MOVIE MUSIC UK

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

Killers of the Flower Moon is the latest film from revered director Martin Scorsese. It tells the true, but mostly unknown, story of the so-called ‘Osage Indian Murders,’ which happened in Oklahoma over the course of many years in the 1910s and 20s. The Osage Native American tribe, having forcibly been removed from their ancestral homeland to a dusty, barren area of Oklahoma, became fabulously wealthy almost overnight when oil was discovered on their land. Naturally, the white men of the time couldn’t just let the Osage be rich and live in peace – the concept of ‘manifest destiny’ and racism against the ‘redskins’ has a lot to answer for – and so they started moving into the area, trying to think of ways to take control of the oil for themselves. The most evil and twisted plot they concocted was the one cooked up by cattle baron Bill ‘King’ Hale that forms the core of this film: he and his nephews Ernest Burkhart and Byron Burkhart would insidiously earn the trust of the Osage elders, seduce and marry the women of one of the wealthiest families, and then over time murder the women so that the oil rights eventually passed to the white men. The film stars Robert De Niro as Hale, Leonardo Di Caprio as Ernest, and the brilliant Lily Gladstone as Ernest’s Osage wife Millie, with Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, and Brendan Fraser in supporting roles, Jesse Plemons as the FBI man sent in to solve the crime, and many real members of the current Osage nation playing their own ancestors.

Killers of the Flower Moon is a devastating movie, utterly tragic, which shows the despicable lengths to which men will go in order to obtain wealth and power. It’s a microcosm of the bigger story about the culture clash between whites and Native Americans, and how the latter have been willfully, sadistically, and systematically been mistreated by the former. It’s a film about love and family, greed and avarice, racism and misogyny, filmed in Scorsese’s beautiful, poetic, visually impressive style. It’s a three and a half hour film – and it feels it – but it’s compelling nonetheless, and it’s anchored by three outstanding performances by De Niro, Di Caprio, and Gladstone. De Niro’s Hale is the quintessential devil in disguise, presenting himself as a friend of the Osage while secretly plotting to undermine and destroy them from within. Di Caprio plays against type as a doughy, slightly bumbling buffoon, who is easily manipulated by his uncle into doing terrible, terrible things, while still proclaiming to love his victims. However, the standout is clearly Gladstone, who brings a quiet dignity to her role as Millie, who gradually sees her family devastated by Hale’s schemes, and who (for a while at least) chooses to see the good in Ernest, even though her world is falling apart. She, and her two co-stars, are absolute locks for Oscar nominations, as is the film itself, Scorsese’s direction, the screenplay, Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography, and a whole bunch of other technical elements.

Martin Scorsese has an unusual relationship with film music. Some of his films – Taxi Driver, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Age of Innocence, Kundun, The Aviator, The Departed, Hugo – featured mostly traditional orchestral and jazz scores, and over the course of his career he has worked with some of film music’s all time great composers, including Bernard Herrmann, Elmer Bernstein, and Howard Shore. However, an equal amount of his films have no original music at all, and films such as Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and Casino were instead accompanied by classical music and/or period songs. On those films, Scorsese would invariably turn to Robbie Robertson for help producing the soundtrack, curating the song choices, and sometimes writing an instrumental here and there where one was required, like he did for The King of Comedy in 1982, The Color of Money in 1986, and The Irishman in 2019.

For those who don’t know, Robbie Robertson was one of the most influential Americana/folk rock musicians of his generation, best known for his songwriting and guitar work with The Band. Robertson and The Band performed at the original Woodstock in 1969, and had chart hits with songs like “The Weight,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” and “Up on Cripple Creek.” They were contemporaries of people like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, George Harrison, and Eric Clapton, and have been cited as influences by legendary artists as diverse as Elton John and The Grateful Dead. Robertson and Scorsese first crossed paths when the latter was hired by The Band to direct their 1978 concert film The Last Waltz, after Robertson had seen and liked Scorsese’s film Mean Streets, and their friendship continued from there. They first worked together on Raging Bull in 1980, and sporadically thereafter for more than 40 years, but it was not until Killers of the Flower Moon that Scorsese asked Robertson to provide a ‘proper’ full score for one his films. Robertson responded to Scorsese’s request with what is, by some margin, the best and most important piece of film music of his entire career. It’s also his last, as Robertson sadly died of prostate cancer in August 2023, just two months prior to the film’s premiere.

