Osage Language Consultant Explains Why He Has ‘Strong Opinions’ About Killers Of The Flower Moon
When Martin Scorsese’s latest movie, Killers Of The Flower Moon, had its Los Angeles premiere on Monday, its massive stars, including Leonardo DiCaprio or Robert De Niro, may not have been in attendance due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike, but some key people who aided in the making of the film were there. Since the true crime drama centers on a series of Oklahoma murders in the Osage Nation during the 1920s, Scorsese consulted many members of the Osage Nation tribe, including Osage language consultant Christopher Cote. At the premiere, Cote got honest about having some “strong opinions” about it after finally seeing it.
While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter after viewing Killers of the Flower Moon at the Dolby Theater, Cote shared that he had been “nervous” about the content of the movie prior to seeing it. Now that he’s seen all three hours and 26 minutes (a runtime that the filmmaker has defended), here’s what he had to say:
As an Osage, I really wanted this to be from the perspective of Mollie and what her family experienced, but I think it would take an Osage to do that. Martin Scorsese, not being Osage, I think he did a great job representing our people, but this history is being told almost from the perspective of Ernest Burkhart [played by Leonardo DiCaprio] and they kind of give him this conscience and kind of depict that there’s love. But when somebody conspires to murder your entire family, that’s not love. That’s not love, that’s just beyond abuse.
Since Killers of the Flower Moon premiered at Cannes Film Festival, critics have been giving the film glowing reviews. The leader of the Osage Nation, Chief Standing Bear, shared at the time that Scorsese’s film had “restored trust” from the tribe. While Cote applauded Martin Scorsese for consulting the Osage people and representing them in the film, he also criticized the movie making the decision to tell its story from the perspective of its white protagonist, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Ernest Burkhart, rather than Lily Gladstone’s Mollie Burkhart. As he also shared:
I think in the end, the question that you can be left with is: How long will you be complacent with racism? How long will you go along with something and not say something, not speak up, how long will you be complacent? I think that’s because this film isn’t made for an Osage audience, it was made for everybody, not Osage. For those that have been disenfranchised, they can relate, but for other countries that have their acts and their history of repression, this is an opportunity for them to ask themselves this question of morality, and that’s how I feel about this film.
Killers of the Flower Moon was written by Martin Scorsese and Eric Roth as an adaptation of David Grann’s 2017 nonfiction novel of the same name. It’s been in development under Scorsese since 2017. Prior to filming the movie in 2019, The Irishman filmmaker traveled to the Osage Nation in Pawhuska, Oklahoma to meet with Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear and have discussions about getting the Osage Nation involved in the movie and hiring a variety of consultants for the production. During the making of the movie, DiCaprio once shared that it was rewritten to be “more immersed” into its Osage story. Check out the trailer for Killers of the Flower Moon:
At the premiere, Cote was not the only member of Osage Nation to share some reservations about the movie. Another Osage language consultant, Janis Carpenter, said that while she thought it was “wonderful” to see her people in the movie, there “are some things that were pretty hard to take.”
Killers of the Flower Moon is hitting theaters this Friday, October 20. You can check out what other upcoming 2023 movies are coming soon here on CinemaBlend.
