MOVIE NEWS – Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Casino, Big Men, The Irishman) has set off for an area he has never explored in his latest film. Killers of the Flower Moon has been classified as a western in terms of genre, but it is worth waiting to see if it is a western, as the film has only been seen by the Cannes festival audience so opinions on it may still vary. In any case, the consensus is that the 80-year-old master has produced another great film that will be one of his classics.

Killers of the Flower Moon is based on a true story: in the 1920s, in the state of Oklahoma, members of the Osage Indian tribe were killed in a series of murders because they had found oil on their land, and became the owners of immense wealth. The “thriller western” stars two of Scorsese’s old favourites, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro.

The director has previously revealed that he has always been fascinated by westerns, as he was a child. He was particularly impressed by a now almost forgotten film, about which he wrote in the foreword to a monograph on the director (Chris Fujiwara: Jacques Tourneur – The Cinema of Nightfall): ‘Canyon Passage is the finest example of the noir-western’s fragile but very special sub-genre. This film has left a very deep impression on me. It’s one of the most intriguing and sophisticated westerns ever made.”

Although the western world was a familiar landscape for Scorsese, thanks to his childhood cinema experiences, the making of Killers of the Flower Moon was a serious test for him. He, who rarely ventures outside Manhattan, moved to the small Oregon town where the events took place for several months to film on location. “It wasn’t easy, because it turned out that there were prairies and wild horses and prairie dogs and things like that, which is hard for me to get used to,” he said, laughing, in an interview.

(Killers of the Flower Moon – domestic release: 19 October 2023)