Spoiler Warning: This essay covers several key plot points related to each main character in Killers of the Flower Moon. If you want to watch the movie without this context, please return to this essay after you have seen the movie.
The ground spews black gold, and the prairie runs red with blood.
Martin Scorsese’s films mostly focus on crime, true. But between the heists, double-crossing, and mob violence, he reflects on something far more pervasive: mortality. Killers of the Flower Moon is no exception.
Removed from the director’s usual urban sprawl, Killers examines the gradual murder of the Osage tribe after they find untapped oil in Oklahoma. Desperate for fortune and pulled by the remnants of manifest destiny, white moguls, “entrepreneurs” and outlaws descend upon the Osage like vultures — or coyotes — to a seemingly endless carcass.
“I’d never been out to the prairie,” said Scorsese in an interview with The New Yorker, “When I got out there, we were driving for so long on one road, and I wondered why we were going so slowly, and I looked at the — it was, like, 45 minutes — I looked at this speedometer, we’re doing 75, and I realized this place never ends.”
Not unlike The Departed, Scorsese lays all the cards on the table. There’s no real mystery around who’s carrying out the murders and why. Rather, the film begs you to live in it, mesmerized by how this vicious cycle concludes and what will be left of those who survive it.
There are many Killers of the Flower Moon. We’ll take a look at a few, along with two other characters who breathe life into this epic.
The Handsomest Goon in the World
Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) wanders into Osage County starving for fortune. His short-lived career as an army cook left him hungry, injured, and desperate. To skirt the struggle, Ernest turns to his family’s wealthy patriarch — his uncle and cattle rancher, Bill “King” Hale (Robert De Niro).
Ernest is gruff and malleable, though not inherently heartless. At first, he’s content with a comfortable living. But to Bill, Ernest is no more his prodigy than a prized bull. His value is boiled down to his potency and pedigree. It’s no surprise Bill asks Ernest about his fondness for native women no sooner than the first sip of Fairfax whiskey leaves his lips.
His first job as one of Bill’s cab drivers speaks to Ernest’s true role: a vehicle for Osage headrights. He needs no more than a gentle nudge to relentlessly pursue his eventual wife, Mollie (Lily Gladstone). Her sisters quickly spot his intent, likening him to just another coyote among a pack of white scavengers. Mollie recognizes the danger but spots something different in his deep blue eyes.
Killers’ most compelling thread doesn’t lie in crime but in Ernest and Mollie’s relationship. On one hand, he is an unapologetic instrument of his uncle’s will. Conversely, his love for Mollie isn’t fabricated despite how convenient it is for Bill.
Their bond exists in the space between fear and passion. For the bulk of what transpires, Ernest refuses to go against his uncle. In fact, one infraction sees him paddled by his uncle like an unruly child in an antiqued schoolhouse. Later, he agrees to slowly poison Mollie by adding a supplement to her insulin intended to “slow her down.” He knows its gradual effect, going so far as to pour half of the solution into his own drink. The move, though not as drastic as an act of mutually assured destruction, is an admission. He, like his wife, can’t escape the creeping oblivion.
But unlike Mollie, Ernest tragically accepts his fate. After the death of his daughter, he realizes he’s just as much of a victim as he was a perpetrator. Both a killer and the killed, it’s only when he has nothing to lose that he finally turns against Bill.
The Old Owl of Death
Kind. Gentle. Unquestionably deceptive.
Bill Hale is a specter that flies over the Osage. Yes, he learns their customs, and language and even employs a few tribe members. But all of Bill’s motives are ulterior.
Mollie’s mother — and later Mollie herself — envision a white owl flying into their home. A symbol of death, the bird only appears as the women cling to their lives. Mollie’s mother blinks to see the lone bird replaced by reality: her home overrun with Bill’s extended family.
Scorsese leans into the metaphor when shit hits the proverbial fan. Fleeing the same killings he orders, Bill wears goggles to protect his eyes while driving. The goofy apparel raises his eyebrows and makes him appear eerily to the ominous owl.
Nothing he does for the Osage goes unpunished. During a meeting of tribal leaders, Bill and Ernest are the only two whites. When the community agrees to take the news of the murders directly to President Coolidge, Bill readily fronts $1,000 to the investigation — provided the Osage brings who’s responsible directly to him.
Bill masks his lies with a love for family. Be it a birth, wedding, or funeral, he spares no expense for a celebration. It’s an effective disguise, but even the most elusive monsters can’t hide their seams. He reaches a breaking point when he’s denied the life insurance payout for an Osage man, Henry Roan (William Belleau), demanding his “Henry Roan money.”
This moment epitomizes Bill’s outlook. Blood — by law or genes — means nothing to him. Whatever breathes can turn a profit.
A Law Dog Too Late
At one stage in Killers’ development, Tom White (Jesse Plemons) stood front and center. In a recent press conference, Scorsese explained that an overemphasis on the FBI compromised the humanity of his film.
“We felt that we took the story of the birth of the FBI as far as we can take it,” he said. “I wanted to keep balancing it with the Osage. It was getting bigger and bigger. And more diffused.”
Killers of the Flower Moon isn’t a Western cliche, and Tom isn’t John Wayne. The would-be hero arrives after dozens of murders have already devastated the Osage. As he first meets the tribal leaders, they rightfully doubt he’d arrive if it wasn’t for the death of a white man, Bill Smith (Jason Isbell).
Knowing he’s far from the relief the Osage really needs, Tom works with what he has. He’s detached, straightforward, and well aware that he has no one’s trust. When he has to inform Ernest of his little girl’s death, his condolences amount to, “There’s no easy way to say this, son.”
Tom isn’t so much of a prominent character himself as he is a reminder: The cowboy is dead. And Fairfax isn’t a home to outdated heroes.
The Flower Moon’s Blossom
Killers starts and ends with the Osage. Mollie doesn’t represent the tribe’s slow death, but its will to survive.
Gladstone delivers a defiant performance despite spending chunks of the film bedridden. She’s pulled by the obligation to keep Osage culture alive and persist in a post-colonial world that leaves little room for all but pearly white prosperity.
She holds her ground on the precipice of genocide and unyielding assimilation. Soon after her marriage to Ernest, she realizes she can’t juggle both for too long. She, like her sisters and cousins who die in droves, can’t ignore Bill’s machinations. But her quiet resistance isn’t complacency. Despite her advanced diabetes, Mollie travels to Washington with no guarantee the feds will help.
Back home, she clings to life as her husband gradually poisons her. She knows few native women live past 50, just as she knows the white murderers bet on this statistic. Even so, she gives Ernest the benefit of the doubt until — in the film’s penultimate scene — she realizes he can’t tell her the complete truth.
Mollie, not Tom, is the real catalyst for stopping killings. Hence, Killers of the Flower Moon closes with her obituary. Her tombstone doesn’t mention the murders, nor a comment on her will to survive. Needless death, after all, isn’t something worth celebrating. For those who lived it, maybe tragedy is better left buried.
