The Secretary-General of the (Cannes) Festival, Terry Fremaux, tried to convince the great director Martin Scorsese to compete this session with his movie (Killers of the Moonflower), to bring the number to 22 films, but the Oscar winner twice, and I do not rule out that he will snatch (the third) next year with this film, he apologized and was satisfied with the official presentation out of the running. Scorsese did not want to enter into a battle to choose the best subject to the criteria and moods of the jury headed by Swedish director Robin Astlund, and this does not mean that the committee is unable to choose the best, but those choices that fall under the title (artistic beauty) are subject in part It is for personal taste.
The chairman of the jury is one of the most important directors of the third millennium. Robin Astlund twice won the “Front” award in Cannes, the last of which was last year for “The Triangle of Misery” and about 6 years before that for his movie “The Square”, and from time to time the festival assigns the chairmanship of the jury to the director who won immediately before it with “The Palm”, as happened before Years with the (Bosnian) director Emir Costarisa.
I believe that the film has a greater chance at the Oscars. Certainly, there are important names from senior directors who accept racing in festivals, specifically (Cannes), regardless of their share of previous awards, such as Ken Loach, who twice won (the Palm Ring), and we also have Wim Fender, Nani Moretti and Aki. Karuismaki and others, every artist has his accounts, Scorsese got (the Palm Ring) about 50 years ago with the movie (Taxi Driver) starring his ether star Roberto De Niro, and Scorsese at the time was just over thirty years old, he is now eighty and still able to amaze us artistically And among his most important films (Raging Bull) and (Good Friends), and that is another glimpse as we await the permanent conflict between chronological age and its negative impact on the creator, and it is absolutely a completely correct theory, but there are definitely exceptions, which we see in all fields, and the flash of creativity depends first on The director’s ability to absorb time with all its social and political vocabulary, not just the artistic one.
Scorsese is the director whose screen exudes all the details of youth. He does not stop at a generation but is a generational talent, and also a follower of the state of society, who is good at betting on the next; That is why he was nominated for the Oscar five times, the last of which was (The Irishman), which was shown two years ago at the opening of the Cairo Festival, starring Robert D. Nero, who occupies the largest part of his films. Scorsese owns an international institution for the restoration of the most important international films. He chose Shadi Abdel Salam (The Mummy) and re-showed it again in Cannes about 15 years ago. years, and at that time he said about him, and I was present, (a human masterpiece, Shady invented a new alphabet for Egyptian cinema), and thus he restored consideration to our late great director, who, after that praise from the Dubai Film Festival for (The Mummy), was named the best film in Arab cinematic history, and it is also the best. exit.
Scorsese said that what prompted him to pick up this story, to present it after the killing of the black youth, George Floyd, at the hands of the white policeman three years ago, and his influential word transmitted by the mobile phone (I want to breathe) is still in the minds, the great director is not isolated from what is happening in his homeland, and so it occurred. Choosing it on a documented story from history achieved by journalist writer David Gran in the name of (The Killers of the Moon Flower), about a tribe of indigenous people, belonging to the Osage, one of the factions of the American Indians, when their village became a matter of interest and greed for everyone with the emergence of signs of oil and the expected wealth turned into a curse and hell that strikes everyone, The director chose the two stars closest to his heart, the first definitely Robert De Niro and the second Leonardo DiCaprio and co-written by Eric Roth.
The film has all the mass and artistic ingredients, and when you bring together two stars like DiCaprio and De Niro, you guarantee the highest revenue in the box, and when Scorsese adds a deep political vision that casts a shadow over the present, the attractions multiply.
The book and then the movie reveal the complicity of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation more than a century ago in obscuring this case and removing white criminals from the gallows, and for this reason it was reported at the time that it is possible to convict a person of killing a dog, but it is not possible to convict him of killing an indigenous person.
You can see the ability of the director in the art of leading the actor, especially the big professional stars like DiCaprio and De Niro. There is a special flash of performance that you allude to with the two big stars. You can, without attending the scenes, refer it to a reality imposed by logic and deepened by the director’s direction of his stars.
DiCaprio the policeman and his rich uncle De Niro, who are complicit in killing the people of Osage and getting rid of their leaders, and for this he pushes his nephew to marry the daughter of one of the most important wealthy, and through him multiple crimes to get rid of the family successively, his wife has diabetes and gives her injections to heal, and in a moment he discovers how he was thrown The people closest to him – his uncle – became a witness to these crimes. The uncle took advantage of their trust in him and their love for them in order to seize their wealth. The director presented all the vocabulary of culture and folklore in that environment, with all its musical, lyrical, and social styles, in weddings and even death. This documentary aspect gives the film a great deal of credibility.
The film outwardly, and as its veteran director says about it, falls within the framework of what we call the “Western” of the American West, but I see it far beyond this description. The scenario is to make that area of chases codified and intense, just as about 100 years ago, specifically 1920, cars had begun to occupy the largest space in moving around in those societies, and not horses as we are used to with American westerns.
The epic film, which exceeds three hours in time, serves as a document on injustice that transcends the boundaries of space and time. The director caught a defining moment, to re-read an unspoken part of contemporary American history. The film is outside the box that is known artistically and also outside the race in (Cannes), but I am sure that it was able to reach the depth of the box and steal the camera from everyone, not only with its stars De Niro and DiCaprio, but above all with its young, old director, Martin Scorsese!
