Killers of the Flower Moon\u00a0<\/em>(2023)<\/h2>\nFor the plot summary of Scorsese\u2019s latest, see here<\/a>. It is a long<\/em> movie (3.5 hours), but, in short, the film is about a morally corrupt rancher, Bill \u201cKing\u201d Hale (Robert De Niro), his family, specifically his nephew Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), and Hale\u2019s life-long attempt to graft his way into the community of the wealthy Osage Indians<\/a>\u00a0of Oklahoma. When we meet Hale, he is already a longtime resident of Fairfax<\/a>, and has befriended the Osage tribesmen, learning their language and their customs. The Osage have struck it rich, the prior generation having found extensive oil reserves on their lands. This is why Hale has come to Osage territory.<\/p>\nScorsese sets the film up as yet another cinematic rebuke of \u201cthe white man.\u201d \u201cThe whites,\u201d bound by an inherently malevolent, and unique, sin nature, are determined by that nature to oppress, abuse and manipulate the otherwise noble and pure, albeit melancholy and demoralized, natives.<\/p>\n
Moral Types in Killers<\/em><\/h2>\nHowever, Scorsese\u2019s film is nuanced enough that it cannot be sloughed off as a simplistic, critical theory-inspired screed against all things European. At least in one regard it does not do this, namely, through its main character, Ernest. Ernest, unlike Bill, and also unlike his Osage wife, Mollie (Lily Gladstone), is a complex character, meaning that while he commits his good share of crimes and atrocities, he is not one driven by a pure lust for power, like his uncle Bill.<\/p>\n
Instead Ernest is motivated by what theologians have long called \u201cconcupiscence:\u201d the lust of the flesh and weakness of moral restraint. It is this lack of moral restraint which makes Ernest susceptible to unadulterated malevolence of his uncle Bill \u201cKing\u201d Hale. Hale is himself a master manipulator and, at the heart, a criminal. Ernest may be a criminal, but, unlike Bill, he is not a maker of criminals. Mollie, alternatively, and her three sisters, all inheritors of Osage oil money, are portrayed as spotless victims. Their only sin, if any, is falling in love with the white men who wind up abusing them.<\/p>\n
As such, we see three, basic types of moral characters in Scorcese\u2019s film: the inherently corrupt (\u201cKing\u201d Hale, his son Byron, the local sheriff, the town doctors), the inherently innocent (Mollie and her sisters, and all the other Osage), and the one, complex character: Ernest. Other side characters are not explored in enough detail to evaluate their moral constitution. However, the other white townsfolk are depicted as generally corrupt, and while the federal agents are portrayed as seeking justice, they are not necessarily sympathetic to the plight of the Osage, even if their professionalism is admirable. This standard typology of characters makes Flower Moon<\/em> not nearly as realistic, or as interesting, as some of Scorsese\u2019s earlier entries, like 2016\u2019s Silence<\/em>. De Niro\u2019s character, Bill \u201cKing\u201d Hale, feels especially flat\u2013 another of De Niro\u2019s bland \u00a0\u201cmafioso\u201d types, transplanted from 1940\u2019s New York to 1920\u2019s rural Oklahoma.<\/p>\nErnest is the centerpiece of the story, and it is Ernest that makes the movie interesting. Torn between his base lust for pleasure: money, sex, gambling, liquor, and a suppressed conscience, we see Ernest wrestle with forces both inside himself and outside himself that he cannot control. He is the typical, intemperate Jedermann<\/em>, who, being \u201ctossed by wind and wave\u201d (Jas 1:6), cannot resolve to be one way or the other; ever vacillating between virtue and vice, but usually opting for vice. \u00a0We see this adeptly depicted in the film, for when Bill lies he does so with ease, untroubled by conscience. Ernest, however, feverishly stumbles and stutters every time he is confronted by truth, even if he usually gives in to lying. It is Ernest\u2019s weak moral constitution that allows him to be easily manipulated by his uncle and his uncle\u2019s accomplices.<\/p>\nHowever, Ernest\u2019s moral struggle ends, and a partial redemption comes when his love for Mollie and his children engenders in him enough nobility to finally tell the truth about Hale\u2019s campaign of exploitation and murder against the Osage. His testimony to a federal court about Hale\u2019s notorious plot to marry into Osage families only to get their wealth brings the reign of terror to an end (although we are left to assume that Hale was not alone in this systematic rape of the Osage, their land, and their dignity).<\/p>\n
