The Greatest Crime Epic's Final Line Officially Changed the Genre
Thomas Butt is a senior writer. An avid film connoisseur, Thomas actively logs his film consumption on Letterboxd and vows to connect with many more cinephiles through the platform. He is immensely passionate about the work of Martin Scorsese, John Ford, and Albert Brooks. His work can be read on Collider and Taste of Cinema. He also writes for his own blog, The Empty Theater, on Substack. He is also a big fan of courtroom dramas and DVD commentary tracks. For Thomas, movie theaters are a second home. A native of Wakefield, MA, he is often found scrolling through the scheduled programming on Turner Classic Movies and making more room for his physical media collection. Thomas habitually increases his watchlist and jumps down a YouTube rabbit hole of archived interviews with directors and actors. He is inspired to write about film to uphold the medium's artistic value and to express his undying love for the art form. Thomas looks to cinema as an outlet to better understand the world, human emotions, and himself.
After nearly three and a half hours of bloodshed, betrayal, and thorny interpersonal relationships, Killers of the Flower Moon ended with a bang, but not in the traditional sense one would typically expect from a crime epic. Martin Scorsese's historical saga about a coordinated genocide of members of the Osage nation in Oklahoma is a complex, dense, and aggressively challenging film that forces the viewer to reckon with the director's beloved filmography. Everyone who adores Taxi Driver and Goodfellas may find themselves the subject of criticism in Killers of the Flower Moon's ending, which features a stunning cameo by none other than Scorsese himself, who plays a presenter in a radio play years after the events of the movie. In a film ripe with stellar performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and breakout star Lily Gladstone, Scorsese's final line, in which he reveals that "there was no mention of the murders," is its most powerful line delivery and a damning indictment of the glorification of crime on the big screen, especially by Scorsese himself.
'Killers of the Flower Moon' Underscores the Failure of the Justice System
The cheery pomp and circumstance of Killers of the Flower Moon's final set piece is a jarring sight to see, as it's capping off roughly 200 minutes of existential dread and dour confrontations with death. With a huge portion of the Osage nation being wiped out and deprived of their family fortune by William Hale (De Niro), the ailing health of the film's heart, Mollie Burkhart (Gladstone), and the extreme guilt harbored by Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio), the events are simply too morose for a lively radio play to adapt straightforwardly.
This epilogue, which tracks how our major characters lived out the rest of their lives, takes a stark turn when an older presenter, played by Scorsese, reads Mollie's obituary. There is one staggering omission, which Scorsese reveals to the crowd and sends shockwaves through the audience. "There was no mention of the murders," he announces, referring to the tragic slayings of Mollie's family and loved ones carried out by Hale and his team of assassins. The film ultimately concludes with an unbroken overhead shot of a present-day Osage gathering, where they perform a song and dance ritual. The profundity of Scorsese's performance and the magnitude of the final shot combine to make Killers of the Flower Moon perhaps the director's most emotionally sweeping movie yet.
Martin Scorsese Challenges His Own Filmography in 'Killers of the Flower Moon'
Martin Scorsese's cameo in Killers of the Flower Moon, from a formalist perspective, is one of the director's most audacious moves to date. Blending the line between narrative and documentary, the choice reflects the director and co-writer Eric Roth's decision to shift the story away from the FBI's investigation, the primary focus of David Grann's true crime book of the same name, and towards the interpersonal dynamics between Ernest, Mollie, and Hale. By focusing on the investigation of the murders, a mystery that's hardly cryptic when watching the film's banality of evil, you lose sight of the people who had their lives cut short by greed and power. In turn, more focus (leading to inherent glorification) is given to the heinous murderers rather than the victims, who, like the Osage people, were rich with values, culture, tradition, and economic prosperity that America supposedly celebrates. Considering the relative obscurity of the Osage murders before Flower Moon, it's no surprise that Mollie's obituary would omit the harsh truth of her family’s mass execution by greedy white settlers.
Many would argue that Scorsese's condemnation of our densensitized relationship to crime is throwing stones from a glass house, as the filmmaker's seven-decade career has been partly defined by his intoxicating and captivating depiction of the criminal underworld. Even though his films underline the dark side of crime in the third act, he argues that the often fun and rewarding nature of being a wiseguy is why everyday human beings commit grave sins. However, in the most personal and self-reflective moment of his career, Flower Moon's final line indirectly suggests that Scorsese has some culpability in this media climate of romanticizing and forgiving criminals and neglecting victims, a moment that wouldn't carry the same punch without the director appearing on-screen. The somber conclusion, leading to the Osage ritual, is perhaps a wake-up call to the industry, as Flower Moon should probably be the last time a white filmmaker tackles stories about Indigenous people and their history.
Martin Scorsese has another movie (and hopefully more) in production, but the final line in Killers of the Flower Moon is a perfect capstone to his career that addresses his recurring themes and engages with criticisms he's faced going back to Taxi Driver. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he reminds us to remember the murders of the Osage Nation, the legend continues to be printed, and legends cover up America's dark history.
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