After what happened when I looked at The Irishman, I don’t want to belabour the point about having issues with films with longer run times. Or, to be more accurate, I don’t want to spend most of this review bitching about my attention span issues as if that’s the fault of the filmmakers. I’ll admit that there are nuances to the binge-watching vs. epic film argument that both sides tend to leave out, but after putting a near-three-hour film at the top of my favourite films list for last year (not to mention finally getting around to the Extended Editions of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy earlier this year), I want to give this film an honest chance that isn’t hindered by my own twitchiness. Or my ongoing indifference towards most Westerns.
There’s a level of cultural detail here in Scorsese’s depiction of the Osage Nation, their lives, their customs, and their treatment at the hands of colonisers, that kept my interest for all three hours all on its own. Scorsese originally went into this focusing, much like the source material did, on the Osage murders as it pertains to United States history, it being a cornerstone for the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a pillar of the American security complex. But as the Osage people became more involved in production, he realised that he was doing the thing that American filmmakers keep doing and fixating on the White people involved in the story that's about Native Americans.
That shift-around mid-production ended up doing this a world
of good, and not just because it allows for a more authentic depiction of the people and cultures involved. It also allowed him a better
handle on incorporating the events into his usual style for these kinds of
crime epics, showing the slow erosion of a man's soul as he just keeps getting worse. In
this case, said man is Leonardo DiCaprio as Ernest Buckhart, one of the
murderers and the entry point character for the White audience. One of many
seeking to make their fortune as part of the oil boom, he starts out as just another young upstart trying to pull himself up by his bootstraps (we'll pretend that Robert A. Heinlein wrote biographies and that that makes sense). But as his relationship with his uncle William King Hale (Robert De Niro) deepens, that ambition turns toxic as he starts to murder the Osage people so that Hale can get their oil and collect on their life insurance.
However, where films like Goodfellas or Casino or The Wolf Of Wall Street tempered the gross neglect of their criminal leads with a dark sense of humour, this follows the more depressive and regretful mood of The Irishman. As entertaining as this is for various reasons (Rodrigo Prieto’s gorgeous camerawork, the late Robbie Robertson’s twangy soundtrack, the exceptional performances, "Blackbird talk"), there is an ache that accompanies everything shown. A dull, throbbing ache that sits so deep in the chest that it almost reaches the spine.
To that end, the main character isn’t really Ernest. He’s the one we end up following for a lot of the film, but he isn’t really the focus of the story. Instead, it’s Lily Gladstone as his wife Mollie, who serves the embodiment of the trauma inflicted on the Osage Nation. Even more so than anything to do with murder, it’s the romance between her and Ernest that serves as the tragic core of the story, showing a man so blinded by his own greed that he (both figuratively and literally) poisoned the people that welcomed and loved him.
The depiction we get of how the Osage were treated is, rightfully, bleak beyond bleakness. William Belleau’s Henry Roan, one of many victims of Hale’s blood money racket, encompasses the pain and implosive impact of his people’s mistreatment when he says “I am ashamed to be an Indian. Get me some moonshine or get me a gun.” Their elders consider them too assimilated into White society, while said White society sees any semblance of assimilation (even by blood, consensual or otherwise) as an affront to their own existence. But in Mollie lies the true strength of both her people and their story. Sickly both from diabetes and from man-made poison, she represents both the genuine harm that befell her and her people as well as the resilience to never stop demanding justice. To never let the owl send them away too soon. To never forget the trust that was maliciously broken.
Not that that has stopped people from trying. In 2021, a bill was passed in Oklahoma (where Osage County resides) as part of the ongoing crackdown on ‘critical race theory’ (just the latest buzzphrase meant to rally nonces who hate acknowledging that where they live isn't perfect), which limits what can be taught about the Osage murders, up to and including the book this film was based on. And with how this film ends, Scorsese seems painfully aware of what productions like this, which shine a light on moments in history that make those in power uncomfortable about being public knowledge, can do for informing the public about those same events. A newsreel depicting the Tulsa race riots is shown at one point, an event which did become more widely known as a result of appearing in popular media, in that case being the Watchmen HBO series. As worrisome as it is that people need to turn to films and television to learn about shit that should already be in the standard curriculum, it shows an understanding of the responsibility that goes with dramatizing events like this, along with the power that such dramatisations can have in keeping such atrocities from being forgotten.
While I still admit to being a bit antsy while watching this, I don’t feel like there’s anything that could’ve been realistically altered to make this run any shorter, without losing the deadshot accuracy in its reckoning of the original American sin. It’s kind of awesome to see Scorsese, this far into his career, still carrying a sizeable amount of righteous anger at those who treat other human beings as a means to an end, and it’s pointed in one of the most deserved directions of any film he’s ever made, far as I’m concerned. It’s quite an investment of time, but for how comprehensive it is and how frightfully effective it is in its delivery, it is absolutely worth it.
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