WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.000 [MUSIC FADES IN] 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:02.000 This is "In Conversation" from Apple News. I'm Shumita Basu. Today, the true story of money, murder and betrayal behind the movie "Killers of the Flower Moon." 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:03.000 [MUSIC FADES OUT] 00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:04.000 [PENSIVE ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC] 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:05.000 The 19th century was a grim period for the Native American tribe, the Osage Nation. Between disease brought by European colonizers and forced displacement by the U.S. government, roughly 90% of the Osage people were wiped out. The survivors settled in Oklahoma. Then, at the turn of the century, something incredible happened. 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:06.000 We struck oil. 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:07.000 Striking oil was as good as striking gold, and the Osage wanted to be sure that this valuable resource wasn't taken away from them by white Americans. So, they claimed their rights. 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:08.000 We held our minerals in reserve for all of us, and that was divided to the surviving 2,229 Osages in 1906. 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:09.000 That's Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, the principal chief of the Osage Nation today. He says the Osage decided each member of the tribe should get an equal share of the oil royalties. That share was called a headright. Here's David Grann, who wrote the 2017 book about this history called "Killers of the Flower Moon." 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:10.000 These headrights were worth, you know, a fortune because it ensured you received a quarterly check. And a headright could not be bought or sold. A headright could only be inherited. 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:11.000 Back then, the headright payments could amount to as much as $13,000 a year per person. In today's money, that's around $232,000. This made the Osage the richest people per capita in the world. And it also made them targets of a sinister and elaborate plot by white Americans. At least 60 Osage people were murdered or went missing during a period that became known as the Reign of Terror. 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:12.000 These crimes, what they were was inheritance schemes, and so they involved an extraordinary level of betrayal, of intimate betrayal. These were people who were marrying into families while systematically plotting to kill their loved ones. 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:13.000 David Grann's book has now been adapted by Martin Scorsese for the big screen for Apple TV+. "Killers of the Flower Moon is out now." It stars Lily Gladstone, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:14.000 [MUSIC FADES OUT] 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:15.000 [INTRIGUING ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC] 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:16.000 [START KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON ARCHIVAL CLIP] 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:17.000 Most Osage don't live past 50. When these women die, with how Osage suffer from illness, you have to make it the headrights come to you. You see? 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:18.000 [END KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON ARCHIVAL CLIP] 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:19.000 [MUSIC FADES OUT] 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:20.000 [INTRIGUING PULSING MUSIC] 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:21.000 I recently sat down with David Grann and Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, who also served as a consultant on the movie. David started off by talking about one of the main characters at the center of this true story, Mollie Burkhart. 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:22.000 [MUSIC FADES OUT] 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:23.000 Mollie Burkhart, who I always thought of as kind of the soul and the conscience of the book, and I think similarly is true of the movie, she was an Osage woman who was born in the 1880s, speaking Osage, practicing Osage traditions. She was then, as just a young girl, forcibly uprooted from her home and made to attend one of these missionary boarding schools where she was no longer allowed to speak the Osage language. And then, within just a short span of time because of oil money, she was living in a large house. She had servants, some of whom were white. And she had married a white settler named Ernest Burkhart who had been her chauffeur, taking her around town. And Mollie begins to be systematically targeted, and her family, for their oil money. 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:24.000 [SLOW, SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:25.000 Members of Mollie's family began to mysteriously die. In 1918, her sister Minnie died of what was called a "wasting illness" but was likely a poisoning. A few years later, Mollie's sister, Anna, was found dead in a ravine. She'd been shot in the back of the head. Shortly after that, Mollie's mother, Lizzie, died also of suspected poisoning. And a few years later, Mollie's sister Rita and her husband were killed when a bomb was set off in their home. With each family member's death, Mollie and her husband Ernest inherited the headrights. Meanwhile, Mollie herself was inexplicably getting sicker and sicker. 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:26.000 In 1923, federal investigators started looking into these deaths. And they found what many Osage people had suspected that Ernest's uncle, William K. Hale, was the mastermind behind the killing of many Osage people including the deaths in Mollie's family. 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:27.000 He was the most powerful white settler in the county. He was known as the King of the Osage Hills, and he projected himself as a friend of the Osage. 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:28.000 Hale coordinated with other white Oklahomans including Mollie's husband Ernest to murder her family and inherit her headrights. 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:29.000 Mollie Burkhart would discover that a person whom she had loved and whom she thought had loved her was somebody who was trying to kill her. 