Written by Kat Jivkova
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon explores the Osage Reign of Terror of the 1920s, based on David Grann’s account by the same name. While Grann concentrates on the Osage murder investigation led by the Bureau of Investigation, Scorsese brings the Osage Indian Nation to the forefront of his film in an effort to make visible the indigenous experience. Both Grann and Scorsese focus on the case of Mollie Burkhart, whose family was murdered during this period. This included her mother, the respected elder Lizzie Q. Kyle, and her sisters, Anna, Minnie and Rita – Minnie died of a “wasting illness” in 1918, Anna was found dead in May of 1921, Lizzie Q just two months later, and Rita in 1923. Killers of the Flower Moon has received an overwhelmingly positive response since its premiere on the 20th of October for its re-examination of a largely forgotten American tragedy. Prior to its release, Grann’s non-fiction book was considered the prime authority on the subject. Indeed, journalists have repeatedly voiced that the Osage murders would have been “erased” from US history had it not been for Grann’s investigative work on the events that unfolded. While he may have popularised the story within mainstream American culture, he certainly was not the first to write about it. Various other accounts of these events were documented, mainly in the 1990s. These included Osage writer Dennis McAuliffe’s Bloodland, Linda Hogan’s Mean Spirit, and Lawrence J. Hogan’s The Osage Indian Murders. I aim to briefly explore the history of the Osage oil murders and examine the ways in which Scorsese’s film divulges key aspects of this tragedy.
Historically, the Osage Nation resided in the land which spanned Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and west toward the Rocky Mountains. In the late-nineteenth century, the Osage were increasingly pressured by the US government to cede their lands and were subsequently left with a smaller area in Kansas. Suffering brutal attacks on their homes and people by settlers during this time, the Osage purchased a new piece of land, this time in Indian Territory, in the hopes of being left alone. In 1896, oil was discovered there, and the Osage once again became the targets of white settlers. Many of these settlers, for instance, married into Osage families in order to acquire their oil royalties which could only be inherited. As Grann argues, the murder plots of the early 1920s were “diabolical in nature” since the perpetrators were marrying into families under the pretence of love while simultaneously plotting to kill them. Approximately twenty-four Osage Indians were murdered or died in suspicious circumstances during the Reign of Terror. Yet, there were no reports on this epidemic of murders – In Bloodland, McAuliffe’s points out that, upon searching The New York Times Index for the 1920s, he found nothing on the Osages at all. Even more surprising is that the US Bureau of Investigation only began to consider this a “high-profile” case from the mid-1920s onwards, despite these murders having occurred in the early 1920s. The Osage Tribal Council had to file an official request and pay $20,000 to the Department of Justice for an investigation to even be considered. In a 1923 memorandum for the Director of Justice, the Bureau of Investigation stated the following:
“On account of their oil rights they [the Osage] for some time have been made the victims of murders and other outrages and are now especially being worked upon by all sorts of elements endeavouring to procure appointment as guardians, only to either murder them or procure their income in other ways.”
The Bureau eventually implicated Hale and Ernest Burkhart in 1926 (among others) for their role in the Osage oil murders, and they were sentenced to life imprisonment. Meanwhile, the federal government passed a law in 1925 which no longer allowed non-Osages to inherit the headrights of Osage people. Outside of the Burkhart case, the Bureau failed to solve many of the other Osage murders. As Grann notes, “the bureau didn’t reveal a deeper, darker conspiracy” and many escaped justice as a result.
Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon follows the character of Ernest Burkhart, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who is encouraged by his uncle, William Hale, to marry Mollie. William (Robert DeNiro), moulds himself as “King of the Osage” and a friend to the tribe, but he also plots the murders of Mollie’s kin in order to inherit her family’s oil rights. Grann describes the suspicious circumstances surrounding these deaths, and Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon follows very similar lines of reasoning. Both Mollie’s sister Minnie and her mother, for instance, most likely died of poisoning. In an interview with BBC Culture, Grann notes the following: “I found evidence of doctors administering poison”. Later in the film, Ernest administers Mollie with poisoned insulin for her diabetes, and she too falls prey to the “wasting disease” that so many other Osage people seemed to die of. The film can be split into two sections: the first being Ernest’s pursuit of Mollie and the second the aftermath of their marriage. From the beginning, we are made aware of whom the films “antagonists” are. This is arguably more compelling, as we are instead left wondering when and how their crimes will be exposed. Probably the most impressive aspect of the film is its costume design, including the prevalence of the Osage blankets, and the revitalisation of the Osage Siouan language.
