Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ brings ‘The Devil’ to theatres

The big screen adaptation of David Grann ’89’s book tells the story of the horrifying Osage murders and the birth of the FBI.

“It looked very innocent,” David Grann ’89 recalled of a photo in the Osage Nation Museum in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, in a 2017 interview with Connecticut College Magazine. “I asked the museum director why that panel was missing. She explained the missing piece was because the devil was standing right there.”

That began a five-year journey to publication for Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, Grann’s historical account of one of the largely forgotten tragedies befalling America’s indigenous population: the decimation of the Osage Nation at the turn of the 20th century. Driven to bring the tale to the forefront of American readers’ minds, Grann crafted a book that balanced page-turning prose with a solemn respect for the horror white Americans once again enacted on our nation’s Indigenous. He explained, “You want to tell it in a compelling way, because if you do that, you can get some very important scenes about a serious racial injustice, about reckoning with a part of history that we are often reluctant to reckon with.”

Six years after hitting shelves, Killers of the Flower Moon is the source material for one of 2023’s most anticipated films, directed by Martin Scorsese and featuring an incredible cast led by Lily Gladstone, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. It is the fifth adaptation of Grann’s work. While those other efforts have included the acting talents of Sissy Spacek, Robert Redford, Sienna Miller and Robert Pattinson and helmed by directors like James Gray and David Lowery, Flower Moon is the most prominent adaptation yet, by a considerable margin.

The film, weighing in at an impressive 3.5 hours, begins showing in some theatres Oct. 19 before officially opening on Friday, Oct. 20. While there’s no date set yet, it will go on to stream on AppleTV+, likely at the beginning of 2024. Reviews so far have proven highly positive, with Clint Worthington of Consequence writing Flower Moon is a “staggering work of cinema” and Peter Sobczynski of The Spool declaring it “stunning.” DiCaprio has reportedly called the film “a masterpiece.”

Jim Gray, former Principal Chief of the Osage Nation, has indicated he found the film similarly moving. On the site previously known as Twitter, he wrote, “I want to thank David Grann and the Late Charles Red Corn for giving Apple and Scorsese the canvas to paint this story with his vision.” He later added in the same thread, “How was the movie? It was excellent.”

Speaking to Connecticut College Magazine’s Melissa Babcock Johnson earlier this year, Grann indicated his optimism in the feature. “They spent many years working on it and shaping it,” he told her. “I’ve been happy with the level of care they have taken.”

It seems Scorsese and DiCaprio had similarly warm feelings towards Grann and his work. As reported by Johnson, the director and actor have optioned Grann’s latest book, The Wager, for their seventh collaboration. When they approached the writer, he had his answer immediately. “Obviously…I was like, ‘Yes!’” he confessed.

Killers of the Flower Moon opens in 3,500 theatres on Oct. 20, the largest opening for a Scorsese film ever and DiCaprio’s biggest opening since 2019’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. David Grann’s book is available in paperback in bookstores everywhere.

Read more about Killers of the Flower Moon and Grann’s newest work, The Wager, in CC Magazine.