IBC
Martin Scorsese always wanted to make a Western, arguably the defining
American artform. With Killers of the Flower Moon, he got his chance to
chronicle the way the country has been moulded from violence and prejudice.
article here
“I loved many of the westerns I saw when I was growing up and I still do
love them,” the director explains in the production notes. “I responded to the
pictures built around the traditional myths of the western, the myths of the
culture, more than the psychological westerns. Those films nourished me as a
filmmaker, but they also inspired me to go deeper into the real history.”
Based on the 2017 non-fiction book by David Grann and written for the
screen by Scorsese and Eric Roth, the historical crime drama is set in 1920s
Oklahoma and centres on the murders of members of the Osage Nation, the
midwestern Native American tribe that became wealthy after the discovery of oil
on their land at the end of the 19th century.
The series of brutal crimes, revealed by the then-fledgling FBI to have
been a conspiracy by several local white residents led by William Hale (played
by Robert De Niro), became known as the Reign of Terror.
The Osage Nation
Funded by Apple Studios with a budget of $200m, preliminary plans for
production took shape while the screenplay was in development. One decision was
to shoot the film on location in Oklahoma on the Osage reservation, in the very
towns and communities where the Reign of Terror played out a century earlier.
Another principal was to enlist the full cooperation of the Osage Nation
itself to make the film. Scorsese and his team travelled to the Osage
reservation in spring 2019 to scout locations and to meet the Osage community
as a first step.
A conversation was arranged between Scorsese and Geoffrey Standing Bear,
the Osage Nation’s Principal Chief. “I told him my concerns,” said Chief
Standing Bear. “I didn’t want the Osage shown as just a bunch of bodies lying
around. We were hoping the history and culture would be accurately represented
in his movie. Mr. Scorsese pointed out some of the movies he had made, in
particular Silence, in which the cultures of Christian missionaries
and 17th-century Japan were presented in a serious and respectful manner, and
that was so encouraging.”
Executive producer Marianne Bower connected with Osage consultants and
the community at large becoming the point person between Scorsese, his creative
and production teams, and the Osage. This opened the way for an ongoing
dialogue on research, cultural and historical matters that continued throughout
production and then post-production.
Covid Delays
Locations were being scouted, sets were under construction and casting
was moving forward when COVID-19 struck. Activity screeched to a halt and plans
for filming were temporarily suspended. It was during this enforced hiatus that
Scorsese fine-tuned the story of Ernest and Mollie (Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily
Gladstone) and reworked sections of the script.
A new start date was set for spring 2021. Work came back to life with
renewed vigour and continued apace on three parallel tracks: the production
team returned to Oklahoma’s Osage County to finalise locations; construction
resumed on sets; and the casting process took up where it left off.
A central principle emerged. Whenever possible, Osage characters
in Killers would be played by an Osage actor, and if that were
not feasible (as in the case of Gladstone), every Osage role would be filled by
a Native American. They include casting actors William Belleau as Henry Roan,
and Tatanka Means as Native American federal agent John Wren.
The casting team held an open call throughout Oklahoma with the result
that several Osage actors were cast in key roles: Yancey Red Corn makes his
film debut as the Osage Chief Bonnicastle; Everett Waller plays Paul Red Eagle
and Talee Redcorn is the Osage leader. In all, more than 44 roles were filled
by Osage actors, not including the hundreds who worked as background players.
In pre-production Scorsese talked with representative Osage Elders about
the film’s structure, which would feature a prologue based on the opening
section of ‘A Pipe for February,’ a novel by the Osage writer Charles H. Red
Corn that depicts a sacred ritual.
Scorsese explained that this sequence would be intercut with newsreel
footage showing how white culture viewed the Osage at the time when its oil
wealth skyrocketed. He stressed that the film would make it clear that there
was a much wider system of killing Osage for their money and property than the
one William Hale had orchestrated.
Efforts to include the Osage people in the filmmaking process didn’t end
there. Working with the state’s Film and Television Commission, the production
began hiring Osage artisans and craftspeople to work in the various departments
of the film.
The artist Addie Roanhorse was brought on to assist with production
design, and the Osage cultural consultant Julie O’Keefe became an indispensable
addition to the wardrobe department. Osage elder John Williams became the Osage
cultural consultant. Vann Bighorse, director of the Osage Nation Language
program, was also tapped to work, overseeing the translation and use of the
Osage language in the film, assigning Janis Carpenter, Christopher Coté and
Braxton Redeagle, teachers of the Osage language, to coach the cast in the
native tongue spoken throughout the drama. Brandy Lemon, Osage Nation
congresswoman, became the community consultant.
The challenge for production designer Jack Fisk would be difficult:
telling the story on Osage land, either by repurposing existing structures or
building them from scratch. So much of Fairfax, the original town, had been
modernised or run down. A 1920s period piece would require vast open expanses,
capturing the lushness of Osage territory. There were also several homes and
offices that needed to be dressed.
“The Osage Nation had recently bought a square mile of land just off
Main Street in Pawhuska, where the old freight station stood,” Fisk recalled.
“They were going to clear it out and turn the space into a parks and recreation
area. We asked them to delay their plans. We saw that the expanse worked
perfectly for our purposes, so we obtained permission to build our train
station there, bringing in twelve hundred feet of track and a real locomotive.
It was the perfect spot.”
Fisk went about finding locations for Osage homes and marketplaces.
Nearby Pawhuska served as a persuasive Fairfax. “The final touch to the Kihekah
Avenue reconstruction was to cover the street with dirt,” Fisk said. “That
unified the set, made it more western and somehow brought it to life.”
With all the effort involved, it was reasonable to ask, why not film in
Fairfax itself, a half hour away? Fisk explained: “Fairfax has been decimated
over the years, a case of natural destruction, tornadoes, a faltering economy,
the passage of time. Lots of the buildings were condemned. The roofs were
rotten. There were very few storefronts that we could work in safely, as
opposed to those in Pawhuska.”
To depict the period’s mix of Old West and more modern cultures, the
production needed horses and a wrangler but also a fleet of 100 vintage
vehicles, with four mechanics to maintain them. A period steam train was
brought into the state and track laid leading to a station set that was used
for a week.
Scorsese’s choice to shoot on film meant that footage had to be sent to
a lab in Los Angeles every night. And every day the production had to deal with
the heat and humidity of a southern summer, not to mention occasional lightning
and the threat of tornadoes, Oklahoma being part of North America’s Tornado
Alley.
“This film is Marty’s western,” Fisk added. “It’s a true story about our
early existence. We were still forming as a nation. It’s a film about greed and
love. You’re going over a period of time, and you’re seeing characters change
and develop. I think it will transport people into another world that is really
a part of all of us.”
No comments:
Post a Comment