In the lead-up to Martin Scorcese’s next film, I really wanted to read the non-fiction book upon which it is based. I knew next to nothing about the Osage people or their history. Growing up in central upstate NY between Syracuse and Lake Ontario, we learned about the Native Americans who first inhabited the lands we lived on for thousands of years before British and French colonizers arrived. I consider my education in the 80s & 90s to be a bit better than the current trend to erase Native American history. However, I know our books and lessons were still from a predominately European perspective. It wasn’t until I was in my 40s that I learned that the proper name of what we called the Iroquois growing up is actually the Haudenosaunee. For decades, they were referred to by their colonial name in educational materials, the media, and even local museums. Only recently have they been able to reclaim their proper tribal name on a larger scale. Our lessons about the Native Americans or First Nations folks in the rest of North America were whittled down to stories of their genocide instead of how they really lived.
Is it even possible to spoil a true story? KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON is a piece of American history. While the main story only spans a short time in the early 20th Century, how they got there and the repercussions after span centuries. David Grann’s book is a feat in journalism. The research and how he lays out the story of a very calculated and personal terror that came to the Osage Nation in the 1920s are top-shelf from beginning to end. This is not to say that the earlier genocide of the Native Americans was not personal, but the “Reign of Terror,” as this period has been called, from 1921 through 1926, targeted mostly the members of one native family: one that owned millions of dollars of head-rights to the local oil-rich land.
I cried several times as I read the story of Mollie Burkhart (as she was known then), a full-blooded Osage matriarch, and her family at the center of these murders. Outside the horrors that Mollie and other natives faced in Osage County, Oklahoma, were American governments, from the local to the federal level, hell-bent on destroying or controlling the people who lived on that land for thousands of years before European settlers came.
Grann focuses his book on the Osage Nation as much as possible. Still, when there are gaps in the story, he turns to the early history of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) and the birth of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Tom White, a former Texas Ranger, was the lead investigator on the case, sent by J. Edgar Hoover himself to solve the case soon after Hoover’s rise to Director. White hated corruption in and out of law enforcement. He also hated how most white settlers and their descendants mistreated the Native Americans of that period. The latter was a systemic problem of racism and colonialism that White alone could not see himself resolving. Still, he did commit himself fully to solving the murders of Mollie’s family members. Grann is careful not to place White as the white savior in this story, but more of a man rooted in lawful good who saw this as his duty to his country and remained faithful to it.
We can’t discuss Mollie, an Osage heroine and upstanding society member who persevered through so much tragedy, without discussing her then-husband, Ernest Burkhart, and his powerful uncle, William Hale. Perhaps Ernest’s story is more complicated than Hale’s, as he was a young man swept up in the influence his elder had on him. Ernest proclaimed his true love for his wife, Mollie, and their family. Hale spent his entire life claiming to be an ally to the Osage. Even a century on, we can ask ourselves, was there anything righteous about either of these men?
Whether you know anything about the Reign of Terror that besieged the Osage Nation or not, Grann’s writing weaves a thrilling mystery that doesn’t completely unfold until the very last pages. I kept having to step back and remind myself this was all real. The twists and turns, the confessions and betrayals, the victims and survivors. It is all incredibly sad and grim, even more so because so few people know this happened. It’s powerful and important, and I hope more seek out this story. I can’t help but feel that there are many more similar untold stories about how Native Americans were murdered and defrauded that have been left out of mainstream American history books.
I really wanted to concentrate on the book here and not the upcoming film adaptation from Martin Scorcese, but I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that I thought about it through each chapter. Oscar-winning megastar Leonardo DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart after convincing Scorcese he’d be better for this role instead of Tom White, who he was originally attached to portray. Oscar winner and acting legend Robert DeNiro is William Hale. During the period that most of the book is focused on, Burkhart was in his early 30s, and Hale was in his late 40s/early 50s. DiCaprio is closing in on 50 now himself, and DeNiro is 80, so you can see Scorcese has already taken some liberties with the truth. 37-year-old Lily Gladstone as Mollie Burkhart is the only one who is almost exactly the same age as the person she plays onscreen. While DiCaprio and DeNiro are getting most of the press in the lead-up to the film’s release this month, I believe the movie will focus more on Mollie and Tom White. Jesse Plemons is portraying Tom, and I can see him owning this role, rising to motion picture leading man, and walking away with all of the critics’ top accolades. This isn’t to diminish Gladstone in any way; I am just not as familiar with her work, but I look forward to seeing her portray this crucial role. As most non-fiction dramas go, I assume that dialogues, timelines, and relationships will be dramatized to deliver a stronger, more cohesive film. I trust that the fiction infused into Scorcese and Eric Roth’s screenplay will only enhance and not detract from this true American tragedy.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: THE OSAGE MURDERS AND THE BIRTH OF THE FBI is available in hardcover, paperback, and audiobook through your favorite book retailer or the local library. The film, based on the book, will be released in the United States, exclusively in theatres, on Friday, October 20th, 2023.
