underwritten. I kept struggling to understand why we were following Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, and by the end of the film it seemed like the answer was simply because he was married to the surviving member of Lily Gladstone’s character’s family. I thought Robert De Niro gave a thankfully nuanced performance, but his character never ends up any deeper than initially presented. He’s a horrible human being whose atrocities are amplified by how he pretends to be a friend to the people he’s murdering. The other white participants are just as dumb and greedy as Leo’s character.By contrast, I thought the Osage characters were presented as three-dimensional characters. I thought there was a lot of different personalities even in Mollie’s family alone. They felt very real to me, which made the tragedy of watching them murdered one by one even more painful.I don’t know why we’re all acting like the reason this movie focuses on white characters isn’t because that Apple would never have handed Scorsese all this money without bankable A-list stars in the lead roles. I think in spite of that Scorsese made a beautiful film, but hopefully someone else revisits this story from a different perspective.
Another thing about DeNiro’s performance is that I sometimes couldn’t believe they didn’t see through him. I guess there’s only so much one can do when history is history, and you can’t change the fact that Hale apparently hoodwinked everyone, but there are a few times when DeNiro is almost at ‘Man in Hot Dog Suit’ levels of “We’re all trying to find out who’s doing this.”
Honestly, history sometimes just has cartoonishly awful people who are so obviously bad and yet this is somehow a shock. Ted Bundy looks like a smiling devil in each photo yet somehow every friend was like, I’d never guess he murders people.
I am always shocked by people talking about how charming and handsome Bundy was in person. That motherfucker has one of the most disturbing and terrifying cases of crazy eyes I’ve ever seen.
I know right? That court photo of him just looks like exactly what a guy who murdered dozens of women looked like. If your in the UK there’s a woman named Myra Hindley who has the host terrifyingly awful mug shot, and yet the same reaction. Oh no it can’t be her she’s a good lady. HOW!?!?!
To be fair, that probably is the reason though. I’m sure Scorsese was passionate about telling the story about the Osage people but he’s been in the Hollywood game long enough to know how to sell a film to the people who cut checks. Though… looking at Scorsese’s film list I am also kinda seeing a pattern.
Yah, that’s what I’m saying. From what I’ve seen, most people are under the assumption that Scorsese chose not to focus on the Osage. And when presented with the information that Scorsese himself changed the perspective away from the FBI (which the book mostly focused on), most people seem to assume that Scorsese still chose not to frame the story from an Osage person’s POV out of a personal blind spot. But I don’t think there was any practical world where Scorsese could have made a $200 million film about the Osage murders without a white man in the lead.I think it’s fair to question whether he really needed a $200 million budget to tell this story, but I also believe that this movie’s mere existence exposes a much larger audience to the story of these murders – even to people who don’t see the movie – in a way that’s necessary IMO.
What would revisiting the story from their perspective even look like? “I was really enjoying being alive, and then I really didn’t enjoy getting murdered”?
Generally speaking, there’s not a tremendous amount of depth to greedy racist murderous pieces of shit. The white folks in that movie didn’t believe the Osage had any rights to that money, and killed as many as they could to get their windfall. There’s not much else digging necessary.
pretty good movie, but i thought it was a misstep when the camera pulled back to reveal marty in the director’s chair and he turned all the way around and said “i’m depicting all of this because i endorse it and think it’s good” straight into the lens
Yeah, but Gen Z loves it when you break the fourth wall, so he had no choice.
“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.”I mean not to sound rude or dismissive of her criticism because much of it is valid (plus anybody’s read is subjective and is therefore fair), but frankly, murdered Native Americans are kinda exactly what you signed up for when you went to see the movie. Granted, I haven’t read the book on which the movie was based, so maybe Scorsese is giving more time to the white guys than he should’ve (or hell, maybe the author of the book was also underwriting the Osage) but again, it’s basically what the story is about.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but have read the book. A bunch of pages are dedicated to Hoover’s efforts in Washington to consolidate power under the nascent FBI, which it sounds like the movie largely skips.
It does. Hoover isn’t even a character. There’s only a single, off-handed mention of him.
Which, thank fuck for that. Already got one Hoover in the movie already.
Ah. Well then the complaints are a little more understandable (although putting focus on another white guy probably wouldn’t do anything to address Jacobs’ complaints)
So only whites should see it? Interesting take.
well ‘m not gonna
That’s not what I said at all? But yeah sure if that’s your takeaway whatever
Too bad John Sayles didn’t get a crack at this. He’s one of the few established directors who could have brought the right tone. For way less than $200 million as well I’m guessing.
The director of Lone Star? God that would have been lovely.
Chris Cooper would cost a whole lot less than De Niro…and it’s not like he’s a worse actor.
