Scrapped opening scene
Nov 18, 2023 8:26:29 GMT -5
Post by arnzilla on Nov 18, 2023 8:26:29 GMT -5
ew.com/the-killers-of-the-flower-moon-deleted-scene-one-take-opening-8403875
In an interview with EW, Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth reveal that they almost started the film with a very different historical event: the infamous Oklahoma Land Rush.
At first, Scorsese and Roth planned to focus the film more on the FBI investigation into the murders, with Leonardo DiCaprio originally set to play FBI lawman Tom White (the role that later went to Jesse Plemons). In their initial drafts, the film would have started with a lengthy one-take sequence, exploring how white settlers encroached upon Oklahoma in the late 19th century. After the Civil War, the federal government opened up millions of acres of land in what was formerly known as Indian Territory. At noon on April 22, 1889, an estimated 50,000 settlers rushed across the border, determined to claim their own slice of land.
“It was five pages or so, and it would have taken three weeks to shoot, even with CGI,” Scorsese says. “The idea would be that it was the Land Rush, and you pull back and see the Native Americans just watching. I thought it was a perfect metaphor for what we’ve done. But Eric pointed out that there was so much distance from the Oklahoma Land Rush and the discovery of oil in the late 1890s, and it was too far from this story. But I loved all the detail he put in. It was all going to be done in one take, too.”
“Marty said, ‘Eric, you’ve got to write the details of what we’re going to see,’” Roth remembers. “I must have written 60 little vignettes of furniture falling off wagons or fights breaking out.”
“It was incredible, and everybody loved it,” Scorsese adds. “I know that if I said, ‘That’s the way the picture’s going to open,’ I think they would have set aside a separate unit, like the chariot race in Ben-Hur. But ultimately, we found it was too distant from the actual story."
At first, Scorsese and Roth planned to focus the film more on the FBI investigation into the murders, with Leonardo DiCaprio originally set to play FBI lawman Tom White (the role that later went to Jesse Plemons). In their initial drafts, the film would have started with a lengthy one-take sequence, exploring how white settlers encroached upon Oklahoma in the late 19th century. After the Civil War, the federal government opened up millions of acres of land in what was formerly known as Indian Territory. At noon on April 22, 1889, an estimated 50,000 settlers rushed across the border, determined to claim their own slice of land.
“It was five pages or so, and it would have taken three weeks to shoot, even with CGI,” Scorsese says. “The idea would be that it was the Land Rush, and you pull back and see the Native Americans just watching. I thought it was a perfect metaphor for what we’ve done. But Eric pointed out that there was so much distance from the Oklahoma Land Rush and the discovery of oil in the late 1890s, and it was too far from this story. But I loved all the detail he put in. It was all going to be done in one take, too.”
“Marty said, ‘Eric, you’ve got to write the details of what we’re going to see,’” Roth remembers. “I must have written 60 little vignettes of furniture falling off wagons or fights breaking out.”
“It was incredible, and everybody loved it,” Scorsese adds. “I know that if I said, ‘That’s the way the picture’s going to open,’ I think they would have set aside a separate unit, like the chariot race in Ben-Hur. But ultimately, we found it was too distant from the actual story."