‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ and Stewarding Hard Stories

As much as it’s a masterful piece of filmmaking by one of the greatest living directors, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is hard to watch. It’s hard because of the subject matter: a horrific true story of greed, racism, and the murder of dozens of members of the Native American Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma. But it’s also hard because of the runtime: a whopping 3 hours and 26 minutes.

The movie is excellent, but it would be odd to call it “entertaining.” That might be Scorsese’s point.

To turn a grievous true story like this into a breezy, easily digestible popcorn diversion isn’t quite right. Staring history’s ugly episodes in the face is inherently uncomfortable and demanding; it should make us restless in the way a long, slow-burn movie makes us restless. To turn sordid episodes of history into riveting, pulpy “true crime” entertainment is, for Scorsese, an endeavor about which he’s conflicted (see his last film, also 3.5 hours in length, The Irishman).

How does a storyteller like him balance the twin duties of captivating an audience with propulsive drama and truthfully telling a story that’s unavoidably arduous?

It’s an uncomfortable question, and Killers is an uncomfortable case study in the tension. As such, it feels odd that most viewers will watch the Apple TV+ film on their devices, over many sittings, at their comfortable leisure with frequent pauses for bathroom breaks and snacks. I watched it in a theater on a big screen, and I’m glad I did. This is a film to sit with uncomfortably, because the injustices it chronicles and the rarely heard voices it foregrounds deserve our undivided attention.

Oil-Rich Osage, Organized Crime, and Original Sin

Scorsese’s film is an adaptation of the best-selling nonfiction book by David Grann (The Lost City of Z), subtitled “The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.” While the book narrates the story as a police procedural and highlights the FBI’s crucial role in unraveling and prosecuting the crimes, the film opts to center on the perspective of the victims—most prominently a wealthy Osage woman named Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone, in a phenomenal breakout role).

Mollie’s sisters and mother are mysteriously killed, one by one, in an elaborate conspiracy to steal the family’s oil headright fortune. In contrast to the book, the FBI investigators led by Tom White (Jesse Plemons) don’t show up in the film until the third act.

Scorsese’s choice may be jarring for some fans of the book, but the effect is powerful. By centering the narrative on Mollie and her marriage to a white man, Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio), who ultimately betrays her, the film underscores the egregiousness of the crime more than the intrigue of the FBI’s solving of the crime. The injustice is rendered in vivid, often grisly detail (the film is rated R for violence). But it makes the justice, once eventually served, all the more satisfying.

The film underscores the egregiousness of the crime more than the intrigue of the FBI’s solving of the crime.

This is Scorsese’s first foray into a Western twist on his trademark gangster genre, and its epic scale is something to behold. He renders a captivating, immersive world through working with some of the best cinematic artists in the business—Rodrigo Prieto (cinematography), Thelma Schoonmaker (Scorsese’s editor for five decades), and frequent Terrence Malick collaborators Jack Fisk (production design) and Jacqueline West (costume design).

Like the best period epics, Killers—shot in the actual Oklahoma locations in close partnership with Osage Nation leaders—transports us back in time to witness a world that might otherwise be lost to history. But as much as it’s a compelling time capsule of a specific episode of Oklahoma outlaws, oil-rich Osage, and organized crime, Killers ultimately shines most as a reflection on sin and the spiritual war between selfless love and self-serving greed, particularly as it plays out in the marriage of Mollie and Ernest.

To watch Killers is to observe the slow progression of what Mollie calls a “wasting illness” (in literal and metaphorical terms) that surrounds her family. It’s the creeping, insidious, nature of sin devastating a community in real time, like an invasive weed gradually suffocating the life out of a thriving garden. Over the course of the film, Mollie’s often-wordless countenance (subtly deployed by the talented Gladstone) shifts from joy and hope to ever-increasing despair and suspicion as she surveys all that’s been taken from her by people who claimed to love her—including by her own husband.

When Christians Ignore the Bible

DiCaprio gives the best performance of his career as Ernest Burkhart, a tortured man who seems to genuinely love Mollie and desire an honest future with her and their children. But he’s also deeply greedy (“I love money!” he readily admits) and easily swayed by bad influences—chiefly his corrupt uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro), “King of the Osage Hills” and local ringleader of organized crime.

Hale asks Ernest at one point, “Do you believe in the Bible?” It’s tragically ironic. For all the church scenes, hymns on the soundtrack, and other Christian accoutrements that adorn the film, few characters in Killers seem to believe the Bible.

For all the church scenes, hymns on the soundtrack, and other Christian accoutrements that adorn the film, few characters in Killers seem to believe the Bible.

Ernest clearly doesn’t believe 1 Timothy 6:10 (“The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils”), Hebrews 13:5 (“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have”), or Proverbs 15:27 (“Whoever is greedy for unjust gain troubles his own household”). The company he keeps shows he doesn’t heed Proverbs 13:20 (“Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm”) or 1 Corinthians 15:33 (“Bad company ruins good morals”).