Chris Cooper would also presumably bring fewer audiences than De Niro. There’s probably some bean counter that ran the numbers and determined that Scorsese movies with DiCaprio and De Niro in them gross more than Scorsese movies with just DiCaprio.
This was in response to a hypothetical John Sayles version of the story…which would almost certainly be (at least) an hour shorter and cost 1/100th of the budget.Meanwhile, there’s definitely an Osage version of the story that’s written as a tight, sub-2h psychological thriller centered on Mollie’s perspective as her family, friends, and fellow Osage are being murdered…as opposed to a 3.5h historical epic written from the perspective of the murderers.
Sorry, that flew over my head.Depending on how many liberties with the story one is willing to excuse, I’m not sure that Mollie’s perspective would be the best one to frame this story around (at least not as most people’s first exposure to this story), but I would love to see an Osage version of this story.
No worries – Kinja is the William Hale of commenting platforms!
All I know is I want to hear more from white people about how her opinion is invalid or wrong. Especially from people who admit they haven’t even seen the movie.
Native Americans have been murdered thousands of times in movies. For once a filmmaker decided to make a movie based on a true story and to show the weight, sadness, horror and cruelty of those killings.
There is no white savior crafted for the audience like in The Last of the Mohicans or Dancing with the Wolves.
It’s centered around 2 white characters you think you’re supposed to like, and then slowly discover that you’ve been routing for a 2 faced racist psychopath and an idiot henchman.
It is painful to watch, but that’s the point, it has to be painful to everyone who watches it. It is normal that it is even more painful for Natives, but that movie wasn’t made to torment them.
I feel like there aren’t enough different Native viewpoints on this film, only the critical ones. So here’s a Native American journalist and film critic’s review, in which he expounds that it’s not only Scorsese’s best movie, but in his opinion one of the best movies period. https://nativeviewpoint.com/native-viewpoint-film-review-killers-of-the-flower-moon/
Thank you for this!
Outrage gets more clicks.
Articles are more likely to be written about the takes of people the audience is familiar with.
I do think there’s an argument to be had when misery/torture porn becomes the only narrative for a culture, especially indigenous cultures, it can be problematic. But at the same time so many atrocities and stories never get told, and to avoid them or sugarcoat them is to ignore history.
I think of that if I was to write a story about say, a trans historical figure. I don’t want every story to be a miserable one about society being cruel, but also that’s what basically always happened to said historical figures so I’m not sure how to square that issue.
That’s a fair point, i think some of it is on the filmmaker depicting a character as a nuanced person vs. a canvas for all negativity a given identity faces. Reminds me of dueling ruth bader ginsburg biopics from a few years ago. One was a extremely one dimensional culture warrior film (every single male in the movie scoffing “a woman judge?! guffaw!” but she sure showed them, eh?) and the other actually examined the people and events in her life with detail and depth
Yeah that’s probably the best way to handle it. Its easy to do a yeah you go girl type film with say, the Chevalier D’Eon, the sword fighting transgender spy for King Louis XVI in the 18th century. But also she kinda lied about her history often, had some interesting religious beliefs about Heaven being gender neutral and thus men are the weaker sex, and blamed gender dysphoria on the Jews. Its best not to be too lionizing when making a biopic. Everyone has done something bad or believes something regressive to a degree. PS I saw that On the Basis of Sex film with I think it was Felicity Jones. It wasn’t great.
This is a specific story about a Nation Osage, or you call tribe. It is only an indigenous (Native American a word I prefer but to each their own) in that there were a lot of nations around the American Landscape. This mazing story happened to this Nation. We will get numerous more stories about the Holocaust and perhaps other general native American experiences. This is likely the most important story ever told about the Osage Nation committed by the United States Nation. And it’s all true. Every frigging 3:30 mins.
What the hell difference would it really make if an Osage had made the movie? It’s still a story about them being murdered.
Sounds like someone’s a little pissed Scorsese didn’t call her for a part, more than anything.
“Sounds like someone’s a little pissed Scorsese didn’t call her for a part, more than anything.”
Yeah, the desperate redskin can’t have an honest opinion, right?
You sound like a fucking moron.
And you are vermin.
I liked the film an awful lot, but the thing that really bothered me was the radio show summation. It’s a terrific peek at how some dramatizations were done, but it amplified the fact that what we’d just seen was a dramatization, and not only cheapened it more than a little, but sort of rubbed our noses in the fact that this was exploitative and we were using it as entertainment — which we were, at least in part. I already felt kind of bad for buying snacks beforehand — but, hey, three and a half hours plus previews? Why should I go a bit hungry while watching a movie about people suffering? I paid nearly twenty dollars to rent that seat!