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:30.000 Eventually, both Ernest and Hale were arrested and sentenced to life in prison. Years later, they were released on parole, and Ernest was pardoned for his crimes in 1966. For a long time, most people assumed that the story ended there. But decades later, David Grann stumbled upon a clue that suggested deception, betrayal and murder on an even larger scale. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:31.000 [MUSIC FADES OUT] 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:32.000 When I began the book back in 2012, I had kind of assumed, based on the FBI's public theory, that this was… the Osage reign of terror was perpetrated by this singular evil figure, William K. Hale, and a couple of his henchmen and that they were kind of responsible for everything. And I proceeded on that course. I mean, you know, I worked on the book for more than half a decade, and for over a year, I was kind of working under that kind of hypothesis, and then over time meeting with people like the chief, meeting with other Osage elders, they began to tell me about these other suspicious deaths that were never investigated and that were not part of the Bureau's case and also had no connection. This is really important. They had no connection to the mastermind who was caught. And then I spent a lot of time doing archival research. And I was out in Fort Worth where they have this large branch of the National Archives. And I was doing research on the guardianship system. 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:33.000 Yeah, explain the guardianship system. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:34.000 The U.S. government passed a policy imposing guardians on the Osage. And these guardians, these white guardians, could suddenly tell an Osage, you know, how and dictate how you could spend your money. And the system was quite literally racist because it was based on the quantum of Osage blood. And so, anyone who had… who was more than a half-blooded or was a full-blooded Osage was deemed, quote unquote, incompetent, as you will see in the film. And then… 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:35.000 Yeah, and that's a formal term that's being used at the time. 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:36.000 Yeah, yeah. Incompetent, which is… just tells you everything, right? I mean, language speaks, right? It speaks volumes. And I found a little booklet that covered a few years, that detailed… All it was was basically a list of a guardian and whose Osages, whose fortunes they had managed. And the only other word in this booklet was the word dead, if one of the Osage had died. And I was looking through this booklet. I noticed that there was a guardian who had about five Osages whose fortunes that he had managed, and I noticed the word dead next to the first name, dead next to the second name, dead next to the third name, fourth, fifth. I noticed another guardian that had about 12 Osages' fortunes who he had managed, and there was about 50% mortality rate, and on and on it went. And undoubtedly, some of these deaths were of natural causes, but it defied any natural death rate. And I could find evidence in some of these cases of complaints of a poisoning, of a headright being stolen, of murder. And so, I realized that this little booklet really contained the hints of this systematic, this broader, systematic murder campaign. Really this was less a story about who did it than who didn't do it, and it was about a culture of killing in which many people were perpetrating these crimes. You have doctors, as you will see in the film, who are administering poisons. You had morticians who would carefully ignore evidence of bullet wounds and just quickly dispose of bodies. You had lawmen and guardians and the most prominent businessmen in the community who were in on this, and you had many others who were complicit in their silence. 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:37.000 Yeah. Chief, are there any stories that you want to add about this particular time in history, the Reign of Terror, and what it meant for the Osage Nation? 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:38.000 Even after the convictions of William Hale, Ernest Burkhart, these people came back to live around the Osage. I've known Osage elders… To me, there were elders at the time who said, "Yes, oh, I knew William Hale." And they said, "We stood over there by that fence and talked after he got out of prison." 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:39.000 Wow. 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:40.000 So, the effects were not only emotional from that time period into today, in my time, but physical. And people like them are integrated into our community. I mean, you see the families at the post office, and, uh, we have to decide, uh, like we all do, should the sins of the father lead to the punishment of their children and grandchildren? I don't think so. But you got to understand, uh, there's a deep history here, and there's a mistrust. 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:41.000 Over the years, you have these descendants still living in the community. And I think one of the things that is important to understand because these were inheritance schemes, you not only have descendants of the murderers living in the same neighborhood to this day. You have to remember that you would have descendants who are living in the same household as the murderer and the victims. Imagine that. 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:42.000 Well, now, let's turn to talk about the film a little bit and how the story was adapted. I just want to hear from both of you your reactions to seeing the film. What have you thought about it? 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:43.000 Well, when I first met Marty Scorsese, he said, uh, "We're gonna film here." And he had… 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:44.000 In Oklahoma. 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:45.000 Yes, here right among the Osage. And, uh, that had been a concern of ours 'cause we had not received any guarantees from anyone although we kept asking where were they going to film and were they going to film here among the Osage? So, Marty Scorsese led his introduction with that statement, that commitment, which immediately led to our offer to have our language department and others work with his team, and then we have our culture people who could work with his team on traditional dress. And they, they being the Scorsese team, embraced this opportunity. Our people, of course, have the emotions of the movie, especially the younger people, who are more modern, uh, didn't really read David's book. People kept telling them to, but now they've seen the movie, a lot of them, they're going back and reading David's book, which is the proof of the story. It's a true story, and David's book shows that. 