The Bible’s condemnation of racism goes unheeded by most of the film’s white “Christian” characters, who routinely say and do things that dehumanize their Osage neighbors. From KKK members casually marching down main street in the town’s parade, to newsreel footage of the race massacre down the road in Tulsa, to various words and actions that deny the image-of-God-bearing dignity of Native Americans, Scorsese doesn’t shy away from the pervasiveness of racism at the time—even among churchgoing Christians.

Whether in their racism, greed, deception, or murder, neither Ernest nor Hale—both ostensibly Christians—behave as if the scriptural admonitions of their faith apply to them. Their lives are full of bad fruit (Luke 6:43–45) and much more characterized by the works of the flesh (Gal. 5:19–21) than the fruits of the spirit (vv. 22–23).

Hale is all bad—as wicked a character as you’ll find in any movie this year. His hypocritical facade—grandfatherly mentor, beneficent advocate of the Osage people—masks his dark, murderous heart in a way that epitomizes the “whitewashed tombs” Jesus condemns (Matt. 23:27). But Ernest feels torn between his self-satiating flesh and his selfless love for Mollie.

The brilliance of DiCaprio’s performance is that at times you feel only scorn for Ernest as a rotten scoundrel, but at other times you see his conscience pricked in a Romans 7:15–20 sort of way. Especially in the final 30 minutes when it’s clear his deeds are being found out by the FBI, you root for him to turn from his sin, repent, confess, and ask for forgiveness.

When he reaches rock bottom in a searing, “hell of his own making” scene (with fire literally surrounding his house), we might expect Ernest to finally confess his sins and be purified “from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). That most audience members will be hoping this for Ernest’s character is a testament to the power of DiCaprio’s deft performance and the theological ambitions of a thoughtful Catholic director like Scorsese.

For her part, Mollie is deeply grace-filled and exhibits a forbearing love toward Ernest that at times seems illogical, even as she gradually seems more aware of the sins he conceals. To watch Ernest struggle to confess all the truth to Mollie, contorting his face in reluctance to accept her forgiving grace, is a potent glimpse of what the gospel rejected looks like. It’s painful to watch but more painful to live—especially in eternity.

‘There Was No Mention of the Murders’

Spoilers ahead. The film ends with a brilliant, unexpected coda, set several years after the movie’s main action. It’s a scene of a true crime radio program recording that dramatizes the story in auditory form. We catch the end of the broadcast, as radio actors and sound-effects artists narrate the “what happened to” fates of the key players in the Osage Murders case.

The scene is brilliant narratively for how it informs the audience about where Hale, Ernest, and Mollie end up. But it’s also brilliant thematically, as a commentary on the importance of how stories get told in different forms, across generations. We’re watching a live radio program, filmed for a movie, adapted from a book, about a true story.

Most meta of all, Scorsese himself appears in a cameo, as a radio performer who reads the newspaper obituary printed after Mollie Burkhart’s 1937 death. After reading the obit, Scorsese’s character notes, as he looks soberly into the audience, that “There was no mention of the murders.”

It’s the last line of the film. It speaks to the ways we’re prone, in our fallenness, to whitewash history and edit out the uncomfortable episodes and the sins of our ancestors, even as (like Ernest and others in Killers) we’re prone to concealing rather than confessing our present sins. Our instinct to hide sin is as old as Eden.

Stewarding the Most Important Story

Scorsese is telling this story on screen because David Grann told it before him on the page, and before him still others—in novels and movies and radio plays. He’s just the latest communicator to seek to responsibly steward this hard history, making it known to new generations.

Sometimes artists and storytellers seek only self-preservation: preserving their profits and reputations by making only what will be widely liked and hugely profitable. But the best artists aren’t as interested in preserving the self as they are in preserving the truth—ensuring an accurate telling of the good, bad, and ugly in history so we can all learn and grow, even if uncomfortably.

The best artists aren’t as interested in preserving the self as they are in preserving the truth—ensuring an accurate telling of the good, bad, and ugly in history.

As Christians, we’re also stewards of a story—the most important story of all. We don’t only tell this story to expose the realities of sin or challenge people to grow. We tell it to point doomed people to their only hope for salvation: the cross of Jesus Christ.

Still, it’s a story some don’t want to hear. And we can be tempted to soften it or spruce it up to make it more palatable. As we preach the gospel and share the Christian story in today’s biblically ignorant world, are we telling the whole counsel of Scripture or avoiding the uncomfortable bits? Are we sanitizing what’s scandalous or oversimplifying what’s complex? Is the grace we proclaim cheap or costly? Is the faith we pitch merely a life-enhancement hack for consumption or an all-consuming call that demands much? Perhaps most importantly, are we living in accordance with the biblical truths we teach?

When future observers look back on our generation’s telling of the Christian story, may it never be said that “There was no mention of _____ [insert unpopular or difficult biblical teaching].” Let’s tell the whole truth, even if it means the audience dwindles. And let’s rejoice that the whole truth includes not only the guilt of our sins in the past but also the grace of Christ in the present and an unfailing hope for the future.