Killers of the Flower Moon is not a traditional score in the sense that it’s not a through-composed orchestral work filled with recurring themes. In fact, in film context, the score is often absent for very long periods of time, and when it does appear it usually presents little more than a heartbeat pulse or a melancholy guitar lick to accentuate a particularly cinematic visual or a moment of emotional catharsis. Even then, Killers of the Flower Moon is for the most part a quiet film, and as such the score is dialed so low in the mix that often you can barely hear it. It also competes for attention with period source music, as well as numerous authentic Osage chants, one of which is performed prominently in the film’s final scene and over the end credits. With the exception of one scene, right at the beginning of the film (which I’ll get to momentarily), the score is actually not especially important when it comes to driving the narrative; instead, Robertson’s score is about mood and texture, quietly filling gaps between the long silences and the outbursts of rage and grief.

The one exception to this is the opening sequence, which is accompanied by the cue “Osage Oil Boom,” and is a montage of the Osage discovering oil on their land, dancing joyfully in the black rain gushing from the ground, and becoming fabulously rich. The montage ends with Ernest Burkhart arriving in Oklahoma and driving through the reservation to his uncle’s cattle ranch, after which the fate of the Osage will be bathed not in oil, but in blood. The cue is a driving, dirty, defiant piece for a throbbing electric guitar, a complementary bass guitar, a haunting flute, and various percussion items, both native and rock. It’s completely anachronistic of course – this kind of Americana rock/blues/tribal combo didn’t exist in the 1910s – but it is tremendously effective in context, easily the score highlight. In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel on his late night show, Scorsese explained that he and Robertson didn’t ‘spot’ the film in a traditional way – they would instead talk about concepts and feelings and the overall tone of the score, after which Robertson would go away and write a series of instrumentals that Scorsese could integrate as he saw fit. The one exception was this opening sequence, which was composed-to-picture in a traditional way, with Scorsese saying that he needed something ‘really strong’.

The rest of the score, in terms of its in-context application, is much less impactful, but the music on album is an entirely different matter, and this is actually the best place to hear Robertson’s work. Scorsese’s direction to Robertson about the tone of the score was for it to be “dangerous, and fleshy, and sexy,” with guitars that howl like a coyote, and with a bolero-like rhythmic center that moves around the characters like a dance. Robertson responded to that with a score that blends his familiar Americana-influenced country rock and blues with Native American vocals, woodwinds, and percussion items.

In many ways, the score is a reflection of who Robertson was as a person. He himself was partially Native American, from the Mohawk tribe, whose mother grew up on a Canadian First Nations reservation near Toronto, and as such it feels like the music was very personal and very authentic. In interviews conducted just prior to his death, Robertson said “I was gathering pictures in my head of music I heard as a child at the Six Nations Indian Reserve. My relatives are all sitting around with their instruments, and one guy would start a rhythm, and then somebody would start singing a melody to that, and it was just haunting. The feeling of the music beside you like that, humming and droning—the groove and the feel of it got under my skin and it lives there forever.” Then, regarding the sound of the score, he went on to say that he “wanted to build an orchestra of guitar sounds with different variations of the instrument,” so he “kept building and building the orchestra, and then tore it down and tried to keep its soul.”

There are several other cues of note after the “Osage Oil Boom,” beginning with the lyrical, homespun, almost optimistic guitar and harmonica sound of “My Land… My Land,” the last moment of calm in Ernest Burkhart’s life before King Hale asserts his corrupting influence. “Heartbeat Theme/Ni-U-Kon-Ska” introduces the incessant, thrumming, bolero-like beat that Scorsese was talking about, which is adorned with a terrific combination of a bluesy harmonica, Hammond organ, and breathy tribal woodwinds that again puts the contemporary and the ancient on a musical collision course. I also love “The Wedding,” which is wholesome and warm and gently romantic, and features a lovely theme that starts off being carried by pretty guitars, then moves to a fiddle, and is accompanied by a waterfall cascade of light tribal percussion.

At the other end of the spectrum, “Reign of Terror” is a moody variation on the guitar theme heard in “My Land… My Land,” which is given a sense of brutality and darkness by the use of low orchestral woodwinds and the Heartbeat Theme, reflecting Burkhart’s own journey into darkness. “Insulin Train” is carried by a mesmerizing bluesy folk guitar groove, bolstered by rock percussion riffs and gasping breathy vocal sounds; these gasps serve two purposes, mimicking the sound of the steam train bringing the medicine to town, and then the ragged breathing of the women who are subjected to terrible abuse that is simply passed off as ‘wasting sickness’.

A lot of the rest of the score features some combination of guitar harmonics, wordless vocals, bass guitar riffs, dirty and angry harmonicas, and starkly groaning strings, plus more allusions to the Heartbeat Theme. These textures tend to be prominent in cues which deal with the darker parts of the story – the violent fates brought to bear on numerous Osage women, the nefarious plots cooked up by Hale and his cohorts, and the anguished reactions to the deaths that reverberate throughout the entire community. I do like the howling wailing guitars and somber, dramatic cello textures that accompany the “Tulsa Massacre Newsreel,” as well as the complicated tribal percussion patterns and impressionistic harmonica textures in “Shame on Us” which make interesting use of an unusual embouchure and what appears to be a type of circular breathing.

