Gene Jones

[arnzilla]

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There’s something in Killers of the Flower Moon that I can’t stop thinking about, and that is Gene Jones. Jones, the character actor most known for playing the gas station attendant in No Country For Old Men, doesn’t play a noteworthy character in this film; there’s no great line he has or action set piece he appears in. He is notable just for showing up—first as simply himself, Pitts Beaty, the money manager and banker for the Osage people, the man who gets to decide how and when the Osage can have their own money. Later in the film, when the Ku Klux Klan has a parade through the city, he is there in the center of it, robed up and all smiles. He's there warning William Hale (Robert De Niro) that his murder campaign against the Osage is starting to get a little too obvious. He’s there again, just for a few frames, sitting on the jury of Hale’s peers that is expected to judge him for his crimes. Nothing about the film lends any obvious significance to Jones's character, but his journey through the action is still there for you to see. He's just waiting there, waiting for you to notice him, and the crushing machinations of white supremacy personified, on your own.