And the aviator. We dont care about money here, mr hughes. Well, thats because you have it. The departed. Think about it, hot shot. Which brought scorsese his first best director oscar, and the wolf of wall street. I want you to deal with your problems by becoming rich. In all, hes made more than 45 features, often crime films, and won numerous accolades. Its a very impressive body of work. His films have been influenced by his Italian American background and by his catholicism. He nearly always features macho, posturing men and sometimes extreme violence. What i like about Martin Scorsese as a film maker is that his films are about something. They have moral weight. Also, hes incredibly skilled as a director. He has his hallmark use of Rapid Editing at times, use of slow motion and freeze frames and ingenious use of contemporary soundtracks. When people first heard that you were making this film, they were surprised because they thought it was very different in terms of Subject Matter from your previous work. Do you think it is a break in trend or are there commonalities between this film and your previous films . After writing the script, some friends of ours who read it said its similar in theme. I did sit down to interview Martin Scorsese 30 years ago when he made the age of innocence. Is there someone else . Someone else . Between you and me . What ive always liked about scorsese, in a way, is that hes an outsider. Hes never really been part of the Hollywood Studio system. Hes always made brilliant cinema, usually on his own terms. Now, Martin Scorsese, at the age of 80, has made killers of the flower moon his very first western. Whose land is this . My land. A Crime Saga Featuring once again his two favoured actors, dicaprio and de niro. The war hero has arrived. Youve made a good choice coming back here. 0ne critic has described it as a landmark Motion Picture achievement. I dont disagree. Evil surrounds my heart. At its heart, killers of the flower moon, inspired by book, is about love and deceit. Why did you come here . But perhaps more than anything else, its about naked greed. Money flows freely here now. I do love that money, sir. Its based on the true story of the orchestrated so called Reign Of Terror of the 1920s in oklahoma, in which more than 60 Native Americans were killed so white men could get their hands on the oil that lay beneath their land. There are many, so many hungry wolves. 0il had made the 0sage nation extremely wealthy. When this money started coming, we should have known it came with something else. I met you on my red carpets. Yes. And junkets over the years. Yes, ive seen you over the years, too. 0k. Its been a good way. Yes. Well, Martin Scorsese, a very big, warm welcome to talking movies. Thank you. I saw your film, killers of the flower moon, and ifound it very, very powerful. Why did you want to make it . Well, i was really drawn to the story in the sense that. Uh, one of my favourite genres is the western. Wed all be much better off if there wasnt a single gun left in this valley. A gun is as good or bad as the man using it. Back in the � aos and � 50s, i grew up watching westerns. Growing up as an urban kid in the lower east side, living in tenements and not allowed to go near animals or run and play because. And do sports, because i had asthma. Come back . The western opened up vistas for me in black and white, and in technicolor, etc. Miller it was a fantasy land. What we could do is, do, three. Two, one. But Martin Scorsese didntjust want to make a western. He also wanted to tell a story of historic injustice towards Native Americans, and ultimately he didnt want it to be a white saviour story. More than a0 roles in his film are played by 0sage actors. He had long known of their suffering. Down in new yorks little italy, round Mulberry Street in lower manhattan, silence is the first rule of survival. I his little italy upbringing helped him understand the story. There was a great deal of street crime, organised crime, etc. Pretty good area, pretty decent people. But there were a lot of people doing some bad things. And so i know that thinking, and i found it was the same thinking in this story. Now you could take it from robbing somebody� s store, mugging somebody, lets say, or take it to the point of wiping out an indigenous nation. Theres a very little step that one could take. And so i wanted to immerse myself in that world. Well, look, im going to lay this out kind of, and then were going to move it according to the drone. If you look at the history in hollywood and how its portrayed Native Americans, do you really believe theres a lot of catching up to do . And in a way, i mean, your film does represent an effort to notjust tell this story from the white persons point of view. Hollywood started working with the Native Americans, you know, thomas ince, demille they made these silent films. John ford. They had real Native Americans acting in them. In one case, a film i like very much, directed by thomas ince, a two reeler called the last of the line, in which Sessue Hayakawa plays the native american. They were still shifting and shuffling because he was a very big star at the time. Right around the late � 20s and � 305, it changed and that became the Box Office Stars portraying Native Americans. To talk of peace is not hard. To live it is very hard. There were attempts really by some really interesting film makers, delmer daves, mainly, and i think the key one was broken arrow, to understand the native american, the indigenous. And i think broken arrow was the first film i saw in Beautiful Technicolor actual rituals and cultural elements of the native american that was not necessarily warlike. There