Flasz On Film

Ever since Martin Scorsese – the veritable titan of cinema and a living legend of The New Hollywood – opined on superhero movies, he has become both a lightning rod and a meme. In a split second, toxic tribes on Reddit and what-used-to-be-Twitter calcified their positions and galvanized around the binary choice between “See, you unwashed philistines? You have to watch more Varda and Kurosawa” and “Who is this geriatric anyway? Avengers: Endgame is cinema evolved.” And you’d think he wouldn’t care much more about this issue, specifically because he expresses his views, strong and hard to swallow as they might be for some, only when asked directly and forced to speak into a microphone.  

However, what if Scorsese wanted to add a few more cents to the conversation about the state of cinema? And if he did, is there a better way to do so than hiding his views in a movie? 

Now, let the record state that Scorsese’s latest masterpiece Killers of the Flower Moon has its own intended message, about which I am sure the filmmaker cares extremely deeply. In fact, all throughout his career he’s been continually drawn to explore the troubled history of his home country, and how difficult it often is to distinguish between organized crime and politics. This is non-negotiable – his languid-yet-mesmerizing opus of oppression and supplantation of the native Osage tribe by white American settlers is an encapsulation of the history of America as a whole. In addition, it is an instructive sermon about how contemporary denizens of the Western Civilization should perhaps grapple with their past and – while acknowledging its long shadow – work tirelessly to make sure the history wouldn’t rhyme, let alone repeat itself.  

But that’s not all, it seems.  

What if I told you that, inadvertently or incidentally, Killers of the Flower Moon can also be read as Martin Scorsese’s crushing indictment of Hollywood, his “other” home country? Admittedly, to see it you’d have to look well past the epidermis of the narrative, as well as its primary layer of subtext connecting the story the filmmaker is telling with the big picture of how America was built on the back of a brutal and cunning colonization campaign which took centuries to come to fruition. If you agree to read the story of young white settlers marrying into Osage families with an ulterior motive to have their wives murdered and their familial riches legally seized as inheritance completely metaphorically, you might just find out that the movie can be read as a tirade about moviemaking, and how Hollywood greed came to impose itself upon the innocence of artistic expression.  

To do that, you’d have to agree to see the Osage as a symbolic stand-in for the filmmaker and the land they lived on as the metaphoric landscape of the moviemaking art. These are people attuned to receive on the frequencies inaccessible to Westerners. They see things we do not perceive and find inspiration in places a regular non-artistic human being wouldn’t stop for a second to seek fundamental beauty, let alone notice or cherish it. And it just so happens that over the course of the last century, the art these poets of the visual have been practicing religiously, became a sought-after means of widespread entertainment and thus, a lucrative profession.  

The Osage lived atop of supple oil fields while filmmakers built their houses on potential box office receipts. However, just as oil itself was essentially useless to the Osage, who would have been just as happy living in tune with the natural world, until white men in suits came and told them how valuable this black liquid was to them, money and fame is equally superfluous to an artist. It is only there to facilitate and buy freedom to explore what the artist is pre-eminently interested in, but the problem is that money – by sheer virtue of its existence – holds the power to corrupt whoever holds it and those in the nearest vicinity.  

Consequently, rich opportunistic carrion-feeding hyenas in double-breasted suits would eventually emerge from the darkness to encircle their prey and convince them that their presence is somehow beneficial. However, as the movie recounts in soul-crushing detail, these white settlers who ensnared the Osage women to fall in love with them and started seemingly progressive and innocently beautiful mixed communities, were cynical, brutal and eventually brazen enough to engage in genocidal removal of the Osage population while taking over their ancestral land together with its natural resources and promises of obscene wealth. Which is exactly what happens when you introduce a young indie filmmaker full of talent and creative fury to a Hollywood producer promising them the world if they sign at the dotted line and exchange their artistic integrity for moolah.  

Therefore, Killers of the Flower Moon may be understood as Martin Scorsese’s personal lamentation on the nearly irreparable state of the filmmaking industry where artistic identity of the auteur is merely seen as fuel for blood-sucking entertainment conglomerates who would attach themselves like leeches to naive and hopeful artists and drain their lifeforce in exchange for insincere promises of security. I believe that it is possible for any aspiring filmmaker to see themselves at least a little bit in Mollie (Lily Gladstone), someone who falls in love with a person who never had her best interest at heart and despite forging a family together (metaphorically equivalent to producing movies, I suppose) was always taking orders from powerful people whispering from behind the curtain. Without necessarily indicting anyone personally, I think it is reasonable to see Mollie’s ordeal of being methodically poisoned by her own husband as Scorsese’s nightmare about what may happen to an artist when ensnared by a vampiric studio. It’s not too far from there to see Ernest (Leonardo Di Caprio) as an equivalent of a Marvel producer. Which makes his uncle one of the brass hats at Disney, WB and elsewhere. It’s a movie about how the entertainment industry injects poison into artists and sucks their creative juices dry.  

And just like the Osage Nation has been reduced to a small handful of communities confined to reservations in what used to be their land, artists living in tune with their spirits end up marginalized because the ravenous Hollywood business machine pays no heed to integrity. Money and promises of growth made to Wall Street backers of the entertainment industry make sure that it will be increasingly difficult for independent artists to express their souls if the fruits of their filmmaking labour do not promise box office returns. Those who choose to stay in touch with their ancestral calling shall starve or disappear in mysterious circumstances. Those who sell their souls for money will end up used and discarded by the Hollywood vampires. There are no winners in the game against the business model which saw exponential growth in complete commercialization of what used to be pure artistic expression.  

Thus, the process of the Osage being methodically supplanted by invasive colonizers reflects metaphorically the process of art being abused and exterminated in Hollywood. And we can only imagine just how painful it might be for Martin Scorsese to observe. After all, he has seen how Hollywood went through multiple ages and evolved with time to become what it is today. And I think one of his biggest fears might be that cinema could be on its way out as a primary means of cultural conversation. Deep down, Martin Scorsese might be fully aware that cinema might perish with him. And thus, Killers of the Flower Moon could be a coded lament and one last attempt to turn it away from the brink.