Finally, with regard to Ernest\u2019s destiny, he still cannot muster up the courage to come clean to his wife about his own role in the atrocities. We are told later in a \u201creenactment scene\u201d (which features Scorsese himself on camera) that Ernest and Mollie divorce: Ernest ending as a drunk in a trailer park with his brother, while Mollie remarrying but dying young, likely due to all her prior trauma.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1412\/2024\/01\/Shutterstock_2381575119-4-2-300x300.jpg\")
Scorsese\u2019s Historical Epic: Killers of the Flower Moon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nA Biblical Prototype: Flower Moon and The Story of Hamor<\/h2>\n
One thing is especially noteworthy from a biblical and literary perspective in Killers of the Flower Moon.<\/em> Those familiar with the Old Testament may pick up on it: it is the parallel between the character of Bill Hale and that of Hamor, father of Shechem, in Genesis 34. In fact,\u00a0Flower Moon<\/em>, seems to pick up on several themes in the story of Hamor and Shechem, aka \u201cThe rape of Dinah.\u201d<\/p>\nIn the story, Shechem, the Hivite prince, rapes Jacob\u2019s only daughter, Dinah. Here we see the basic prototype for the plot of Flower Moon<\/em>. After Shechem, out of lust, has defiled Dinah, he goes to his father Hamor to see if Hamor can convince Jacob to give Dinah to him in marriage. Jacob, not unlike the Osage tribal chieftains who give their daughters over to the white men in marriage, considers Hamor\u2019s proposal in spite of the disgrace Shechem has brought against his family and the nation. It may be, after all, quite practical to enter into relations with the Hivites (cf. Gen 34:30). Dinah\u2019s brothers, Simeon and Levi, however, are more principled than their father, the old trickster. As such, they make a \u201cdeal\u201d with Hamor that if the Hivite men circumcise themselves, then, and only then, will the daughters of Israel enter into marriage with them.<\/p>\nHamor, agreeing to the circumcsion and feigning interest in the Israelites, reveals his real plan to the Hivites: to take the daughters of the Israelites in marriage, so as to get to their wealth:<\/p>\n
So Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city, saying, <\/span>21\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cThese people are friendly with us; let them live in the land and trade in it, for the land is large enough for them; let us take their daughters in marriage, and let us give them our daughters. <\/span>22\u00a0<\/sup>Only on this condition will they agree to live among us, to become one people: that every male among us be circumcised as they are circumcised. <\/span>23\u00a0<\/sup>Will not their livestock, their property, and all their animals be ours? Only let us agree with them, and they will live among us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nGen 34: 20-23<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The character of Bill Hale, to include his life plan, is essentially that of Hamor the Hivite. Hamor intends to integrate into the Israelite culture and use the Israelite women to get to their wealth. In the movie, Hale has already done this to a large extent: he has worked his way into the Osage culture, gradually winning their confidence. We see him already well into the the process of using the daughters of the Osage (the Israelites) to get their \u201clivestock, their property, and all their animals,\u201d i.e., to get all their land and oil, their \u201chead rights\u201d as they are called in the film. It is only Ernest finding his conscience, that prevents Hale\u2019s nefarious plot from succeeding.<\/p>\n
Lastly we come to the Osage tribal elders, who repeatedly threaten how \u201cin the old days,\u201d they would have destroyed the white men, killing them on principle for their underhanded tactics, their abuse of their women and rape of the land. Yet, unlike Simeon and Levi, and more like Jacob, the Osage elders have themselves become too practical and too comfortable in their own corruption to attend to more profound matters of honor and shame. They, like Jacob, have forgotten about honor, exchanging it instead for material wealth and, in a very real sense, for peace.<\/p>\n
