Lily Gladstone says Killers of the Flower Moon is 'not from perspective of the Osages'

Lily Gladstone has seen through what has been her mainstream breakthrough performance in Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon. The film has been widely appreciated critically - something which has reflected in its commercial success. However, this has not come sans criticism, given the sensitive subject matter of the film, namely, the Osage County Indian murders. Though Scorsese's telling of history came as as a result of the constant collaboration and involvement of the afflicted tribe, film lead Lily Gladstone, sans judgement believes the film to still be from the majoritarian perspective.

Lily Gladstone agrees with the native critique of Killers of the Flower Moon

In an interview with Variety, Lily Gladstone entered constructive deliberations about the varied perspectives about Killers of the Flower Moon. Directly addressing the perspective of the film still being from the perspective of Ernest Burkhart, despite being about the reign of terror on Osage, said, "That’s how reality is shaped. The universe is the shape of all of these different stories, even if they conflict."

Gladstone also appeared to be in agreement with actual Osage voices, like that of Christopher Cote, one of the language consultants who helped the Killers of the Flower Moon team learn Wazhazhe. As per Cote, “As an Osage, I really wanted this to be from the perspective of Mollie and what her family experienced, but I think it would take an Osage to do that. Martin Scorsese, not being Osage, I think he did a great job representing our people, but this history is being told from the perspective of Ernest Burkhart."

Lily Gladstone says Martin Scorsese is not bigger than history

Lily Gladstone further reflected how there is nothing wrong with the perspective shared in Killers of the Flower Moon. However, one must be very aware so as to know that the events in the film are being expressed from the perspective of the assailants and not the victims. Gladstone also appreciated Martin Scorsese for having this awareness and thoroughly trying to balance the put-forth narrative.

She said, “Marty is a titan, but he’s not bigger than history. He’s a major shaper of it though. It’s the tricky nature of a story like this. You have more representation, but coming from somebody who’s not from the community. So you always have to look at it with a different angle. And there’s nothing wrong with that, you just have to be very aware of the film that you’re watching and what lens it was made through."