October 22nd, 2023
Common Sense Media Age: 16+ Violence 5/5 Language 4/5 Sex 2/5
My Age Recommendation: 16+ (Due to some strong violence scenes, brief bloody and gory images, strong language throughout including slurs and racial epithets, and some sexual dialogue).
I heard of this movie through a video online in which Martin Scorsese states how this is his last movie and how he got actual Osage Indians to be in this movie, and that was already enough to make me want to watch it. After reading parts of this book in previous classes, I had a general understanding of the situation, but nothing could have prepared me for seeing it through Scorsese's storytelling. The story is a true story based on the Osage Indian Tribe in the 1920's and 30s as they became some of the richest people ever due to the oil on their land. White people start to move westward into the Osage land to scheme on how to get their oil money for themselves, in which Ernest Burkhart and his uncle William Hale have a plan. William is considered one of the best funders of the town, and with this influence he gets away with killing many Indians for their money, and he ropes Ernest into this scheme as he marries an Osage named Mollie in order to become closer. As they fall in love, Ernest starts to hesitate as he kills more Osage with his uncle, and this leads to downward spiral of the entire town throughout the slow take over. This movie was really realistic and what really added to it was the cultural accuracy that came with the Osage Indians actually acting out their own history. It made this movie hard to watch at times as people were violently killed for headright money, and the use of real culture and tradition to show these intense scenes made it really realistic and raw throughout the entire movie. Despite the movie being three and a half hours long, the pacing was steady throughout, with great character development for every character, and even better dialogue/chemistry between Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Lily Gladstone. While each of these actors were amazing in what some argue is their best performance yet, Lily Gladstone's role and performance was 'best actress' worthy without a doubt. I was in shock with how well the intense scenes were handled by her, and it was hard to watch the scenes of her crying and screaming since it felt so real. It is hard to describe this movie in words due to how emotional and intense it is, so all I will say is everyone should watch it (and get over the 3.5 hour run time) and experience the tragic piece of American history for themselves.
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