Still, it is their lack of moral outrage, and their diminished masculine vigor, which confirms Hale\u2019s ironic prophecy that \u201cthe time of the Osage has passed.\u201d Having become entangled with Hale\u2019s own power, the Osage have sacrificed their ethos and identity for the shallow irenicism and economic prosperity that Hale\u2019s counterfeit friendship has provided. Lacking among the tribal chiefs are a Simeon and Levi who stand up and resist the white Hamor saying \u201cShould he treat our sister[s] like harlots?\u201d<\/p>\n
The Iron Claw (2024)<\/h2>\n
If\u00a0Flower Moon<\/em> sacrifices some depth and complexity in favor of narrative tropes, Sean Durkin\u2019s biopic The Iron Claw<\/em> does nothing of the sort. I am a hard critic on movies, so for me to suggest a movie rises to the level of aesthetic brilliance is quite rare. But The Iron Claw<\/em> does just that. This is a brilliant piece of moviemaking that hits the right balance between realism and literary typology in its characters and story arc. Like Flower Moon<\/em>, there is hardly an instance of forced or canned dialogue in Iron Claw<\/em>. Nor did I hear one line that acts as a conscious allusion to some other pop-cultural product. In other words, the characters speak like real people coping with real circumstances, not like movie characters coping with movie-like circumstances. Moreover, when it comes to moral complexity, every one of the major characters is complex, just like every one watching in the audience is complex.<\/p>\nThe main arc of the story centers on the relationship between the professional wrestler, Jack Adkisson (\u201cFritz\u201d Von Erich was his ring name), and his sons Kevin, Kerry, David and Mike. Another son, Jack Jr, we are told died young, and a sixth son, Chris, is left out of the film due to artistic constraints. In real life, five of Adkisson\u2019s six sons died before him, three of them\u2013Mike, Chris and Kerry\u2013by suicide. Only the second oldest, Kevin, is still alive today.<\/p>\n
All of the performances in the movie are academy-award worthy (assuming the academy awards still gives out awards for artistic endeavor, and not just for artistic scandal. I wouldn\u2019t know as I haven\u2019t watched one since Billy Crystal hosted). Zac Efron is especially good in his depiction of Kevin, the only surviving von Erich brother, and the main character of the story. The motivation for the movie is, of course, the series of tragedies that plagues the family. Of six otherwise healthy and utterly able-bodied men, only one lived into full-fledged adulthood.<\/p>\n
Why?<\/p>\n
The Father Dynamic and Living Vicariously<\/h2>\n
With the exception of Jack Jr., who died by accident as a child, the reason given in the film for the other deaths is fairly clear: the obsession of one man, Jack Adkisson (Holt McCallany), in becoming a champion wrestler. Theologically speaking, \u00a0it is Jack Sr.\u2019s obsession with his own identity, his own self, that drives each of his sons, in turn, to their grave. In psychological terms, Jack\u2019s ego is so big that he sees each of his children not as separate individuals, unique human beings, but as a mere extensions of his own self. As such, their life-goals are not their own, they are his. Each of the von Erich boys exists so that Jack can become what he always wanted to be in his youth but never did: a success. The father lives vicariously through his sons, treating them as instruments, as means to an end. It is an end that ultimately breaks each instrument, save one.<\/p>\n
Jack\u2019s love for his sons openly fluctuates depending on who is, at any given time, succeeding in the mission of fulfilling Jack\u2019s<\/em> dreams. At the dinner table, we see Jack openly discuss with his sons how they can rank up or down in his estimation based on how well they perform in achieving his dreams. The resulting dynamic is an extended litany of disappointment, disillusionment and death. Each von Erich son is tormented by an unrelenting and merciless expectation to perform. When they fail, they lose everything, to include the affections of their father. When they succeed, they gain little, for it was never clear to them whether what they won is what they<\/em> actually wanted.