Just when you thought Martin Scorsese couldn’t get any cooler, the acclaimed filmmaker may have just given the middle finger to convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein in Killers of the Flower Moon.
Scorsese’s upcoming Western crime drama—which will open in theaters on October 20 and will be on Apple TV+ at a later date—stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Ernest Burkhart, an easily manipulated simpleton who does dirty work for his uncle, played by Robert De Niro. Without getting into spoiler-y details, let’s just say DiCaprio messes up a job and faces his uncle’s ire. But DiCaprio swears the mistake wasn’t his fault. “I swear on my children!” he pleads.
At that, De Niro scoffs, and replies, “Don’t swear on your children, it makes you look foolish.”
It’s not a line from the 2017 book by David Grann, but it is a line that will sound familiar if you were paying attention to the 2017 coverage of convicted sex offender and former big-time Hollywood executive Harvey Weinstein. “I swear on my children” was Weinstein’s favorite phrase when he was denying allegations. He said it when he was caught on tape, secretly recorded by the NYPD. In that audio, released by The New Yorker, Weinstein admits to groping Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez to her face, but promises he won’t do anything else, if she will just come into his hotel room. “Please, I am not gonna do anything,” Weinstein says. “I swear on my children. Please come in.”
It wasn’t the first or last time he would use that line, according to the many allegations and reports that followed. In a 2017 TV interview with Newsnight, Weinstein’s former assistant Zelda Perkins called swearing on the life of his wife and children “his best get-out-of-jail card that he used quite a lot.” It was a line Perkins said Weinstein used on her when she finally confronted him about the allegations.
Anyone who knew Weinstein likely heard him say it at least once, and Scorsese definitely knew Weinstein. Scorsese worked with the producer on his 2002 film Gangs of New York, which also starred DiCaprio. It was an experience that Scorsese recently told GQ was “extremely difficult.” In the profile, which was published last month, Scorsese says he fought with Weinstein over length and budget, and that the experience nearly caused him to quit the filmmaking business altogether. “I realized that I couldn’t work if I had to make films that way ever again,” he said. “If that was the only way that I was able to be allowed to make films, then I’d have to stop. Because the results weren’t satisfying. It was at times extremely difficult, and I wouldn’t survive it. I’d be dead. And so I decided it was over, really.”
Another executive producer on the film, Michael Hausman, told The Independent that Weinstein would show up on the Gangs of New York set and harass Scorsese to work faster, or to critique the costumes. He added that one confrontation between Scorsese and Weinstein led to Scorsese flipping a desk, and disappearing for the rest of the day.
All this is to say, Scorsese has good reason to throw shade at Weinstein. And what better way to do that than by having Robert De Niro—a man many regard as the greatest living actor of our time—throw Weinstein’s own words back in his face and call him a fool? We know it’s not a line from the book, and we also know that Scorsese is credited as a co-writer of the Killers script, alongside Eric Roth. (Not the same Eric Roth who was a former head of the Weinstein Company, for the record.)
It’s all speculation, of course. Neither Scorsese nor anyone who worked on Killers of the Flower Moon has said that the line was a Weinstein reference. But it’d be pretty poetic if it was, don’t you think?
If you or someone you know needs to reach out about sexual abuse or assault, RAINN is available 24/7 at 800-656-HOPE (4673), or online at RAINN.org.