Making of Scorsese’s Epic Western

Director Martin Scorsese has long been known for his rigorous dedication to authenticity, and “Killers of the Flower Moon” is quite possibly his densest film yet in terms of journalistic detail. Working closely with Osage advisers who vetted every line of Scorsese and Eric Roth’s screenplay, researcher Marianne Bower compiled thousands of pages of research material and visual references that she made available to all of the department heads as resources to tell their tragic story. The result is one of the most fully realized historical epics ever put on screen, a film in which each gesture, fabric, prop, and camera movement builds to create an immersive emotional experience for the audience.

The demand for verisimilitude placed extreme demands on Scorsese’s collaborators, all of whom felt a deep sense of responsibility to the Osage people. “It was important to [Scorsese] that it be truthful and fair,” production designer Jack Fisk told IndieWire, “and that got me so excited about doing the film.” The movie reunited Fisk with costume designer Jacqueline West, with whom he had collaborated on some of the greatest films of the past 20 years — movies like “The New World,” “The Tree of Life,” and “The Revenant.” “Jack and I have traded research on 10 movies,” West said, adding that home movies shot by the Osage in the ’20s “took me down many rabbit holes. By the time I got to Oklahoma, I had about 2,000 pieces of paper to make…