<\/p>\nStill, Jack Adkisson is not Bill Hale. He is more complex than that. His ego is maniacal, that much is certain. However, why it is that way we do not know. We are left to wonder if his own ego is not the tragic result of some broken relationship, or set of circumstances, perhaps going back to his own father or desperate series of events. We aren\u2019t told directly, but we feel led to speculate.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Jack has some qualities worth emulating, and the film does not shy away from presenting those qualities along with the many vices. He loves his children\u2026sort of. He is, in some genuine way, a very present husband and father\u2013 a stark contrast to the stereotypical \u201cabsent dad\u201d of late 20th-century America. He is a provider, of sorts, and he at least tries to give his sons guidance about life and how to live it well. He tries to encourage them, he compliments their efforts, he plays with them. He is not a drunkard, a philanderer or a lout. Fans who watch combat sports, particularly boxing, will know the type, the \u201cfather-trainer\u201d is often a great blessing and a terrible burden to the professional athlete.<\/p>\n
As such, the character of Jack raises several deep moral and theological questions for the audience. In one scene, after David\u2019s death, Jack speaks of God\u2019s providence in regard to the timing of David\u2019s early demise. In a sense, this is true; for all things do come to pass according to the will of God. However, to what extent is Jack also responsible in the deaths of his sons: where is his culpability in their untimely deaths? The answer is clearly somewhere<\/em>! Even though David\u2019s death is from natural causes, severe enteritis, the film implies that Jack\u2019s obsession with winning drove David to do things to his body, and his mind, that lead to its breakdown. The other two deaths shown, those of Mike and Kerry, are more obviously causally connected to Jack\u2019s unyielding narcissism. When human beings are treated like tools, the tools break.<\/p>\nOf Macho Men and Divine Providence<\/h2>\n
One of the themes throughout the film is Jack\u2019s suppression of his and his sons\u2019 emotions. When tragedy strikes, either in the form of career disappointments, like Kerry losing a limb after a motorcycle accident, there is only one response: suck it up! This type of warrior mentality is easy prey for today\u2019s feminized commentator. The idea being to simply dismiss this kind of machismo as an outdated, and outright evil, expression of masculinity (One can already hear the Andrew Tate analogies.)<\/p>\n
However, the issue with Jack\u2019s attitude toward emotions is not one of kind, but of degree. In a culture where emotions have run wild, and often are leveraged against reality itself, there is a proper place for restraining the passions. Unfortunately, in the case of the von Erichs, Jack confuses emotional restraint with the total elimination of emotion. Not being allowed to cry at the death of a beloved brother is not emotional restraint, it is emotional abuse. Of course, just as abusive, is crying at each and every turn in life. Effusive and unchecked emotion diminishes the seriousness of things, which leads to confusion about how to evaluate degrees of goodness, and badness, in the world.<\/p>\n
Scorsese sets the film up as yet another cinematic rebuke of \u201cthe white man.\u201d \u201cThe whites,\u201d bound by an inherently malevolent, and unique, sin nature, are determined by that nature to oppress, abuse and manipulate the otherwise noble and pure, albeit melancholy and demoralized, natives.<\/p>\n
Moral Types in Killers<\/em><\/h2>\nHowever, Scorsese\u2019s film is nuanced enough that it cannot be sloughed off as a simplistic, critical theory-inspired screed against all things European. At least in one regard it does not do this, namely, through its main character, Ernest. Ernest, unlike Bill, and also unlike his Osage wife, Mollie (Lily Gladstone), is a complex character, meaning that while he commits his good share of crimes and atrocities, he is not one driven by a pure lust for power, like his uncle Bill.<\/p>\n
