Post by Good God on Oct 10, 2019 20:47:43 GMT
Q: You’re about to make Killers of the Flower Moon, the story of the Bureau of Investigation handling of the 1920s murders of members of the Osage tribe in Oklahoma, who had become immensely rich through their oil rights. The narrative, in the book it’s based on anyway, is more linear than it is in The Irishman, isn’t it?
Scorsese: Yes, but again, I don’t know if I’d do it that way. I’ve been working with Eric Roth on the script for a few years now, and we’re – now, actually, yesterday, in this room, and last night – we’re knocking away at this script, and restructuring it, rethinking it. Because it’s convenient to do a sort of detective story, but we all know what it is. So I want to explore something else, and that is the nature of a whole way of thinking as being complicit in genocide. It’s dehumanising people. I was out in Oklahoma about six weeks ago, and ultimately, as the Osage told me, it’s about greed. And therefore you could think that these people don’t deserve any of it because they’re not human anyway. Not really human. That opens up a whole interesting situation, let’s say, with William Hale [the jovial, sinister white local patriarch] and his nephew Ernest, and [his Osage niece-by-marriage] Mollie, beyond even the Bureau of Investigation and [its agent] Tom White, who’s a good man, comes in – he couldn’t pin it on anybody, he couldn’t get evidence – they were all doing it. Or they’re all, at least, complicit in sins of omission. They were quiet about it. And ultimately that’s the story, the whole idea of the status quo being guilty.
Q: De Niro is going to be in it?
Scorsese: [Yes, as] Bill Hale. William Hale. Gotta get him in there. And Leo [DiCaprio], I think playing Ernest at this point, the husband. And we
haven’t yet settled on Tom White, but… yeah, it’s shifting the story from – since we know what happens and we know certain characters. Then how do you tell the story from the inside rather than from the exterior in. It’s going to take a few more months to get that right. But I was in Oklahoma, met with the Osage, Chief Standing Bear and his family, and it’s quite remarkable. I was certainly – how shall I put it? – surprised by the landscape. This is very different. I’m more used to the South-west, California, New Mexico – I did a film there. The landscape here is something that I hadn’t anticipated. The space of it. And the isolation is interesting. I mean, we’re just beginning, but I hope to get there, I hope to start shooting it by March or April. But it’s exciting, and we’re just grappling now, getting the script together. I have to go around, do some travelling, for The Irishman, but these days it’s best just to get to work.
Scorsese: Yes, but again, I don’t know if I’d do it that way. I’ve been working with Eric Roth on the script for a few years now, and we’re – now, actually, yesterday, in this room, and last night – we’re knocking away at this script, and restructuring it, rethinking it. Because it’s convenient to do a sort of detective story, but we all know what it is. So I want to explore something else, and that is the nature of a whole way of thinking as being complicit in genocide. It’s dehumanising people. I was out in Oklahoma about six weeks ago, and ultimately, as the Osage told me, it’s about greed. And therefore you could think that these people don’t deserve any of it because they’re not human anyway. Not really human. That opens up a whole interesting situation, let’s say, with William Hale [the jovial, sinister white local patriarch] and his nephew Ernest, and [his Osage niece-by-marriage] Mollie, beyond even the Bureau of Investigation and [its agent] Tom White, who’s a good man, comes in – he couldn’t pin it on anybody, he couldn’t get evidence – they were all doing it. Or they’re all, at least, complicit in sins of omission. They were quiet about it. And ultimately that’s the story, the whole idea of the status quo being guilty.
Q: De Niro is going to be in it?
Scorsese: [Yes, as] Bill Hale. William Hale. Gotta get him in there. And Leo [DiCaprio], I think playing Ernest at this point, the husband. And we
haven’t yet settled on Tom White, but… yeah, it’s shifting the story from – since we know what happens and we know certain characters. Then how do you tell the story from the inside rather than from the exterior in. It’s going to take a few more months to get that right. But I was in Oklahoma, met with the Osage, Chief Standing Bear and his family, and it’s quite remarkable. I was certainly – how shall I put it? – surprised by the landscape. This is very different. I’m more used to the South-west, California, New Mexico – I did a film there. The landscape here is something that I hadn’t anticipated. The space of it. And the isolation is interesting. I mean, we’re just beginning, but I hope to get there, I hope to start shooting it by March or April. But it’s exciting, and we’re just grappling now, getting the script together. I have to go around, do some travelling, for The Irishman, but these days it’s best just to get to work.