Given enough time, cinematic ideology ceases to matter. Who today, watching Marlon Brando seethe through On the Waterfront (1954), would ding the film’s callous portrayal of union officials? One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) is affecting even in eras that practice institutionalization without apology. That the passing years sand the edges from political movies bodes well for Killers of the Flower Moon, a 3 1/2-hour land acknowledgment that is also a masterpiece of epic filmmaking. In 50 years, even conservatives will likely concede that it is among director Martin Scorsese’s greatest works.
That such an admission is not yet forthcoming is unsurprising given the film’s insipid racial handwringing. A dramatization of the “Indian murders” that roiled 1920s Oklahoma, Scorsese’s latest sees white Sooners as beasts deserving of judgment and Native Americans as their hapless prey. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Kyle Smith duly condemns the movie’s “lambs vs. wolves characters” and “dirge-like” plot. National Review’s Armond White is no kinder, writing that the 80-year-old director can “no longer properly gauge any moral conflict.”
