Leonardo Di Caprio returns from World War One to Oklahoma, where oil has made the Osage Indians rich. After long, meandering talks with his uncle, Robert De Niro, Di Caprio runs a taxi, and picks up Lily Gladstone, a pure-blood Osage, and begins to drive her regularly. They fall in love, and eventually have three children, while someone is busy killing off Osage Indians.
This being a Scorsese movie with a stellar cast, it is impeccably written, directed, and shot. I don't know what Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese's long-time editor, was doing. At more than three hours before he wraps it up with a ten-minute epilogue, presented as an episode of Gangbusters talking about where everyone wound up spending the rest of their lives. It goes on too long for a movie, at least for a movie without a break. This is the upside and downside of companies like Amazon and Netflix having the wherewithal to tempt great film makers with large gobs of money. Because the viewer at home will watch a movie like this at his leisure, taking time to go to the bath room, having a meal, and so forth, it's made for him. There is no need to edit this down. What could have been cut to a reasonable length without DiCaprio's army career and finding out that he lived in a trailer in his final years is left in, with only the audience's bladders telling them it's time to leave this story. What would have made a fine mini-series on television must be watched in one go in the movie theater, trapped between the gorgeous images, and the fact that every minute of screen time cuts two points off the IQ of DiCaprio's character.
It's a movie that really should be seen in the theater for the size and audience, and yet makes it impossible.
This being a Scorsese movie with a stellar cast, it is impeccably written, directed, and shot. I don't know what Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese's long-time editor, was doing. At more than three hours before he wraps it up with a ten-minute epilogue, presented as an episode of Gangbusters talking about where everyone wound up spending the rest of their lives. It goes on too long for a movie, at least for a movie without a break. This is the upside and downside of companies like Amazon and Netflix having the wherewithal to tempt great film makers with large gobs of money. Because the viewer at home will watch a movie like this at his leisure, taking time to go to the bath room, having a meal, and so forth, it's made for him. There is no need to edit this down. What could have been cut to a reasonable length without DiCaprio's army career and finding out that he lived in a trailer in his final years is left in, with only the audience's bladders telling them it's time to leave this story. What would have made a fine mini-series on television must be watched in one go in the movie theater, trapped between the gorgeous images, and the fact that every minute of screen time cuts two points off the IQ of DiCaprio's character.
It's a movie that really should be seen in the theater for the size and audience, and yet makes it impossible.