For the film review project, I chose to watch the 2023 film, Killers of the Flower Moon, as it has been something on my watchlist for awhile and I had not gotten the chance to go see it when it was in theaters last year. I am actually glad I waited to watch it until now because I do not think I would have appreciated it as much without the historical background I have regarding this topic now. Killers of the Flower Moon is based on a book of the same name by journalist, David Grann, and it is portraying the events of the 1920s murders of the Osage people in Osage county, Oklahoma and the subseqeuent investigation led by the freshly formed Federal Bureau of Investigation. This was a very long movie sitting somewhere around 3 hours and 30 minutes long, and as someone who sometimes struggles to sit through long movies, I did not have this problem with this one. While it was not in-your-face bloody or violent like many movies and tv shows based in reality, it is understated and makes it feel like you are there witnessing greed turning deadly, making each death more striking and emotional than if it were depicted in graphic detail. Going into this movie, I was expecting a lot of dramatization and a sense of exploitation toward the people whom it effected but each death that occured was done, I feel, with sensitivity without glossing over the cruelty the Osage people faced at the hands of the conspiracy of white settlers. Following the movie, I did a lot of reading and it sounds like the movie stuck, for the most part, pretty true to the actual events. By the end I was thoroughly impressed with the way the story was told, especially after finding out that Margie Burkhart, daughter of Ernest Burkhart’s son, James, was consulted with and was able to provide guidance to Scorcese’s film when it seems like a lot of movies these days disregard crucial aspects of the truth in order to tell a more sensationalized story. She got to speak with Leonardo DiCaprio to help him better understand and do justice to the role he would be playing as her grandfather in the movie. I definitely felt like the familial perspective shows through as there is deep disgust with Ernest Burkhart’s actions, you can’t help but feel like despite all of the damage he caused within the Osage community, he did have genuine love for his wife, Mollie, making the story all the more complex and driving the point home that being complicit kills. Another reason I really enjoyed this movie was because it demonstrated to me how much I have learned in class. I normally do not care for historical movies since I am not super into history as a subject and am often confused as to what’s actually going on, but I was able to have context for and easily understand topics prevalent in the story such as what allotment was, the historical causes contributing to higher rates of diabetes in Native Americans, and financial guardianship. I actually think this film did a good job of alluding to these things in ways that make it still accessible to audiences who go into this not knowing anything and make it so that it is possible to keep up with some of the causes to some of the effects we see in the movie. For example, higher rates of diabetes in Native groups is addressed very simply by Ernest or the doctor ( I can’t remember which) when he mentions how “the white man’s diet” is what is making Mollie sicker. I feel this type of accessibility is important in history-based films such as this as it helps the viewer more easily formulate questions that hopefully lead to them doing their own research about certain topics like this addressed. However, one thing that I think would have benefitted the movie would have been if they included some more context as to how the Osage people found themselves on the land that made them so wealthy. I think it would have provided additional commentary on how much had been continually taken from these people provided that it could have illustrated better how the Osage had been on a greater expanse of land before being moved onto presumably worthless land and how after this good thing happened to change the lives of the Osage, they were systematically killed by white settlers who were greedy and had to have felt threatened in their privilege. Overall though, I would probably rate this movie a solid 9 out of 10.