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:46.000 I just wanted to jump in there too because, you know, the chief and I, once this got adapted, were obviously nervous about what an adaptation might look like. Uh, we had seen [CHUCKLES] film adaptations go horribly wrong. 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:47.000 Sure. 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:48.000 This was such a serious piece of history. I mean, this was something that was very painful for people to talk about. And for the Osage elders to share their stories and entrust it with others, non-Osages, I think was unnerving, and it really was the chief who helped steer this process. I mean, the film people deserve enormous credit, but Chief Standing Bear very early on appointed ambassadors to the film process to make sure that this direct communication happened, used their leverage in a really positive way to ensure that that film was shot on location. It meant that the people making the film were going to be immersed in the world of the Osage, in their culture, in their traditions, meeting them, eating with them, seeing them, talking to them. And I think that really helped shape the story in a positive way. And at least for me when I see the film, I think it has a real authenticity and truth, and it's because of that immersion, and it's because of what the chief did, and not just the chief but all the people around him, to ensure that this film did not go awry. 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:49.000 Yeah. I mean, Chief, are there any particular aspects of the film, aside from the great significance of the location, that you feel particularly proud to see? 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:50.000 One of my favorite scenes is a council meeting where the Osage Council is debating what to do. And we were told by, uh, those on the set that they wrapped up the filming of that scene, and Marty steps out of the building 'cause it's very hot in that filming time, 105 degrees or so. And, uh, Robert De Niro, said, "Hey, they're still talking in there, and you ought to hear what this, uh, one man has just said." And his name is Everett Waller. He's a traditional Osage, younger Osage. And he was in the moment. So, Marty came back in there and heard part of what Everett was saying, and he said, uh, "Can you repeat that?" And Everett said, "Yes, I can." And you'll see where Everett speaks boldly and loudly and expresses the emotion of our people. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:51.000 [SOFT, TENSE MUSIC] 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:52.000 [START KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON ARCHIVAL CLIP] 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:53.000 When this money started coming, we should've known it came with something else because it's the white man's money. 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:54.000 [CROWD MURMURING INDISTINCTLY] 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:55.000 It's not what we were taught coming out of Missouri, Arkansas and Kansas. What has come to our reservation that doesn't belong here, and it's them. 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:56.000 [CROWD MURMURING IN AGREEMENT] 00:00:56.000 --> 00:00:57.000 They're like buzzards circling our people. 00:00:57.000 --> 00:00:58.000 [CROWD VOICING AGREEMENT] 00:00:58.000 --> 00:00:59.000 They want to pick us body clean and leave nothing. 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:00.000 [END KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON ARCHIVAL CLIP] 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:01.000 [MUSIC FADES OUT] 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:02.000 And, uh, [CHUCKLES] we heard about this, about this scene and how natural it was to us. And I said, "Well, how is Everett doing it?" And, uh, one of my advisors said, "Oh, he was just playing Everett himself." 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:03.000 [LAUGHTER] 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:04.000 I had the privilege actually… You know, I was only on set for a few days, but I was on set for that scene. It's one of my favorite scenes of the movie. It's so powerful, and Everett is just channeling a century or centuries of history as it comes out. 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:05.000 [CHIEF STANDING BEAR CHUCKLES] 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:06.000 And I had seen Everett… I knew Everett over the years. I'd seen him at events. I've seen… He often gives the prayer to open. Everett is like both like Osage, old Osage warrior with John the Baptist kind of mix. I don't know, Chief. Is that a fair description? 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:07.000 [LAUGHING] 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:08.000 I don't know. 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:09.000 Yeah. 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:10.000 Um, but he gives this… It was this improvised… It was improvised, and it was just so powerful. I think it's one of the most powerful scenes of the movie, and I, too, was told that um, you know, uh, Scorsese heard the… this speech and said, "Oh, let's put that in the film." 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:11.000 [CHUCKLING INHALE] Wow. It's nice to hear how a scene like that can really transform through just a very real moment that gets recognized as something that shouldn't get lost. David, I understand that a lot of people have pointed out how the film really focuses on the relationship between Mollie and Ernest in a way that your book doesn't necessarily. What do you make of that choice? 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:12.000 Yeah. I think in some ways, it gets made a little bit more of. It's my own view. I mean, it's a sweeping history. So, you could develop it in many ways. I think they made a very, very shrewd choice in focusing in on that relationship and that part of the story in developing it. And why do I say that? I say that because one, I always thought of Mollie Burkhart as just an important conscience in this history and also because what she is going through, and I think the chief could speak to this, is very representational. So, you can take that one particular story, and it could illuminate the larger history, illuminate the larger conspiracy, illuminate the levels of betrayal. And so, I thought it was actually a really smart choice, and I think the other part that is important and why that relationship I always thought was very important is because Ernest Burkhart, who is a very complicated figure, represents something very interesting and an important part of that history because he is somebody who is not a sociopath. When you read the documents and you read the records, you know, he knows right from wrong. And yet, he goes along with evil in the end. Understanding Ernest helps you understand the nature of complicity. And as I always try to point out, these crimes could not have taken place on the scale in which they did unless there were many Ernest Burkharts, unless there were many ordinary citizens who were willing to go along and be complicit in these crimes, and I always refer to them as the willing executioners. 