Steven Spielberg Interviews Martin Scorsese To Discuss KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and The End of the Western Genre
Last week, director Steven Spielberg sat down to interview Martin Scorsese after a screening of Killers of the Flower Moon at the DGA. The conversation they have includes some fascinating insights into the making of the film, which Spielberg tells Scorsese: “You are the master of our medium and this is your masterpiece, Marty.”
Killers of the Flower Moon certainly was a great film, but I wouldn’t say it’s Scorsese’s best. I believe that he’s definitely made better films in his career, but this one certainly delivered a powerful message.
Spielberg went on to say: “It’s so amazing to see Bobby D and Leo D in this film together. This is your sixth collaboration with Leo and your eleventh with Bobby. You are only three films shy of tying the record with John Ford, who directed John Wayne fourteen times, so you can’t quit yet with Bobby.”
Scorsese also talked about his original vision for the story, and that version would have focused more on the FBI character Tom White played by Jesse Plemons. But, the role was originally going to be played by DiCaprio. It was going to lean into the whole FBI side of the story.
The filmmaker then went on to talk about the Western genre and how it’s sadly coming to an end: “The problem, Steve, is the western. I love the Western genre, as you do. I grew up on it, and you did to. It ended with Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. That was the end of that world in a way. It’s a new world. The Western has to be something else. So there’s no way I could do a Western. I never saw myself going anywhere near Hawks or Ford or Boetticher or any of those guys.”
Scorsese added, “So for me, I found that by pursuing the story from the point of view of the FBI––a guy gets off the train, he’s got beautiful boots, tilt up, he’s got that Stetson, he’s got that great tie, and goes into town and tries to figure out what’s going on and who did it. Number one: it’s not who did it. It’s who didn’t do it. It’s the whole town, everybody. We’re all complicit in this. We really are. We’re standing here now. I feel that. I feel we’re all complicit in what’s happened, in how the country was formed, our culture, everything. Number two: having Leo play that part. I would tilt up from the boots, go to his face. He walks into town. He says nothing…. well, we never work that way. And I’ve seen it before. I saw it was more like a Randolph Scott or early Clint Eastwood, quite honestly.”
That would have been an interesting direction to take the story. I just have to say that I love westerns and I hate the thought of the genre ending. I grew up on those classic films, and I would love to see more of them made these days.
Scorsese went on to talk about his complicity in the story and the final sequence, saying the radio show is “my own belief of being complicit in enjoying the entertainment. Even this film is entertainment in that sense. I tried to make it as honest as possible. Therefore we had to end it with one of those radio shows where you see, after all this, this is what the American public was led to think of or believe of this situation. And in the middle of the show it suddenly becomes an epilogue. Because if it’s really 1936 in a radio studio how could the announcer know that Bill Hale died at the age of 87?”
Enjoy Spielberg and Scorsese discussing the film in the video below. There’s a lot of great stuff here!