A series of grisly murders sparks a Federal investigation in Director Martin Scorsese’s western crime drama, Killers of the Flower Moon.
Scorsese’s film tells the true story of when dozens of members of the Osage Indian Nation were brutally murdered between the 1910s and 1930s after oil is found on their land in Osage County, Oklahoma and the nascent FBI embarks on its first major homicide investigation.
Following the DGA membership screening in New York on October 1, Scorsese sat down with Director Ari Aster (Beau Is Afraid) to discuss the making of Killers of the Flower Moon. He also discussed the film in a conversation moderated by Director Ti West (Pearl) following the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles on October 15.
During the conversation in New York, Scorsese shared a little of his philosophy on honesty in filmmaking.
“People ask me, ‘So what are you doing?’ I say, ‘Just trying to be honest with myself.’ When I say try to be honest with myself, there's not some pseudo religious thought in any way. It's about if I'm not honest with the work, how I feel about the work — and even with its pros and cons and maybe with its bad things and its good things — then I feel like I just haven't gotten anywhere, why make the film? Because I'm the one that has to deal with it. I signed it. You could have a contribution from everybody you want, where everybody pulls together as a great crew — wonderful actors, writers, and you deal with studios or producers — but ultimately, I signed it. What am I going to do? I that's me. And if you have a problem with it, it's really me.”
Scorsese’s credits include the DGA Award-nominated features Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, Hugo, The Wolf of Wall Street and The Irishman; the DGA Award-nominated documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World; the DGA Award-winning pilot episode of the dramatic series Boardwalk Empire; and the DGA and Academy Award-winning feature The Departed.
A DGA member since 1971, in 1999, Mr. Scorsese was presented with the Filmmaker Award at the inaugural DGA Honors Gala; and he was honored with the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Feature Film in 2003.