Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" has drawn widespread debates, even among Osage Nation people who worked on the film.
The high-profile awards contender narrates the historical events of a series of murders that devastated the Osage community in 1920s Oklahoma.
Leonardo DiCaprio portrays the role of Ernest Burkhart, a war veteran who weds Osage woman Mollie (Lily Gladstone). However, a dark plot unfolds as Ernest and his influential uncle (Robert De Niro) scheme to kill Mollie's family to gain control of her oil wealth.
Many have questioned the choice of using Ernest as the POV character.
"This history is being told almost from the perspective of Ernest Burkhart, and they kind of give him this conscience and kind of depict that there’s love," Flower Moon language consultant Christopher Cote said at the premiere, according to The Messenger.
"But when somebody conspires to murder your entire family, that’s not love. That’s not love; that’s just beyond abuse. ... This film isn’t made for an Osage audience; it was made for everybody, not Osage."
Cote's fellow Osage language consultants, Janis Carpenter and Braxton Redeagle, also opened up about how they felt about seeing the finished film for the first time.
"I think all of us have mixed feelings about the movie," Carpenter told The Messenger. "There are some parts of it that I'm so happy to see, including so many of our Osage people who look so good in the movie. But the story is so difficult that it's hard to feel really good about it at the same time. I agreed with everything Chris had to say, and I thought he spoke very well in that interview."
Redeagle meanwhile, told The Messenger that watching the film prompted "a mixture of emotions." He said, "Here in the community, I know we have the whole range of responses and opinions."
"Some people think this was the greatest movie ever made, and some people have their critiques of the perspectives that it was told from, different things that weren't really fleshed out," Redeagle said.
"But, at the end of the day, it's a movie with a lot of money and the biggest names behind it, and they're trying to accomplish their own goals. Money's part of it, but they're really shooting for the art of it and not necessarily an accurate portrayal or the perspective that the Osage people want."
Redeagle added that the film provided the opportunity within the Osage community to "have some very intimate discussions about that time period, about the way that we are using our own voices, gathering our resources, and using the things that are available to us in order to say what we think needs to be said."
"And we've always been doing that, and we're continuing to do that, but this gave us the opportunity to have that spotlight on us. Now, we know that if we tell the story, then people are going to hear it," Redeagle added. "The wave behind this movie is giving us a voice."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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