Leonardo DiCaprio Calls Out Hollywood’s ‘Checkered Past’ with Depiction of Native American People

Leonardo DiCaprio thinks Hollywood has some work to do with past depictions of Native Americans.

DiCaprio, 48, and his Killers of the Flower Moon Costar Lily Gladstone spoke with Vogue UK before the ongoing actors’ strike. In an interview, they expressed their appreciation for the way the Martin Scorsese-directed film portrays the period known as the Reign of Terror among members of the Osage Nation.

“Hollywood has a long and colorful history of portraying Native Americans,” DiCaprio said. “We have to do more. You know, we are coming to a great reckoning with our past.”

He added, “The more these stories can be told in a truthful way, the more the healing process can be.”

The film is based on David Grann’s 2017 bestseller Killers of Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBIand tells the true story of Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio) and Mollie Kyle (Gladstone).

The unlikely pair became a couple after Burkhart moved to Oklahoma in the 1920s hoping to strike it rich in the Osage oil boom.

At the time, the Indians living on the Osage reservation were largely independently wealthy thanks to the oil on their land. Their prosperity ended when white residents orchestrated a series of murders targeting the Osage.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone Star in Epic New ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Trailer

Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie “Killers of the Flower Moon”.

Courtesy of Apple TV+

Shedding light on this forgotten part of history is part of what drew DiCaprio and Gladstone to the film.

“Not so long ago there was a reign of terror,” said Gladstone. “I don’t want to label this as a western. I am happy that it has been labeled as a tragedy.”

DiCaprio added: “It’s a completely forgotten part of American history and an open wound that’s still festering.”

While the production team behind the film was mostly white, Vogue UK noted that the Osage leader, Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, gave his full support to the film. For his part, Gladstone sees the production crew as allies.

“No one is going to give an Osage director $200 million,” she told the newspaper. “There is a level of alliance that is absolutely necessary.”

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DiCaprio saw parallels between the reign of terror and the racial massacre in Tulsa. DiCaprio stayed in Tulsa while the film was shot and narrated Vogue UK his time in Tulsa also coincided with the 100th anniversary of the first murder in the Black Wall Street Massacre, as well as the beginning of a reign of terror in the Osage Nation.

“It was very important to me to understand that these are two sides of the same coin … people of color who were independently wealthy in the midst of a huge population of incredibly racist white people who want to extract those resources at any cost,” he said.

“Look at Standing Rock. Look at what is happening in Indonesia, in the Amazon. These places that are home to incredible resources are also the most blood-soaked places.”

Leonardo DiCaprio. Kevin Mazur/Getty

Besides DiCaprio and Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon also starring Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser and Cara Jade Myers.

Scorsese, 80, recently said Time magazine for which he copied the draft Killers of the Flower Moon to move it from the center to the white characters.

“After a certain point, I realized that I was making a movie about all white people … which means I took an outside-in approach, which worried me,” he said.

The film is in theaters on October 20, before streaming on Apple TV+ at a later date.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education