was devils doorway by anthony mann. Youre trying to say its feeling for me. Then i dont believe you. Drumbeat by elmer daves. I came to talk peace. But you talk about killing. Apache with burt lancaster. Im the Last Real Apache left in all this world. By robert aldrich. So these were all attempts to understand the native american. However, all the Native Americans are played byjeff chandler, burt lancaster, charles bronson, that sort of thing, in order to get the box office. That wasnt the case with your film . No, not at all. No. I said, no matter what happens, no matter what approach i take, we have to make sure its ok with all these guys. We have to go in there. I have to know who they are. And thats what happened. This chief geoff standing bear. We became good friends and we started going back and forth to oklahoma. And i became very, very friendly with many of the people there. Many of them are in the film now. Ijust love money. I love it as much as i love my wife. It is a period film in that it was set in oklahoma in the 19205, but in many ways its about greedy white men doing terrible things to another race. Do you think that has contemporary relevance in America Today . That hasnt changed in america. It hasnt changed around the world. I mean, youre saying white, but there are others who do that too, in different parts of the world. In terms of america, the struggle is always there. The struggle is always there. The opportunity to make a change is there, too. The only thing is we have to know about it. We have to know about it. You cant hide it. You cant forbid people to read books or see films or see play5 or hear certain mu5ic. You have to know about it. Let me ask you, if i may, about another matter which i know is very close to your heart, and thats Film Preservation. Why is it so important to your mind that we do make an effort to preserve old films and restore them wherever possible . I guess first thing that comes to mind is like saying why, why restore the vellum in Bodleian Library in oxford . I mean why hold, why con5erve these books . You know, the knowledge in the books, the picture it gives us of who we are or who we were, the good things, the shameful things. The5e cant be swept under the rug. We have to know. We have to be. We have to acknowledge it. Cinema has a lot of that, theres no doubt. But also ive been, you know, for years, and i really do believe it is a great art form. In fact, scor5e5e has been a passionate advocate for Film Preservation and has founded 5everal Organisations to that end. He has long been a fan of the celebrated british film making partnership of Michael Powell and emmerich pressburger. Both directors died more than 30 years ago. Scor5e5e has sought to preserve their films, among them the 19118, the red shoes. Why do you want to dance . Why do you want to live . With its themes of passion and obsession. You shall dance the world shall follow. Which had a huge impact on him. Thelma schoonmaker, scor5e5e� s long time editor, was married to Michael Powell, co director of the red shoes. She worked on the restoration. Thelma worked laborious work on that. And digital really helped us on that, went back to the original negatives. But, you know, i saw the film when i was about eight years old, nine years old. The images were so palpable as if it was like taking a paintbrush and just bru5hing across the frame. But were really struggling with the characters in this heightened Hyper World Of Art and ballet particularly. The whole thing comes down to at one point, she says, i want to be a dancer. And he says, well, why do you want to dance . She says, why do you want to live . Why do you want to live . Art could be that way. And as a child, i thought of that all the time. Can you live with that . If you could make art, good, bad or indifferent, can you live without it . Whats the point of living without it . Thats what you do. And so ultimately their lives are sacrificed for it. All of them, really. Theyre sacrificed by. The passion eat5 them up, just devour5 them, i should say. And the passion is up there on the screen, particularly in the ballet of the red shoes. 17, the whole movie stops for 17 minutes. These days, i mean, up to a certain point in time, you know, people then 5aw films where sequences would come on for 20 minutes in the dance sequence. But it started with red shoes, and it was ballet. It wasnt the american in paris dance. Music i got rhythm. Thats later. And that was more modern dance. This is ballet. Its different. Martin scorsese has long been a very authentic voice in the movie bu5iness. He generally speaks his mind. And four years ago, in an interview with Empire Magazine which has been oft quoted, he was asked what he thought of marvel superhero films, and he was quite forthright. He said, to him, they resembled a theme park and they really werent cinema. Well, those remark5 caused quite a stir. Not only if youre not comfortable with marvel films, the whole Digital Revolution and the ascendancy of streaming seems to have left him very uncomfortable. Now the revolution is so strong, its at the point at which sound was invented. I mean, in that sense, with streaming. What dyou hear that from . With cgi. Theyre in it to make money. You make money by Making Picture5 people want to see. Higher, further, faster. Thats always been the case, hasnt it . Thats always been the case. But now the only ones theyre making are franchises and things. And some of them may be very good, by the way. Im just saying that thats not the only film, but thats what the studios are making. So what im saying is that the money there now is for the franchise, for the action film, and thats where its going