‘Flower Moon’ Filmmakers Talk 100-Day Shoot, Script Rewrite and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Performance: ‘Truly an Acting Feat of Genius’
It took about 100 days to shoot “Killers of the Flower Moon,” according to director Martin Scorsese and producer Daniel Lupi. That came after an extensive script rewrite, multiple interruptions due to COVID-19 and doing everything they could to ensure justice was done to the story.
Scorsese received a standing ovation from the crowd at the New York All Guild screening for his new film “Killers of the Flower Moon,” held at the Directors Guild of America N.Y. theater.
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In addition to Scorsese and Lupi, in attendance for the post-screening Q&A were many of his Oscar-winning and nominated team of artisans, including editor Thelma Schoonmaker, casting director Ellen Lewis, production sound mixer Mark Ulano, Indigenous casting director Rene Haynes and Osage clothing consultant Julie O’Keefe.
Based on David Grann’s 2017 non-fiction book “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” the film tells the tragic true story of members of the Osage tribe who were murdered under suspicious circumstances during the 1920s. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro, Lily Gladstone and Jesse Plemons.
Scorsese talked about a rewrite done before shooting started, when DiCaprio was initially set to play FBI agent Tom White, who investigates the string of murders among the Osage Nation.
“I always kept saying to Eric [Roth],” Scorsese recalls “It’s not a matter of ‘who,’ it’s a matter of ‘who didn’t.’ I wanted it to be everybody’s collective guilt and ours.”
After what he called “ripping the middle of the story inside out,” he was able to crack it over 18 months. Still, the delay also led to Paramount Pictures pulling out of the film before Apple Original Films stepped in to finance the massive endeavor. Paramount is partnering with Apple on the theatrical release.
It was vital to everyone to get every aspect of the Osage Nation right. The legendary filmmaker discussed the experience of visiting Native American reservations in 1974, recalling it was a “traumatic shock” and something that stayed with him nearly 50 years later. “I was too young and didn’t quite understand, but I never forgot poverty, anger, desperation, and sadness. It stayed with me for years.”
O’Keefe profoundly touches upon the distinct clothing choices by Indigenous actors, which were tied to a time when Osage members were embracing contemporary garments and abandoning their traditional clothing for safety and survival.
“These are the different ways of human struggle,” she shares. “You see this family, trying to acclimate to a world that’s being forced on them and to acclimate to what they see around them.”
Ulano, an Oscar-winner for “Titanic” and frequent collaborator with Quentin Tarantino like his nominated works for “Inglourious Basterds” and “Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood,” says his mission was to “discover the intent, and how do we use our instrument to manifest that idea?” Now on his fourth outing with Scorsese, the sound mixer also found time to praise DiCaprio’s performance as Ernest Burkhart, saying, “He disappears into his character, truly an acting feat of genius.”
Scorsese, who briefly appears in the film, was able to pay homage to the things that influenced his life the most, such as shooting a scene at his alma mater, Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx. Nonetheless, Scorsese sums up the movie with one word: “complicit.”
“How we let things slide, and you accept a law being changed that shouldn’t be changed whether it’s from the Supreme Court, the Senate, or Congress. How we let it slip and slide until we find out we’re imprisoned. The big problem is that corruption exists in a society not rooted in morality or spirituality. People think this is a period piece. I don’t think it’s much of a period piece. I saw people behaving the way I grew up. Always be alert. Speak out and act against the thing you feel yourself becoming complicit.”
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