NEW YORK (AP) ā A moment from years ago keeps replaying in ās mind.
When Akira Kurosawa was given an honorary Academy Award in 1990, the then 80-year-old Japanese filmmaker of āSeven Samuraiā and āIkiru,ā said he hadnāt yet grasped the full essence of cinema.
It struck Scorsese, then in post-production on āGoodfellas,ā as a curious thing for such a master filmmaker to say. It wasnāt until Scorsese also turned 80 that he began to comprehend Kurosawa's words. Even now, Scorsese says heās just realizing the possibilities of cinema.
āIāve lived long enough to be his age and I think I understand now,ā Scorsese said in a recent interview. āBecause there is no limit. The limit is in yourself. These are just tools, the lights and the camera and that stuff. How much further can you explore who you are?ā
Scorseseās lifelong exploration has seemingly only grown deeper and more self-examining with time. In recent years, his films have swelled in scale and ambition as heās plumbed the nature of faith ( ) and loss ( ).
His latest, about the systematic killing of Osage Nation members for their oil-rich land in the 1920s, is in many ways far outside Scorsese's own experience. But as a story of trust and betrayal ā the film is centered on the loving yet treacherous relationship between Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), a member of a larger Osage family, and Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), a WWI veteran who comes to work for his corrupt uncle (Robert De Niro) ā itās a profoundly personal film that maps some of the themes of Scorseseās gangster films onto American history.
More than the back-room dealings of āCasino,ā the bloody rampages of āGangs of New Yorkā or the financial swindling of āThe Wolf of Wall Street,ā āKillers of the Flower Moonā is the story of a crime wave. Itās a disturbingly insidious one, where greed and violence infiltrate the most intimate relationships ā a genocide in the home. All of which, to Scorsese, harkens back to the tough guys and the weak-willed go-alongs he witnessed in his childhood growing up on Elizabeth Street in New York.
āThatās been my whole life, dealing with who we are,ā says Scorsese. āI found that this story lent itself to that exploration further.ā
āKillers of the Flower Moon,ā a $200-million, 206-minute epic produced by Apple that's in theaters Friday, is an audacious big swing by Scorsese to continue his kind of ambitious, personal filmmaking on the largest scale at a time when such grand, big-screen statements are a rarity.
Scorsese considers āKillers of the Flower Moonā āan internal spectacle." The Oklahoma-set film, adapted from , might be called his first Western. But while developing Grannās book, which chronicles the Osage murders and the birth of the FBI, Scorsese came to the realization that centering the film on federal investigator Tom White was a familiar a type of Western.
āI realized: āYou donāt do that. Your Westerns are the Westerns you saw in the late ā40s and early ā50s, thatās it. Peckinpah finished that. āWild Bunch,ā thatās the end. Now theyāre different," he says. "It represented a certain time in who we were as a nation and a certain time in the world ā and the end of the studio system. It was a genre. That folklore is gone.ā
Scorsese, after conversations with Leonardo DiCaprio, pivoted to the story of Ernest and Mollie and a perspective closer to Osage Nation. Consultations with the tribe continued and expanded to include accurately capturing language, traditional clothing and customs.
āItās historical that Indigenous Peoples can tell their story at this level. Thatās never happened before as far as I know,ā says Geoffrey Standing Bear, Principal Chief of Osage Nation. āIt took somebody who could know that weāve been betrayed for hundreds of years. He wrote a story about betrayal of trust.ā
āKillers of the Flower Moonā for Scorsese grew out of a period of reflection and reevaluation during the pandemic. COVID-19, he says, was āa gamechanger." For a filmmaker whose time is so intensely scheduled, the break was in some ways a relief, and it allowed him a chance to reconsider what he wants to dedicate himself to. For him, preparing a film is a meditative process.
āI donāt use a computer because I tried a couple times and I got very distracted. I get distracted as it is,ā Scorsese says. āIāve got films, Iāve got books, Iāve got people. Iāve only begun this year to read emails. Emails, they scare me. It says āCCā and there are a thousand names. Who are these people?ā
Scorsese is laughing when he says this, surely aware that heās playing up his image as a member of the old guard. (A moment later he adds that voicemail āis interesting to do at times.ā) Yet heās also keen enough with technology to and make cameos in
Scorsese has for years been the preeminent conscience of cinema, passionately arguing for the place of personal filmmaking in an era of moviegoing where films can be devalued as ācontent,ā and big-screen vision can be shrunk down on streaming platforms.
āIām trying to keep alive the sense that cinema is an artform,ā Scorsese says. āThe next generation may not see it that way because as children and younger people, theyāre exposed to films that are wonderful entertainment, beautifully made, but are purely diversionary. I think cinema can enrich your life.ā
āAs Iām leaving, Iām trying to say: Remember, this can really be something beautiful in your life.ā
That mission includes spearheading extensive restoration work with the along with a regular output of . Scorsese and his longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker are currently producing a documentary on
Cinema, he says, may be the preeminent 20th century artform, but something else will belong to the 21st century. Now, Scorsese says, āthe visual image could be done by anything by anybody anytime anywhere.ā
āThe possibilities are infinite on all levels. And thatās exciting,ā Scorsese says. āBut at the same time, the more choices, the more difficult it is.ā
The pressure of time is weighing more heavily on Scorsese, too. He has, heās said, maybe two more feature films left in him. Currently in the mix are an adaptation of Grannās latest book, ā and an adaptation of Marilynne Robinsonās āHome.ā
āHeās uncompromising. He just does what he feels he really wants to look into,ā says Rodrigo Prieto, Scorseseās cinematographer on āFlower Moon,ā as well as his last three feature films.
āYou can feel that itās a personal exploration of his own psyche," adds Prieto. "In doing that, he allows growth for everybody, in a way, to really look into these characters who might be doing things we might find very objectionable. I canāt think of many other filmmakers who attempt at such a level of empathy and understanding.ā
Yet Scorsese says he often feels like heās in a race to accomplish what he can with the time he has left. Increasingly, he's prioritizing whatās worth it. Some things are easier for him to give up.
āWould I like to do more? Yeah. Would I like to go to everybodyās parties and dinner parties and things? Yeah, but you know what? I think I know enough people,ā Scorsese says with a laugh. āWould I like to go see the ancient Greek ruins? Yes. Go back to Sicily? Yes. Go back to Naples again? Yes. North Africa? Yes. But I donāt have to.ā
Time for Scorsese may be waning but curiosity is as abundant as ever. Recent reading for him includes a new translation of Alessandro Manzoniās āThe Betrothed.ā Some old favorites he canāt help but keep revisiting. āOut of the Pastā ā a movie he first saw as 6-year-old ā he watched again a few weeks ago. (āWhenever itās on, I have to stop and watch it.ā) Vittorio De Sicaās āGolden Naplesā was another recent rewatch.
āIf Iām curious about something, I think Iāll find a way ā if I hold out, if I hold up ā to try to make something about it on film,ā he says. āMy curiosity is still there.ā
So too is his continued astonishment at cinema and its capacity to transfix. Sometimes, Scorsese can hardly believe it. The other day he watched 1945 horror film āThe Isle of the Dead,ā with Boris Karloff.
āReally? How many more times am I going to see that?ā Scorsese says, laughing at himself. āItās their looks and their faces and the way (Karloff) moves. When I first saw it as a child, a young teenager, I was terrified by the film and the silences of it. The sense of contamination. I still get stuck on it."
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Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
