The Osage called it the “Reign of Terror.” Once upon a time, long after they’d been forcibly displaced and sold land in the Oklahoma territories deemed barren and unfruitful, the Indigenous tribe had discovered oil under the ground. And more oil. And still more oil after that. They became rich. Like Gatsby-level rich. Then, in the early 1920s, members of the community began suffering from a mysterious “wasting illness.” And when two Osage citizens were found within a day of each other in 1921, both with gunshot wounds to their heads, it became clear that someone was continuing an American tradition of genocide on a personal level.
An adaptation of David Grann’s 2017 true-crime bestseller, Killers of the Flower Moon would be a big deal regardless of who was making it. That this is the latest from Martin Scorsese, starring both Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro…
