Martin Scorsese explains his cameo in Killers of the Flower Moon

“While training, I thought about the graves of the Osage people, that of the mother, the sisters, the father and the little girl,” says the director.

The sprawling epic Killers of the Flower Moon of Martin Scorsese contains a powerful moment, located at the end of the three and a half hours of story.

Adapted from the book by David Grannthe film transposes the drama of the Osage people, silently massacred by greedy whites in the 1920s due to their enrichment. Martin Scorsese takes up this merciless diegesis where the marital drama hovers, with Mollie Osage at the head, played by Lily Gladstone And Leonardo DiCaprio in the shoes of Ernest Burkhart.

At the end of the trial which concludes the film, we jump back in time to find ourselves in the recording of a radio play recounting the tragedy of the Osage. All the actors are white, and the recording, punctuated by sound effects, takes place in front of a delighted audience. We told them the beautiful story, sponsored by Lucky Strike, of a major investigation carried out smoothly by the heroes of the FBI. A radical departure from the film we have just seen.

The sequence becomes even more meta when Scorsese appears on stage. The tone becomes serious again and the director describes how Mollie succumbed to her diabetes a few years later, after divorcing from Ernest. No mention of the murders appeared in his obituary.

Martin Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth confided in EW, the latter explain that the final scene evolved over time. The two friends wanted to Killers of the Flower Moon ends on a non-traditional note.

“One of the things we were discussing was the fact that – for God’s sake – this becomes entertainment after all. And you can say that this film itself becomes entertainment, in which case we have to take responsibility for it. We hope it’s entertainment with some depth and enrichment that comes close to some kind of truth.”

Originally, Martin Scorsese And Eric Roth imagined an ending different from what is proposed to date. Eric Roth wrote the film’s final homage to Mollie Burkhartassuming that Martin Scorsese would find an actor to read these last lines. Instead, the director himself volunteered to read these lines. Breaking the fourth wall, Martin Scorsese is no stranger to making cameos in his own films. However, the Oscar-winning director explained that this cameo happened innocently.

“I didn’t know how to bring it. I couldn’t ask an actor to do it, so I said, ‘Let me try‘. We’ll try it, and if it doesn’t work, I think I can guide an actor.”tell Martin Scorsese.

“I didn’t know Marty did it. I was watching the movie, and I said, ‘What is that ?‘I was so moved. There is a mise en abyme, it is Marty who tells the story. I almost started crying because I was so emotional. I found Marty wonderful“, explain Eric Rothco-writer.

The day the scene was filmed, Martin Scorsese was joined by his family, his wife, his daughter and his granddaughter. As he approached the microphone, he said, he reminisced about the friends he made in Oklahoma and the time he spent visiting the graves of Osage victims.

“As I rehearsed, I thought about these graves: of the mother, sisters, father and granddaughter of the Osage people. I said it. I did it. And finally, everyone froze and said: Maybe that’s it. Maybe this is the right way to close. It was better than ending the film in a conventional way“

Killers of the Flower Moon is available in the room.