KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (Martin Scorsese, 2023)

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(**+ / *****) :: With some notable exceptions – the sheer power and importance of the story; the performances of Lily Gladstone, Robert DeNiro, and Jesse Plemmons (in a just world, he and DiCaprio, whose more-caricature-than-character performance veered into parody, would have switched roles); Robbie Robertson's (RIP) score; and the radio show postscript at the end – FLOWER MOON left me underwhelmed. Don’t me wrong: this story needed to be told and deserved to be told by a master like Scorsese; I only wish it hadn’t been told by a master seemingly second-guessing himself at every turn.

“… like a swiss watch”

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Before the pandemic, Schrader had a standard routine when beginning a screenplay. He'd tell the germ of a story out loud; if the tale held a small group's attention for ten minutes, he'd go home, write it down with more detail, and run through the process again. He'd get up to twenty minutes, then forty-five. If the story still kept people interested, he'd set it all down on a legal pad, devoting a handful of words and a time stamp to every scene he envisioned. These final outlines are dense, uniform--almost without exception, they fit onto one page--and visually striking, like mathematical proofs. "Paul's writing is all about concision," Scorsese told me. "Everything counts, there's not a word out of place, and all the parts work together like a Swiss watch."