‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ Backlash: Blame the Gatekeepers, Not the Filmmakers

Since their respective premieres in 2023, two of this year’s best picture frontrunners have contended with very similar criticisms. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which details the invention of the atomic bomb by an American team of physicists led by J. Robert Oppenheimer, does not depict the direct outcome of the Manhattan Project: the nuclear devastation levied upon the Japanese residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Meanwhile, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon tells of a lesser-known historical event: the systematic assassinations of the Osage people in the 1920s by white settlers in order to take control of the oil in their land. Although the film does feature a sizable number of Native American actors in its ensemble, led by Lily Gladstone, the protagonists are the titular murderers, and the story follows their perspective.

These critiques may appear to be targeted at the specific filmmakers of these two movies, and their storytelling decisions have already been well debated. But to think that these reactions are simply about Nolan and Scorsese’s choices is reductive, dismissive of the directors’ right to creative autonomy and missing the point. Both movies are adapted from nonfiction books chiefly interested in the lives and experiences of the white men involved in their respective historical events. Any protests over the framing of these two projects are part of the larger, ongoing indictment of a media industry that consistently chooses the white gaze.

There are many examples of acclaimed movies about Indigenous people or war involving Asian countries that center white characters: Dances With Wolves. Full Metal Jacket. The Last of the Mohicans. Apocalypse Now. Among the exceedingly few Hollywood titles to depart from this trend were Apocalypto and Letters From Iwo Jima, which both competed at the 2007 Oscars and were directed by Mel Gibson and Clint Eastwood, respectively. It would be naive to think the stature of such celebrity filmmakers — in most cases white and male — had little to do with the premises of their daunting films getting the green light and having the means to execute their visions.

And that’s the key grievance. It’s not about wanting Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon to be movies they’re not, and it’s not about demanding that Nolan and Scorsese make three-hour films centering the experiences of the Japanese or the Osage. “It would take an Osage to do that,” Christopher Cote, an Osage language consultant on Killers, told THR at the film’s L.A. premiere. It’s about a concept that Indigenous community advocates have dubbed “narrative sovereignty”: having both the agency and the ability to share one’s own story. When the industry ecosystem — agencies, production companies, distributors — routinely withholds its resources from artists from historically excluded backgrounds, it creates an environment of what the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Viet Thanh Nguyen calls “narrative scarcity.” 

In early December, Gladstone took the stage at NeueHouse Hollywood to accept IndieWire Honors’ Performance Award. “I really want to speak to this performance that has been the absolute highlight of my career, the best work I feel like I’ve ever done,” she said. “The most important story, elevating the awareness of missing, murdered Indigenous women. Working with the greatest, most visionary, most committed director of my life. … The greatest love story I’ve ever told in my career. This performance that is in a film that currently has no distribution.”

She paused. “You all thought I was talking about the other movie, didn’t you?”

Gladstone went on to thank her director and her co-star in Fancy Dance, the critically acclaimed drama that premiered at Sundance a year ago and to date has not found a buyer. Although they share a lead performer and general subject matter, the trajectories of Fancy Dance and Killers of the Flower Moon could not be more different. The latter had secured distribution from Paramount before a single camera rolled and ultimately also brought Apple on board to help finance its $200 million budget. Fancy Dance, meanwhile, was made for a sliver of that cost.

“As first-time indie filmmakers, we were under absolutely no illusion that Fancy Dance would receive the same kind of industry support as Mr. Scorsese’s juggernaut,” wrote director Erica Tremblay and her co-writer, Miciana Alise, in a THR guest column in November, “but the disparity is so great that it renders our film virtually invisible and leaves only one available perspective: the non-Native one.”

Continued Gladstone, “Everybody who’s been lucky enough to catch Fancy Dance at a festival … [has] said it gives them what was missing from Killers of the Flower Moon: the matrilineal love story, the way that we give everything for our women. Fancy Dance satiated that need.”

In other words, there is appetite for multiple cinematic perspectives on a story, a historical event or a cultural group. But the industry has to be willing to invest in more than just one. 

This story first appeared in the Jan. 18 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.