Alfonso Cuarón on KotFM
Dec 13, 2023 18:00:24 GMT -5
Post by arnzilla on Dec 13, 2023 18:00:24 GMT -5
'Killers of the Flower Moon'
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Essay by Alfonso Cuarón
As Balzac wrote in “Père Goriot”: “The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done.” In “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Martin Scorsese lays bare the genocide against Native Americans that is a foundational ground of this nation.
This crime was committed by not by an individual, but by a system that got away with it through a series of acts of Congress, that through their different stages justified killings and displacements, but more importantly, through rewriting the narrative of the country.
This historical re-write was present in much of the mythology of Westerns that Scorsese enjoyed while growing up, and that now he unveils, true to his methods, through a character uncomfortable in his own skin and tormented by the amorality that justifies his actions.
But, as opposed to the visceral approach of most of his films, Scorsese has chosen a distant and reflective stance, favoring atmosphere over narrative, denying us the easy satisfaction of moral superiority to the men on screen who managed to justify their hideous betrayals of their loved ones and still pretend to have a soul, and confronting audiences with the sin by omission that must rightfully haunt the American soul.
Alfonso Cuarón has directed such films as “Roma,” “Gravity” and “Children of Men.”
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Essay by Alfonso Cuarón
As Balzac wrote in “Père Goriot”: “The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done.” In “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Martin Scorsese lays bare the genocide against Native Americans that is a foundational ground of this nation.
This crime was committed by not by an individual, but by a system that got away with it through a series of acts of Congress, that through their different stages justified killings and displacements, but more importantly, through rewriting the narrative of the country.
This historical re-write was present in much of the mythology of Westerns that Scorsese enjoyed while growing up, and that now he unveils, true to his methods, through a character uncomfortable in his own skin and tormented by the amorality that justifies his actions.
But, as opposed to the visceral approach of most of his films, Scorsese has chosen a distant and reflective stance, favoring atmosphere over narrative, denying us the easy satisfaction of moral superiority to the men on screen who managed to justify their hideous betrayals of their loved ones and still pretend to have a soul, and confronting audiences with the sin by omission that must rightfully haunt the American soul.
Alfonso Cuarón has directed such films as “Roma,” “Gravity” and “Children of Men.”