So we’ve got our first official look at Martin Scorsese’s new film Killers of the
Flower Moon. I'm a bit ill at the moment so please excuse my voice if it sounds a bit
weird, but it feels like we’ve been waiting ages to get a glimpse at Killers of the Flower
Moon and that’s precisely because the movie was supposed to originally start filming early
last year. It actually started filming about 3 weeks ago, the middle of April 2021, so
it’s actually really quick that we’ve got an image, usually you don’t get one
so soon, especially one that clearly looks like official promotional material, and not
some random shot from a paparazzi. First shared on Leonardo DiCaprio’s twitter
page, the image shows DiCaprio in character as Ernerst Burkhart sitting in his home, in
fact it’s most likely an actual shot from the film. I run into weird copyright issues
on the channel sometimes. I can’t show the full image, but the whole thing also shows
Lily Gladstone as DiCaprio’s wife, Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman married to the white
DiCaprio.
So that’s definitely Leonardo DiCaprio, he doesn’t look to different to how he usually
does, just with a bit more thinning hair and with a slightly constipated expression. He
looks quite similar to how he does in Scorsese’s Shutter Island, and I’m not gonna give anything
away, but those who have read the book will know that DiCaprio is going to have this conflicted,
introspective look on his face for quite a lot of the film. Unlike previous Scorsese
films like Gangs of New York or The Aviator, DiCaprio is not the good guy in this movie,
he might not even be the protagonist (it’s more of an ensemble film), but he isn’t
going to be a straight up bad guy either. The guy he’s playing is a piece of work,
but he’s morally nuanced, it’s actually a really interesting character, perhaps one
of the best DiCaprio will ever play in his career. Knowing Ernest Burkhart from the book,
you could make this guy out to be a sadistic evil man, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a
mentally weak willed man, a sympathetic conflicted man trapped in a corner, so it’s going to
be really interesting seeing what direction they take this in and how they portray the
character.
I’m not exactly the biggest DiCaprio fan around, and one of the reasons is the lack
of complexity in a lot of the characters he plays. They’re either straight up good guys
or in the case of one or two recent films bad guys – but here there’s room for a
lot of nuance in his character’s nature, even though on paper he is technically a bad
guy.
I mean it’s only one image, there’s no point in getting too over excited, but one
of the most remarkable things about this photo I think is the production design, which is
being done by the famed Jack Fisk, who worked on There Will Be Blood, The Revenant, and
other period films. The ornaments and drawers behind DiCaprio and the moody lighting, it
all feels very retro doesn’t it, without you having to be told this movie is set in
the past. Then there’s the dirty salt shakers, the crumbs on the table, all of these little
things are important in giving a film a lived-in feel, like it takes place in a real moving,
breathing living world, which I think is often one of the strongest aspect of Martin Scorsese
movies.
I can’t wait to see what Robert De Niro looks like in the movie. DiCaprio pretty much
looks the same in almost every Scorsese movie, but De Niro usually has a very distinct look,
to such an extent you can always tell which Scorsese movie any shot of him is from. It’s
also interesting that there’s around a 20 year age gap between De Niro’s age and the
character he’s playing. The age isn’t important to the character, not like with
Scorsese’s previous film The Irishman, and I think they’re just going to play around
with the characters’ age in the film, but if we see a still of De Niro, and he happens
to have some dots around his neck area, then then you know for sure that they’re going
to be implementing that de-aging technology from The Irishman again, which might partly
explain Killers of the Flower Moon’s huge budget. I hope they don’t go down that route,
I know why they did it for The Irishman, it was necessary given the structure of the film,
but it really isn’t needed here. Killers of the flower moon is a film I get
more and more excited thinking about the closer we get to the film’s release date. The book
was incredible, it’s got a wonderful cast, it’s Martin Scorsese, it’s a western,
and it’s got a really good story. For more updates and news on the film, consider subscribing
to the channel and hitting the notification button down below, and thanks for watching.