to stay. What is happening to me . And you dont seem to have a very high opinion of them. 0h, are you going back to what i said four years ago . Yeah. Just, you know, ive tried to. Theyre not for me, but im trying. As you get older, im trying to figure out where the hell to spend my time. I cant do it with them. I tried. I saw it. Idid it. Like, you know, i want to go, i want to find other things. You see what im saying . Scor5e5e knows he and other film makers are facing a changed land5cape. He has to contend with a Viewing Audience thats more than ever fragmented and politically polari5ed. Also, in an age where theres greater scrutiny about whos represented on screen and how, scor5e5e moved with care to tell the story of the 05age murders. He was determined that killers of the flower moon would give due weight to the indigenous character5. Its supposed to be a suicide. And in fact, the soul of his new epic doesnt belong to the white men portrayed by Robert De Niro and leonardo dicaprio, but to a native American Woman played by Lily Gladstone. You know, you got nice colour skin. What colour would you say that is . My colour. The film obviously has male protagonists in it, but do you think that the soul of your movie does belong to a woman in a way, Lily Gladstone . Theres no doubt. Lily gladstone really is the heart of it. Thats what leo said to me on one point. We were trying to work this script for two to three years and we got hit with covid too, as Everyone Else did. We didnt know if we were going to make the film, whether we were going to live or die. And if we were to proceed with the project the way it was constructed by david grann in the book in an extraordinary way, it would become like a police procedural. And i like watching those films, but i dont know if i can do them. And i tried to change and tried to make it and then finally, leo dicaprio at one point, because he was going to play tom white. I was sent down from Washington Dc to see about these murders. And at one point he came to me and said, wheres the heart of the picture . I said, her. He said, what if i play ernest . 0k. I said, weve tried everything else. Thats how you are. I dont know what you said, but it mustve been indian for handsome devil. They laugh. The real insidious and sinister nature is the love relationship. I work with my uncle. Youre scared of him. Because thats the ultimate trust and betrayal. Does he really intend to kill her . I dont know. I think hes purely a weakling. You going to make trouble, make it big. How much more his uncle could have forced him to pursue it. We decided to go ahead, make him ernest, work with lily and create this relationship based on what we could put together from Family Members who were still alive who ernest wa5. But she is the one. And as ellen lewi5 just showed me her in certain women. A Kelly Reichardt film. Ijust knew if i didnt start driving i wasnt going to see you again. I didnt want that. And i saw that face and i saw what was going on with her eyes. And i said, thats the one here. Shes really interesting. 0ne zoom call. Because of covid, we still couldnt fly around. And immediately i understood the intelligence and the heart that she had and the activism of her, but also the understanding of the love story. You dont operate in a vacuum. You are a director in contemporary america. This country is more polarised politically than ever. Do you feel that film can be a Unifying Force at all . Im not sure. I hope it can. It still is a form of communication. The problem, and i may be wrong on this, but the problem i see, its fragmented, that films are made fora certain group, another group, another group. Indies are indie5, films made for different gender, different sexuality, etc. Well, they should be films all together, you know . Yes, you can find certain things you like in the specific categories, but one shouldnt. What it i5 is that if those films are made for a good price and they bring back a certain amount of money, fine. Its almost like a token situation im concerned about. Yes, what are they complaining about . Tho5e pictures are made. Well, no, we want them bigger. We want more audiences to see them. The kid doesnt look like a gang5ter yet. He has to look. His shoes have got to be shined. Right. I think he should wear a shirt and tie. Chri5ty, i want you to be here. Martin scorsese has at times been a directorfor hire, but hes fought to make movies on his own terms and its usually paid off, at least in terms of artistic integrity. Killers of the flower moon became a big budget undertaking. It was bankrolled by apple 0riginal film5 to the tune of 200 million. One of the things i found really rewarding about killers of the flower moon is that there was evidence of a single artistic vision, your vision coming through, hopefully not interfered with on screen, you know, i also found that this year, perhaps with barbie and greta gerwig5 vision or Christopher Nolan and 0ppenheimer, i mean, how hard is it to make that kind of a film nowaday5 where your vision doe5 prevail . The key there is the support from the financing. In the case of apple, for example, once i gave them the idea of how we wanted to approach the story and what we wanted to do, they were open to me exploring every aspect. I kept changing it as we went along, and i kept adding more and more of the rituals and the cultural aspects of the 05age. I never felt that there were people looking over my shoulder. You could say, well, its because of who you are. Yeah, but im 80 years old now. All right. So now i was able to make a picture with nobody looking over my shoulder, in a sense. If they were, they were very quiet. So that they were always supporting to