The final cue, the “Salvation Adagio,” is an unusual combination of mournful guitars, a slow and somber solo trumpet, bluesy guitar embellishments, and delicately airy flutes, all of which come together to paint a powerful portrait of Millie’s calm defiance and inner strength as she stands up to her oppressors and fights for justice for her people. The album is rounded out by several pieces of folksy source music, including a fascinating rendition of the classical Americana composer Ferde Grofé’s “Metropolis – A Blue Fantasie,” and the tribal chant “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” that plays over the end credits, which was written by local tribal leader Scott George. There’s also an original song, “Still Standing,” written and performed by Robertson, whose gravelly voice combines with an optimistic lyric that acknowledges the atrocities of the past – not just the ones suffered by the Osage in this story, but by most if not all of the native tribes at the hands of the Europeans – while offering a sense of defiance and fortitude.

I have said previously that I thought Killers of the Flower Moon was an absolute lock for a Best Score Oscar nomination. The film is a critical success, Scorsese is beloved, Robertson was a hugely influential rock musician writing what is essentially his first ‘proper’ score, and the sad fact that he has just died will likely inspire many people to want to give him some sort of posthumous accolade in tribute. However, having seen the film, I wonder whether the score will actually be eligible. A clause in the Academy’s rules states that “a score must be created specifically for the eligible feature-length motion picture and comprise a minimum of 60% of the total music in the film,” and I’m not sure whether there is enough score in the film to meet that standard. A lot of the music on the album is essentially inaudible in context, and some of it may have been excised from the final cut entirely – I honestly couldn’t tell – so I guess time will tell if it does indeed meet the eligibility criteria. If it *does* meet the criteria, I stand by my assertation that it’s likely a shoo-in for a nomination.

Killers of the Flower Moon is an unusual score, which may not appeal to fans of traditional orchestral music. As I wrote earlier, it’s an unusual but hugely effective combination of guitar-heavy Americana blues/rock, traditional country-inflected instrumentals, and authentic Native American percussion and woodwinds, all of which come together to create a rich, vivid portrait of a time and a place where two very different cultures clash in increasingly tragic and disturbing circumstances. You have to like that sound, and be able to appreciate that dirtier feel, to get anything out of it, and if you don’t have that gene you’re likely to struggle. Personally, and even though you need to listen to the album in order to truly appreciate what the music is doing in context, I think it’s the best music Robbie Robertson ever wrote for the screen, an authentic and appropriate musical response to one of the most shameful incidents in American history.

Buy the Killers of the Flower Moon soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• Intro – The Sacred Pipe (0:38)
• Osage Oil Boom (2:51)
• My Land… My Land (2:10)
• Heartbeat Theme/ Ni-U-Kon-Ska (3:33)
• They Don’t Live Long (2:55)
• The Wedding (2:04)
• Tribal Council (1:12)
• Reign of Terror (2:51)
• Insulin Train (2:50)
• Tulsa Massacre Newsreel (2:24)
• Shame on Us (2:42)
• Too Much Dynamite (2:56)
• Not If It’s Illegal (2:47)
• Salvation Adagio (3:11)
• Still Standing (written and performed by Robbie Robertson) (3:48)
• Tupelo Blues (written and performed by Rayna Gellert, Kieran Kane, Philip Jamison, and David Mansfield) (2:53)
• Livery Stable Blues (written by Marvin Lee, Ray Lopez, and Alcide Nunez, performed by Vince Giordano and Nighthawks) (1:54)
• The Gallop, Chasse, Pas de Bouree (written by Steven Mitchell, performed by Adam Nielsen) (0:37)
• Metropolis – A Blue Fantasie (written by Ferde Grofé , performed by Vince Giordano and Nighthawks) (2:10)
• Mollie (written and performed by Andy Stein) (0:20)
• Wahzhazhe – A Song for My People (written by Scott George, performed by Osage Tribal Singers) (6:25)

Running Time: 53 minutes 11 seconds

Sony Masterworks (2023)

Music composed by Robbie Robertson. Conducted by Mark Graham. Orchestrations by Mark Graham, Daniel Gold, Gregory Jamrok, Abraham Libbos, Victor Pesavento, Andrew Rowan, Franklin Silva and Joe Zimmerman. Featured musical soloists Robbie Robertson, Emma Cronley, George Doering and Andrew Synowiec. Recorded and mixed by Steve Genewick, Karl Wingate, Bob Clearmountain and Martin Pradler. Edited by XXXX. Album produced by Robbie Robertson and Martin Scorsese.