A true-life saga involving organized crime, racial prejudice, and evolving American identity, David Grann’s 2017 nonfiction book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the F.B.I. seemed at first glance like a perfect fit for Martin Scorsese, the beloved filmmaker whose dozens of critically adored movies include Taxi Driver, GoodFellas, and The Departed.
But when Jim Gray, a former chief of the Osage Nation, and other Osage leaders invited the filmmaker to Oklahoma to hear their concerns about his new project, Scorsese came. Scorsese listened. And then he rewrote and reconfigured Killers of the Flower Moon from soup to nuts, with a result that has earned a rapturous response from Native viewers like Gray and journalist Sandra Hale Schulman, and from the broader critical community, too. The movie opens in theatres tomorrow and will appear on the Apple+ streaming service before the end of the year.
In this episode, Schulman walks me through a brief history of how Native Americans have been depicted in a century’s worth of movies. Then, Chief Gray tells me about his personal connection to Killers of the Flower Moon, the pattern of Native American erasure from national discourse, and how he and his colleagues persuaded Scorsese to rethink the new movie.
A transcript of this episode can be found here.
Sandra’s Smithsonian story about Native representation in cinema is here. You can learn more about Sandra and her work at her site.
Dennis McAuliffe Jr.’s The Deaths of Sybil Bolton: An American History, which Chief Gray cites as formative in this episode, is here.
There’s More to That is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions.
From the magazine, our team is Chris Klimek, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly.
From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Genevieve Sponsler, Rye Dorsey, and Edwin Ochoa. The Executive Producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.
Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson.
Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz.
Music by APM Music.
There's More to That