The Limitations of "Killers of the Flower Moon"

Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, by its own admission, is ultimately a failure, but that’s also where the film is at its most provocative. Taking on an infinite scroll-like structure also found in Silence (2016) and The Irishman (2019), Scorsese's latest historical epic windingly adapts itself to his troubled reflections and their offshoots. In the film's contours, the 81-year-old filmmaker endeavors to explore one of America’s darkest chapters in order to comprehend its nature, and every attempt to understand points back to failure and its sundry manifestations in relation to justice, humanity, and even the artist’s chosen medium itself. It’s a gargantuan feat, one that finds Scorsese descending into a bottomless pit.