INDIANAPOLIS — One of the most anticipated films of the year is now in theaters.
Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese ("The Departed," "Goodfellas") reunites with Oscar winners Leonardo DiCaprio ("The Revenant," "Titanic") and Robert De Niro ("Raging Bull," "The Godfather Part II") in the epic Western crime saga.
Based on a true story, "Killers of the Flower Moon" follows the suspicious murders of members of the Osage Nation in the 1920s.
"We had a great amount of wealth that came to us from oil money and minerals under the ground and were one of the wealthiest people at that time in the world," said Julie O'Keefe, the film's Osage wardrobe consultant. "We had a lot of different type of people coming in and taking advantage of the situation of my people. It involved literally everyone from the government, all the way down, for what happened to us."
The 3-hour, 26-minute film relives a discouraging time that is largely skipped over in teachings on American history.
"I think this film is going to talk about a subject matter that is still very hard for us to talk about today in our own culture with each other," O'Keefe said. "The takeaway from this movie a scene that I don't want to give away, but you see that we made it through all of these obstacles and all of this sadness and basically thrive and carry on our traditions today, even though that was definitely in jeopardy just through mentality of genocide."
And although DiCaprio and De Niro are the "A-list" celebrities in the film, Lily Gladstone ("Certain Women," "The Unknown Country") gives the star-making performance.
"The way that we wear our blankets and our shawls and what you see in the movie, it depends on the life event of what you're doing," O'Keefe said. "Once I made sure that (Gladstone) was comfortable and she felt confident in what she was going out in, she just absolutely would crush it every day."
And believe it or not, O'Keefe almost turned down the job to work on Scorsese's film.
"I didn't know anything about the movie business, so I almost said 'no,'" O'Keefe said. "When I came in the first day into (Jacqueline West's) studio, I saw the level of research she had done and the organization — that's a time in the 1920s when we're acclimating to a life that's being forced on us. I saw how she organized the Osage people. Then, I really understood that she got us. That level of authenticity is a very high bar when it comes to Martin Scorsese."
"Killers of the Flower Moon" is now in theaters.