Instead Ernest is motivated by what theologians have long called \u201cconcupiscence:\u201d the lust of the flesh and weakness of moral restraint. It is this lack of moral restraint which makes Ernest susceptible to unadulterated malevolence of his uncle Bill \u201cKing\u201d Hale. Hale is himself a master manipulator and, at the heart, a criminal. Ernest may be a criminal, but, unlike Bill, he is not a maker of criminals. Mollie, alternatively, and her three sisters, all inheritors of Osage oil money, are portrayed as spotless victims. Their only sin, if any, is falling in love with the white men who wind up abusing them.<\/p>\n
As such, we see three, basic types of moral characters in Scorcese\u2019s film: the inherently corrupt (\u201cKing\u201d Hale, his son Byron, the local sheriff, the town doctors), the inherently innocent (Mollie and her sisters, and all the other Osage), and the one, complex character: Ernest. Other side characters are not explored in enough detail to evaluate their moral constitution. However, the other white townsfolk are depicted as generally corrupt, and while the federal agents are portrayed as seeking justice, they are not necessarily sympathetic to the plight of the Osage, even if their professionalism is admirable. This standard typology of characters makes Flower Moon<\/em> not nearly as realistic, or as interesting, as some of Scorsese\u2019s earlier entries, like 2016\u2019s Silence<\/em>. De Niro\u2019s character, Bill \u201cKing\u201d Hale, feels especially flat\u2013 another of De Niro\u2019s bland \u00a0\u201cmafioso\u201d types, transplanted from 1940\u2019s New York to 1920\u2019s rural Oklahoma.<\/p>\nErnest is the centerpiece of the story, and it is Ernest that makes the movie interesting. Torn between his base lust for pleasure: money, sex, gambling, liquor, and a suppressed conscience, we see Ernest wrestle with forces both inside himself and outside himself that he cannot control. He is the typical, intemperate Jedermann<\/em>, who, being \u201ctossed by wind and wave\u201d (Jas 1:6), cannot resolve to be one way or the other; ever vacillating between virtue and vice, but usually opting for vice. \u00a0We see this adeptly depicted in the film, for when Bill lies he does so with ease, untroubled by conscience. Ernest, however, feverishly stumbles and stutters every time he is confronted by truth, even if he usually gives in to lying. It is Ernest\u2019s weak moral constitution that allows him to be easily manipulated by his uncle and his uncle\u2019s accomplices.<\/p>\nHowever, Ernest\u2019s moral struggle ends, and a partial redemption comes when his love for Mollie and his children engenders in him enough nobility to finally tell the truth about Hale\u2019s campaign of exploitation and murder against the Osage. His testimony to a federal court about Hale\u2019s notorious plot to marry into Osage families only to get their wealth brings the reign of terror to an end (although we are left to assume that Hale was not alone in this systematic rape of the Osage, their land, and their dignity).<\/p>\n
Finally, with regard to Ernest\u2019s destiny, he still cannot muster up the courage to come clean to his wife about his own role in the atrocities. We are told later in a \u201creenactment scene\u201d (which features Scorsese himself on camera) that Ernest and Mollie divorce: Ernest ending as a drunk in a trailer park with his brother, while Mollie remarrying but dying young, likely due to all her prior trauma.<\/p>\nScorsese\u2019s Historical Epic: Killers of the Flower Moon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nA Biblical Prototype: Flower Moon and The Story of Hamor<\/h2>\n
One thing is especially noteworthy from a biblical and literary perspective in Killers of the Flower Moon.<\/em> Those familiar with the Old Testament may pick up on it: it is the parallel between the character of Bill Hale and that of Hamor, father of Shechem, in Genesis 34. In fact,\u00a0Flower Moon<\/em>, seems to pick up on several themes in the story of Hamor and Shechem, aka \u201cThe rape of Dinah.\u201d<\/p>\nIn the story, Shechem, the Hivite prince, rapes Jacob\u2019s only daughter, Dinah. Here we see the basic prototype for the plot of Flower Moon<\/em>. After Shechem, out of lust, has defiled Dinah, he goes to his father Hamor to see if Hamor can convince Jacob to give Dinah to him in marriage. Jacob, not unlike the Osage tribal chieftains who give their daughters over to the white men in marriage, considers Hamor\u2019s proposal in spite of the disgrace Shechem has brought against his family and the nation. It may be, after all, quite practical to enter into relations with the Hivites (cf. Gen 34:30). Dinah\u2019s brothers, Simeon and Levi, however, are more principled than their father, the old trickster. As such, they make a \u201cdeal\u201d with Hamor that if the Hivite men circumcise themselves, then, and only then, will the daughters of Israel enter into marriage with them.<\/p>\nHamor, agreeing to the circumcsion and feigning interest in the Israelites, reveals his real plan to the Hivites: to take the daughters of the Israelites in marriage, so as to get to their wealth:<\/p>\n
So Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city, saying, <\/span>21\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cThese people are friendly with us; let them live in the land and trade in it, for the land is large enough for them; let us take their daughters in marriage, and let us give them our daughters. <\/span>22\u00a0<\/sup>Only on this condition will they agree to live among us, to become one people: that every male among us be circumcised as they are circumcised. <\/span>23\u00a0<\/sup>Will not their livestock, their property, and all their animals be ours? Only let us agree with them, and they will live among us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nGen 34: 20-23<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The character of Bill Hale, to include his life plan, is essentially that of Hamor the Hivite. Hamor intends to integrate into the Israelite culture and use the Israelite women to get to their wealth. In the movie, Hale has already done this to a large extent: he has worked his way into the Osage culture, gradually winning their confidence. We see him already well into the the process of using the daughters of the Osage (the Israelites) to get their \u201clivestock, their property, and all their animals,\u201d i.e., to get all their land and oil, their \u201chead rights\u201d as they are called in the film. It is only Ernest finding his conscience, that prevents Hale\u2019s nefarious plot from succeeding.<\/p>\n
Lastly we come to the Osage tribal elders, who repeatedly threaten how \u201cin the old days,\u201d they would have destroyed the white men, killing them on principle for their underhanded tactics, their abuse of their women and rape of the land. Yet, unlike Simeon and Levi, and more like Jacob, the Osage elders have themselves become too practical and too comfortable in their own corruption to attend to more profound matters of honor and shame. They, like Jacob, have forgotten about honor, exchanging it instead for material wealth and, in a very real sense, for peace.<\/p>\n
Still, it is their lack of moral outrage, and their diminished masculine vigor, which confirms Hale\u2019s ironic prophecy that \u201cthe time of the Osage has passed.\u201d Having become entangled with Hale\u2019s own power, the Osage have sacrificed their ethos and identity for the shallow irenicism and economic prosperity that Hale\u2019s counterfeit friendship has provided. Lacking among the tribal chiefs are a Simeon and Levi who stand up and resist the white Hamor saying \u201cShould he treat our sister[s] like harlots?\u201d<\/p>\n
The Iron Claw (2024)<\/h2>\n
If\u00a0Flower Moon<\/em> sacrifices some depth and complexity in favor of narrative tropes, Sean Durkin\u2019s biopic The Iron Claw<\/em> does nothing of the sort. I am a hard critic on movies, so for me to suggest a movie rises to the level of aesthetic brilliance is quite rare. But The Iron Claw<\/em> does just that. This is a brilliant piece of moviemaking that hits the right balance between realism and literary typology in its characters and story arc. Like Flower Moon<\/em>, there is hardly an instance of forced or canned dialogue in Iron Claw<\/em>. Nor did I hear one line that acts as a conscious allusion to some other pop-cultural product. In other words, the characters speak like real people coping with real circumstances, not like movie characters coping with movie-like circumstances. Moreover, when it comes to moral complexity, every one of the major characters is complex, just like every one watching in the audience is complex.<\/p>\nThe main arc of the story centers on the relationship between the professional wrestler, Jack Adkisson (\u201cFritz\u201d Von Erich was his ring name), and his sons Kevin, Kerry, David and Mike. Another son, Jack Jr, we are told died young, and a sixth son, Chris, is left out of the film due to artistic constraints. In real life, five of Adkisson\u2019s six sons died before him, three of them\u2013Mike, Chris and Kerry\u2013by suicide. Only the second oldest, Kevin, is still alive today.<\/p>\n
