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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON – Robbie Robertson
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. Read more…
Robbie Robertson, 1943-2023
Guitarist, songwriter, producer and film composer Robbie Robertson died in Los Angeles on August 9, 2023, at the age of 80, following a year-long battle with prostate cancer.
Best known as the principal songwriter and guitarist of The Band, Robertson also developed one of cinema’s most enduring musical partnerships with director Martin Scorsese, working as composer, music producer and soundtrack curator on films ranging from Raging Bull and The Color of Money to The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon.
Jaime Royal Robertson was born in Toronto, Canada, on July 5, 1943. His mother was of Mohawk and Cayuga ancestry and had been raised on the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve, where Robertson spent considerable time as a child and first encountered the communal music-making that remained important to him throughout his life.
As a teenager Robertson joined Ronnie Hawkins’s backing group, the Hawks, which eventually broke away and accompanied Bob Dylan during his controversial electric tours of 1965 and 1966. Renamed The Band, the group released Music from Big Pink in 1968 and became one of the most influential acts of its era. Robertson wrote or co-wrote classics including “The Weight,” “Up on Cripple Creek” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” helping establish the mixture of rock, country, blues and folk that later became known as Americana. Read more…
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