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:13.000 Chief, I've heard one of the, one of the criticisms of the film is that people say, well, this has a Martin Scorsese approach to it. Right? And what might this film have been if it were directed by a person who was Osage? And I wonder what you think is the answer to that. I mean, what do you think would be different? 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:14.000 Well, Martin Scorsese, I think, and from everything I've learned, is the greatest living director on the planet. And there are a lot of Osages as extras and others in front of the camera. But there are a lot of Osages behind the camera in set design, building. We have people involved very much in the language, as you'll see in the movie. 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:15.000 [START KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON ARCHIVAL CLIP] 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:16.000 [SPEAKING OSAGE] 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:17.000 What was that? 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:18.000 [SPEAKING OSAGE] 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:19.000 That's how you are. 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:20.000 I don't know what you said, but it must've been Indian for "handsome devil." 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:21.000 [LAUGHTER] 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:22.000 [END KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON ARCHIVAL CLIP] 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:23.000 We have people working the details of our traditional clothes and our ceremonial practices. The late John Williams, my senior advisor, I assigned to sit right there on set. They gave him his own chair, said Mr. Williams, and John Williams was our gatekeeper. And if anybody had any questions about is this authentic or not, John, my senior advisor, would speak up to Marty Scorsese, and they listened. And he has all the credentials. He's a Vietnam veteran, combat veteran, Green Beret, medic. He also was drum keeper of the Gray Horse Committee Ceremonials. And he was, at the time this movie was made, the senior advisor from the Gray Horse District. So, that's the legitimacy of this movie process, and I know John, and Van Big Horse, and I and some other Osages seen the screening last year. The first time we saw the movie, we had a chance there to make any criticism. There was none. We were very impressed. But to go back to your question, is there a living Osage that can direct at the level of Martin Scorsese? The answer is no. But there is no one else of any nationality that I know of that could do it. 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:24.000 Well, I want to end by asking each of you to share what you hope viewers will take away from this film. What do you hope the impact of the movie will be? 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:25.000 I think for me, you know, I first began this project, and Chief has heard me tell this story. But the origins of the project, which was when I visited the Osage Nation Museum back in 2012, and I saw this great photograph on the wall, which showed white settlers along with members of the Osage Nation, and it looked very innocent, um, but a part of that photograph was missing. And I asked Kathryn Red Corn, the museum director, why part of that was missing, and she said it had contained this figure so frightening she had decided to remove it, and she then pointed at the missing panel, and she said, "The devil was standing right there." But the part that was so even more powerful to me was that she then went down into the basement, and she pulled up an image of that missing panel, and there, peering out very creepily from the corner with this little chapeau and glasses, was William K. Hale, one of the killers of the Osage, this man of so-called God-fearing souls, and he was the devil. And I was always haunted by that photograph because the Osage had removed the photograph not to forget what had happened, but because they couldn't forget, and yet there were so many people like me who very, you know, ridiculously had never been taught this history, and we had never learned it. I always say we had to excise it not only from our consciousness but also our conscience. And so, you know, I embarked on that project with the help of people like the chief and so many Osage in recording these stories to hopefully address my own ignorance and the ignorance of many others in this country and elsewhere. And so, I know a film can reach even more people, and my hope is that we begin to fill in that gaping hole, and we learn from it, and we learn not just about the past, but we also learn about the kind of people we want to be in the future. 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:26.000 I would add that, uh, the Osage have a lot of healing to do. And I'm learning more about generational trauma, as they call it, as a subject on its own that's related to so many other emotional issues, mental issues of a people in general, and we have our own cause and effects. So, I do know this movie's caused a discussion, and as I say, David, this… none of this would have happened without your book. But this, um, book and movie have got a good discussion going at many levels because this is as Martin Scorsese promised us. When I said, "How are you going to approach this movie?", he said, "I'm going to tell a story about trust and betrayal, and I'm going to tell it on two levels. The level of the Osage trusting the outside world and the betrayal of that trust. And Mollie trusting Ernest and being in love with him and the horrible betrayal of that trust." And he delivered. 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:27.000 [MUSIC FADES IN] 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:28.000 "Killers of the Flower Moon" is out in theaters now. You can also find David Grann's book by the same name on Apple Books. We'll include a link to it on our show notes page. 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:29.000 And if you're enjoying this show, "Apple News In Conversation," please don't forget to follow us and leave us a rating and review in Apple Podcasts. 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:30.000 [MUSIC FADES OUT]