All of the performances in the movie are academy-award worthy (assuming the academy awards still gives out awards for artistic endeavor, and not just for artistic scandal. I wouldn\u2019t know as I haven\u2019t watched one since Billy Crystal hosted). Zac Efron is especially good in his depiction of Kevin, the only surviving von Erich brother, and the main character of the story. The motivation for the movie is, of course, the series of tragedies that plagues the family. Of six otherwise healthy and utterly able-bodied men, only one lived into full-fledged adulthood.<\/p>\n
Why?<\/p>\n
The Father Dynamic and Living Vicariously<\/h2>\n
With the exception of Jack Jr., who died by accident as a child, the reason given in the film for the other deaths is fairly clear: the obsession of one man, Jack Adkisson (Holt McCallany), in becoming a champion wrestler. Theologically speaking, \u00a0it is Jack Sr.\u2019s obsession with his own identity, his own self, that drives each of his sons, in turn, to their grave. In psychological terms, Jack\u2019s ego is so big that he sees each of his children not as separate individuals, unique human beings, but as a mere extensions of his own self. As such, their life-goals are not their own, they are his. Each of the von Erich boys exists so that Jack can become what he always wanted to be in his youth but never did: a success. The father lives vicariously through his sons, treating them as instruments, as means to an end. It is an end that ultimately breaks each instrument, save one.<\/p>\n
Jack\u2019s love for his sons openly fluctuates depending on who is, at any given time, succeeding in the mission of fulfilling Jack\u2019s<\/em> dreams. At the dinner table, we see Jack openly discuss with his sons how they can rank up or down in his estimation based on how well they perform in achieving his dreams. The resulting dynamic is an extended litany of disappointment, disillusionment and death. Each von Erich son is tormented by an unrelenting and merciless expectation to perform. When they fail, they lose everything, to include the affections of their father. When they succeed, they gain little, for it was never clear to them whether what they won is what they<\/em> actually wanted.<\/p>\nStill, Jack Adkisson is not Bill Hale. He is more complex than that. His ego is maniacal, that much is certain. However, why it is that way we do not know. We are left to wonder if his own ego is not the tragic result of some broken relationship, or set of circumstances, perhaps going back to his own father or desperate series of events. We aren\u2019t told directly, but we feel led to speculate.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Jack has some qualities worth emulating, and the film does not shy away from presenting those qualities along with the many vices. He loves his children\u2026sort of. He is, in some genuine way, a very present husband and father\u2013 a stark contrast to the stereotypical \u201cabsent dad\u201d of late 20th-century America. He is a provider, of sorts, and he at least tries to give his sons guidance about life and how to live it well. He tries to encourage them, he compliments their efforts, he plays with them. He is not a drunkard, a philanderer or a lout. Fans who watch combat sports, particularly boxing, will know the type, the \u201cfather-trainer\u201d is often a great blessing and a terrible burden to the professional athlete.<\/p>\n
As such, the character of Jack raises several deep moral and theological questions for the audience. In one scene, after David\u2019s death, Jack speaks of God\u2019s providence in regard to the timing of David\u2019s early demise. In a sense, this is true; for all things do come to pass according to the will of God. However, to what extent is Jack also responsible in the deaths of his sons: where is his culpability in their untimely deaths? The answer is clearly somewhere<\/em>! Even though David\u2019s death is from natural causes, severe enteritis, the film implies that Jack\u2019s obsession with winning drove David to do things to his body, and his mind, that lead to its breakdown. The other two deaths shown, those of Mike and Kerry, are more obviously causally connected to Jack\u2019s unyielding narcissism. When human beings are treated like tools, the tools break.<\/p>\nOf Macho Men and Divine Providence<\/h2>\n