As a member of Osage Nation and a headrights owner (we are still tracked by the FBI, thankfully for the most part), I would hope the writer of this article would please ammend it with comments from the OSAGE. There is a difference between nations. We are not simply Americans with a lightly darker color. Comments like hers are offensive and I was at the premier with the other Osage and I can tell to a person, including Chris Cote have all tried to explain that she doesn’t represent the Osage Nation. She is Canadian who identify as Mohawk (I mean this because often people are of different tribes and Canadian Mohaws are not tracked like the Osage) Chris was taken out of context and I believe him. I was at the movie (with the granddaughter of Henry Roan) and like him saw it for the first time and was shocked at how absurd the violence was. But that is the point, it is all true. This is how it happened and after I collected my thoughts realized this is how absurd this was. The last third of the movie being from Ernests point of view is not true. It is from the Osage. FINALLY someone stopped the events. In the theater with other elders, we CLAPPED when we saw the man in the black hat (yes a white man) because he saved us. The last hour was a welcome sense of closure where the bad guys did lose and we all got to see them go down. Frankly a lot of us were laughing because it is so absurd and true.I hadn’t seen the movie but most of the tribe had, because Marty asked Apple to show it at the reservation (which they had no intention of doing). Its shocking, but it happened. This isn’t a movie per se, but more of a documentary. I asked the other Osage why she stuck around and they were pleased that it was shown, she loved him, and he loved her. Please read the statement from Chief Standing Bear due to the smear by this Canadian Mohawk who wasn’t there and ammend the article. At least put her “Nation” down and say she is not Osage.Also thank you to all who saw the movie, even if you didn’t like it (it is long and I would have liked an intermission. This is a story I heard about as a kid and no one talks about. If not for this movie, it would likely die with the people that endured it.Statement from Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear:“Killers of the Flower Moon” is an Osage story of trust and betrayal as directed by Martin Scorsese. 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.
You don’t get to erase her opinion or perspective.
100% this, thank you. She’s not Osage, and other than some vague idea that “all people of color should stick together,” I think it’s pretty offensive to lump all folks with one of the very many different Native American tribe heritages together, and assume their opinions are equally valid on the subject. I think someone of Canadian Mohawk heritage’s opinion on this is nowhere near as valid or as important as opinions from the Osage.
No way to win! What a nice encapsulation of the way these sort of movie politics always function.Killers is the epitome of everything this person should theoretically want from Scorsese. He took heavy liberties from the book literally doing what these types always pretend to want; he listened, he learned, he dramatically shifted the focus of the story to be less on the white people and more on the Osage people involved. So of course it wasn’t enough!If the movie had been less unflinching, brutal, and honest, then the complaint would obviously be that Scorsese downplayed the atrocities; same if the natives had had more “agency” and been less “helpless”. If the white people had been more sympathetic, he would obviously have been pilloried for historical revisionism and writing white saviors. Are these things not blatant? This person went into the movie wondering what type of angry Twitter thread they would write about it, let’s not keep pretending otherwise. Come on.
The story needs to be told, and then when it does get told it’s normalizing and profiting off of native suffering. Dedicate a whole movie to the Osage people and against white colonialism, and people will dedicate their scathing indictments of you the same way. You could make a perfect film that does nothing wrong (hey, to many Killers WAS that movie), and all they’ll say is it was wrong of you to make it instead of someone else.
That’s nice.
slurp shit
At this point I just want to know one thing: does the movie have to be so long? I want to see it but wasn’t willing to sit through Oppenheimer’s three hours. Do theatres do intermissions?
No one’s brought this up. Glad you brought it to everyones attention.
I certainly don’t have the perspective to begrudge any of Devery Jacobs’ points or her reaction in general. My amateur take on the movie is that it was about the fucked up shit that white guys did, for white audiences who should feel some shame (or at least heavy introspection) about it. There’s another perspective of the story that could/should be told, but this movie seems to be fueled on the premise of luring white audiences in with Scorcese’s deft storytelling and good performances, and then pulling the rug out from those audiences to help them feel some accountability for yet another atrocity committed against indigenous or stolen peoples. The rationalization, self-deceit, and total lack of interest about who they were victimizing was the point of the film. And I’d argue that story does need to be told, because generally, white folks still don’t seem to have gotten that memo. To reference the Schindler’s List example cited by other posters – that’s another movie that cracks open the minds of the monsters—partially as history, and partially as a warning about what people in positions of power and agency are capable of, and how they compartmentalize to accomplish selfish goals and commit heinous acts.
Can’t win for trying. Express the brutality against natives, your some kind of sadist. Then moan about stories that aren’t about the atrocities committed. And apparently she has never seen a Scorsese film. This is an absolute masterpiece of filmmaking. Oh well. Toss it down the memory hole.Again, can’t win for trying.
Yes, but what is her opinion on Martin Scorsese’s opinion on Marvel movies?
I like how she says imagine having to sit through. Like someone physically made her watch this movie.
I’m a fan of RD, but she’s delusional and entitled on this one.