Doubling Up on Killers
On multiplicity as a means for grappling with history
Do you read the book before seeing its film adaptation? Book lovers tend to say yes, and I’m generally in this camp. I still haven’t seen the new Dune films because I persist in believing that I should re-read the books, which I haven’t visited in decades, before viewing the movies. Last week, though, I conducted an odd experiment in reading a book and watching its counterpart at the same time, turning what might have been two separate works into a full multi-media affair. It wasn’t quite simultaneous reading and watching—though that did happen at moments—and more a leap-frog process over a few days. Which is the time one sometimes needs, anyhow, when the movie version in question has a run time of 3 1/2 hours.
I’m talking about Killers of the Flower Moon, the Scorsese-produced adaptation of David Grann’s 2017 book on the Reign of Terror among the Osage Nation. There’s been plenty written about both, and the nomination (and Golden Globe win) of Lily Gladstone has kept the film and themes of Native representation in headlines throughout the first part of this year.
I’m late to the game here, and I don’t want to rehash all that discussion and the question of whether or not the film was perfect in what it centered or didn’t in the story. Turns out the Osage might not want to keep that question open either; in February the Osage Nation Congress officially passed bills in honor of Gladstone and fellow actor Scott George, to “fully endorse their contributions to the groundbreaking film and its amplification of Native storytelling. Congress members also jointly applaud the late Robbie Robertson’s achievements in creating the film’s score bolstering Indigenous excellence.”
But if you missed out on all the cultural chatter over the last year and would like some samples of the discourse on the film and questions of representation, you can see a sample of the critical take on the film’s achievements in this discussion at NPR. A contrasting and more positive review by Osage member Joel Robinson is in Slate, which also ran a number of other thoughtful reflections on the impact and limitations of the film.
In one of those pieces, critic Sam Adams wrote that Killers “is a movie about history: how it is shaped and retold, and how that telling can both sustain and deform it. But it is also a movie about knowledge and the intangible heritage that defines a culture, and a nation, beyond what the records can show.”
If these are the points to be drawn from the film, I will argue that my simultaneous read-and-watch tactic might be a superior method in helping one get there. To jump back-and-forth between two different attempts at doing this story justice by outsiders — each bringing different sets of concerns and resources — is an effective way to really absorb the sometimes overwhelming and uncertain nature of the historical record and the decisions it forces upon those who would try to cast a recognizable story from it.
Is the story a who-dunnit followed by a crime procedural, in which the author shines a light not only on the corruption that caused the Reign of Terror but also on the history of forensics and the FBI, and that agency’s failure to investigate broader harm amongst the Osage so that it could present a successfully closed case and establish legitimacy for itself in the public eye? That would be Grann’s book, which also holds out for many chapters on disclosing those responsible for the murders of the family members of Mollie Burkhart, bringing the reader more into the sense of dread and uncertainty of the moment than the film.
Or is the story a tragedy, in which an entire family is nearly brought down through secretive schemes of those closest to them? This is closer to what we receive in the film, which tends to linger on the actions of Mollie’s husband, Ernest, and his uncle William Hale, their culpability taking center stage. Much has been made of the inscrutability (or possibly failed portrayal) of Ernest’s motivation in the film, as his love for Mollie is clear at the same time that he goes on to help kill her closest kin. I’ll agree with some of the critics about the not-quite-successful characterization here, but I’m also willing to believe that it’s part of the point: if Ernest is meant as a stand-in for the broader settler culture and its tendency towards exploitation, then this swampy, shifting mix of fear, blind obedience, greed, and stupidity—all grafted onto an unexamined sense of entitlement that allows him to blithely believe he can participate in his uncle’s horrific plots without consequence or harm to himself and those he cares about—seems a rather accurate depiction of the cultural ingredients stirring together and enabling the systematic violence enacted upon the Osage Nation.
And how do you know when a story ends? The book and the film each undermine the notion that the story finished at some clear moment in the past, perhaps after Burkhart and Hale’s sentencing. Grann is led to continue investigating the FBI’s official narrative about the case while meeting descendants still haunted by unresolved questions about their murdered relatives. The final image of the film is not from the 1920s, but a beautiful overhead shot of present-day Osage dancers, a reminder that their story did not end back then, nor is it only defined by death.
I’m still mostly in the ‘read the book first’ camp, though for Killers of the Flower Moon, I wouldn’t say that’s the necessary order. I would say, however, that the book is essential for understanding the intricate system of dispossession devised to undermine Osage sovereignty and economic independence in the face of their newfound wealth via oil. The details are present in the film, but often subtly so, in a way that can make them more difficult to track for anyone new to the history.
But my real recommendation, with these two particular works, is to try out my half-and-half approach.
Start with the book — but only read the first half. Get through all of the first section, and then some of the additional chapters on Tom White and his FBI team. This will set you up to understand the events of the movie a little better. You will not feel as though things are really ‘given away’ (if you are attached to that feeling) by getting this far along. As I said, the movie actually loses the suspense factor sooner than the book.
Then watch the film. Chances are, the film will fill you with questions. Not all of those can be answered, but many can, by returning to the book. You might skim over the remainder of the second section if the history on J. Edgar Hoover and Tom White’s story is not of particular interest. But make sure to take in the third section, in which Grann pivots and shares more of his own research process, and how he came to understand what was lacking in official accounts — and what filling in the gaps meant to descendants of the murder victims.
It is difficult, I would argue, to do this back-and-forth without beginning to wrestle with how hard it is to do right by its subjects in any telling of a complicated and painful history such as this.
But doing so is precisely what is needed if we want to consider any path towards repair, be it for the harms visited upon the Osage or the many, many forms of dispossession devised throughout the ongoing process of colonization in the Americas. Acknowledgment is the necessary initial step, even before apology, in most reparations frameworks. We might be tempted to believe that acknowledgment, the naming of harm, is the easy part, before tackling what makes for appropriate forms of redress and their implementation. But from the Osage Nation and their collaboration with Grann and Scorsese both, we can learn the scope of dedication required to even come close to full acknowledgment of just a single chapter in our histories.
Thanks for reading Unsettling.
Until next time,
Meg