What Scorsese perhaps fails to underline in Killers of the Flower Moon is that the federal government created the conditions that allowed for the murder of Osage people. Aside from encroaching on the Osage Nation’s ancestral homeland, the United States provided little response to the blatant murders and exploitation of the Osage for years after their migration to Oklahoma. In this respect, the federal government failed to maintain their federal-tribal relationship with the Osage. For a three-and-a-half-hour film, one would expect at least some acknowledgement of the complicity of the federal government in the Reign of Terror. Unfortunately, the film decides to depict the murders in isolation from the acts of the federal government, excluding their “Indian removal” policies commencing from the 1800s, or their exploitation of natural resources on Indian land.
Further, Scorsese’s film does not narrate the murders from an indigenous perspective, which is probably its most significant flaw. Though Scorsese succeeds in representing Native characters, which currently feature in less than 1 per cent of US TV and film, he does so through the characters of Ernest Burkhart and William Hale – the white “perpetrators” of the story. Subsequently, the Osage are pushed into the periphery of their own story when they should have been the main protagonists. These concerns have been voiced by various Native Americans. In her review for the BBC, Kate Nelson, for instance, argues that Killers of the Flower Moon showcases “a whole host of Native American talent, but doesn’t tell the story from their perspective”. Indigenous actor, Devery Jacobs, suggests that the Osage characters in the film “felt painfully underwritten” in contrast to the “courtesy and depth” given to the white men. Further, one of the Osage language instructors employed to coach the English-speaking cast members expressed disappointment with the final film’s result, which was “made for everybody [who is] not Osage”. Of course, it is well known that DeNiro and DiCaprio are Scorsese’s “muses”, having featured in most of his works. However, the true highlight of the film was Lily Gladstone’s portrayal of Mollie Burkhart – perhaps prioritising Mollie’s perspective through Gladstone may have remedied some of these criticisms.
Ultimately, Scorsese succeeds in transforming Grann’s book from a true-crime FBI story, into one centred around the marriage of Mollie and Ernest Burkhart. Unfortunately, Killers of the Flower Moon only seems to address the tip of the iceberg – the oil murders – while largely ignoring the failures of the US in protecting Indian lives. As mentioned, the film could have benefitted from more Osage input – Scorsese did collaborate with numerous Osage consultants in order to make his film as authentic as possible, but no Osage screenwriters were involved in the writing of the script. Nonetheless, Killers of the Flower Moon should be considered an important step forward for Native American representation in film. I would certainly recommend it to any film enthusiast but do come prepared for its lengthy runtime.
Bibliography
Fixico, Donald L. “THE OSAGE MURDERS AND OIL.” In The Invasion of Indian Country in the Twentieth Century, 27–53. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2011.
Fletcher, Matthew. “Failed Protectors: The Indian Trust and Killers of the Flower Moon.” Michigan law review, no. 117.6 (2019): 1253–1270.
Grann, David. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. New York: Doubleday; Illustrated Edition, 2017.
Hogan, Laurence J. The Osage Indian Murders: The True Story of a Multiple Murder Plot to Acquire the Estates of Wealthy Osage Tribe Members. Madison: Amlex, 1998.
Hogan, Linda. Mean Spirit. New York: Ivy Books, 1992.
James, Caryn. Killers of the Flower Moon: How the shocking Osage murders were nearly erased from US history. BBC Culture. [Online]. [Accessed on 1 November 2023].
Klein, Christopher. “The FBI’s First Big Case: The Osage Murders.” History. [Online]. [Accessed on 1 November 2023].
https://www.history.com/news/the-fbis-first-big-case-the-osage-murders
McAuliffe, Dennis Jr. Bloodland: A Family Story of Oil, Greed and Murder on the Osage Reservation. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1999.
Nelson, Kate. Killers of the Flower Moon: Does it do right by Native Americans? BBC Culture. [Online]. [Accessed on 1 November 2023].
Osage Indian Murders: “Osage Reign of Terror” FBI and Court Documents. [Online]. [Accessed on 1 November 2023].
https://downloads.paperlessarchives.com/p/qorccq/
Scorsese, Martin. Killers of the Flower Moon. Apple TV, 2023. 3 hr., 26 min.
Smith, Erin A. “Who Didn’t Do It?: Genre, Politics, and Reader Responses to Killers of the Flower Moon.” Reception (Wilmington, Del.) 14 (2022): 22–41.
Featured image credit: Still from Killers of the Flower Moon. Accessed via IMDB. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5537002/
Retrospect Journal 