The other day, I came across a recording of a press conference concerning the upcoming film Killers of the Flower Moon, directed by Martin Scorcese, long one of our best and smartest directors.
With this film, Scorcese has left his customary urban haunts for the broad plains of Oklahoma. It can fairly be called a neo-western, a genre untouched by Scorcese until now.
Flower Moon concerns a deadly scandal involving the Osage tribe and local whites. The film features a turn by longtime Scorcese collaborator Robert De Niro, who also took a prominent role during the press conference. The first thing one notes is how inarticulate De Niro can be when he doesn’t a have a script in front of him. The recording was full of hemming, hawing, y’knows, I means, and so on to the point of exasperation. It’s enough to make you wonder if the role of the mumbling, unbalanced loner Travis Bickel was an actual acting job.
The other thing… well, that’s not much of a challenge. De Niro was the guy who infamously threatened to punch out a sitting U.S. president for reasons difficult, if not impossible, to grasp. De Niro’s hatred of Donald Trump has achieved the status of legend. Nancy, Hillary, and Merrick may think they burn white-hot in their loathing of DJT, but they all have to step back in the face of Robert De Niro.
De Niro was trying to get across why he didn’t, y’know, like, unnastand the character he plays in the film. William Hale, a historical character, was involved in a plot to murder members of the Osage nation, though others remained friendly with him, and some in fact attended his funeral. (This is not a difficult point to grasp for anyone who has escaped wokism. The wokies believe that anyone who raises a hand against a single Indian -- or other person of color -- raises a hand against them all. In fact, it’s likely that Hale had difficulties -- murderous difficulties -- with one faction of the tribe while getting along perfectly well with the others.)
While casting around for a known historical reference for Hale, De Niro referred to “someone who must not be mentioned…”
Okay, I said to myself. Here we go…
But De Niro, with superhuman effort, managed to retain control of himself. I admit I was impressed.
But then it came. Late in the proceedings, apropos of nothing, with the air of a man who has held back too much for too long, De Niro at last cuts loose: TrumpTrumpTrump… I hate Trump… Everybody hates Trump… You’re not human if you don’t hate Trump…
In the background, Scorcese himself says, “Oh jeeze, he said it…” and there’s a smattering of laughter. Clearly, they’d been waiting on the edge of their seats along with everybody else. Evidently somebody – Scorcese? – had sat him down and told him, “Bobby, for God’s sake, don’t mention Donald Trump…’
What’s striking about DeNiro's outburst is how irrational it sounds. It isn’t measured criticism. It isn’t an expression of weary contempt. It’s the ranting of a man tried to the limits of reason. Donald Trump didn’t just run over Robert De Niro’s dog -- he ran over every dog De Niro could possibly have owned, and the cats too, and then topped it off with some widows and orphans.
This outburst provides us with a clear window, if any was needed at this point, into the Trump-haters’ mentality: Unreasonable, incoherent, and overwrought, and far outside the boundaries of any acceptable discourse. With these remarks, Robert De Niro has told us something about himself he didn’t want us to know.
De Niro remains a great artist despite himself, and I intend to see Flower Moon at some point. But all the same, it’s a relief to hear that DeNiro’s role in the film is limited to a few scenes, with the major role taken by Leonardo DiCaprio, who whatever his failings, lacks De Niro’s more wild-eyed crotchets. Hatred is never attractive. It is not something people wish to witness. De Niro, Scorcese, and the industry at large may want to ponder the fates of Anheuser-Busch and Target.
Image: Greg2600