One of the themes throughout the film is Jack\u2019s suppression of his and his sons\u2019 emotions. When tragedy strikes, either in the form of career disappointments, like Kerry losing a limb after a motorcycle accident, there is only one response: suck it up! This type of warrior mentality is easy prey for today\u2019s feminized commentator. The idea being to simply dismiss this kind of machismo as an outdated, and outright evil, expression of masculinity (One can already hear the Andrew Tate analogies.)<\/p>\n
However, the issue with Jack\u2019s attitude toward emotions is not one of kind, but of degree. In a culture where emotions have run wild, and often are leveraged against reality itself, there is a proper place for restraining the passions. Unfortunately, in the case of the von Erichs, Jack confuses emotional restraint with the total elimination of emotion. Not being allowed to cry at the death of a beloved brother is not emotional restraint, it is emotional abuse. Of course, just as abusive, is crying at each and every turn in life. Effusive and unchecked emotion diminishes the seriousness of things, which leads to confusion about how to evaluate degrees of goodness, and badness, in the world.<\/p>\n
Ernest is the centerpiece of the story, and it is Ernest that makes the movie interesting. Torn between his base lust for pleasure: money, sex, gambling, liquor, and a suppressed conscience, we see Ernest wrestle with forces both inside himself and outside himself that he cannot control. He is the typical, intemperate Jedermann<\/em>, who, being \u201ctossed by wind and wave\u201d (Jas 1:6), cannot resolve to be one way or the other; ever vacillating between virtue and vice, but usually opting for vice. \u00a0We see this adeptly depicted in the film, for when Bill lies he does so with ease, untroubled by conscience. Ernest, however, feverishly stumbles and stutters every time he is confronted by truth, even if he usually gives in to lying. It is Ernest\u2019s weak moral constitution that allows him to be easily manipulated by his uncle and his uncle\u2019s accomplices.<\/p>\n However, Ernest\u2019s moral struggle ends, and a partial redemption comes when his love for Mollie and his children engenders in him enough nobility to finally tell the truth about Hale\u2019s campaign of exploitation and murder against the Osage. His testimony to a federal court about Hale\u2019s notorious plot to marry into Osage families only to get their wealth brings the reign of terror to an end (although we are left to assume that Hale was not alone in this systematic rape of the Osage, their land, and their dignity).<\/p>\n Finally, with regard to Ernest\u2019s destiny, he still cannot muster up the courage to come clean to his wife about his own role in the atrocities. We are told later in a \u201creenactment scene\u201d (which features Scorsese himself on camera) that Ernest and Mollie divorce: Ernest ending as a drunk in a trailer park with his brother, while Mollie remarrying but dying young, likely due to all her prior trauma.<\/p>\n One thing is especially noteworthy from a biblical and literary perspective in Killers of the Flower Moon.<\/em> Those familiar with the Old Testament may pick up on it: it is the parallel between the character of Bill Hale and that of Hamor, father of Shechem, in Genesis 34. In fact,\u00a0Flower Moon<\/em>, seems to pick up on several themes in the story of Hamor and Shechem, aka \u201cThe rape of Dinah.\u201d<\/p>\n In the story, Shechem, the Hivite prince, rapes Jacob\u2019s only daughter, Dinah. Here we see the basic prototype for the plot of Flower Moon<\/em>. After Shechem, out of lust, has defiled Dinah, he goes to his father Hamor to see if Hamor can convince Jacob to give Dinah to him in marriage. Jacob, not unlike the Osage tribal chieftains who give their daughters over to the white men in marriage, considers Hamor\u2019s proposal in spite of the disgrace Shechem has brought against his family and the nation. It may be, after all, quite practical to enter into relations with the Hivites (cf. Gen 34:30). Dinah\u2019s brothers, Simeon and Levi, however, are more principled than their father, the old trickster. As such, they make a \u201cdeal\u201d with Hamor that if the Hivite men circumcise themselves, then, and only then, will the daughters of Israel enter into marriage with them.<\/p>\n Hamor, agreeing to the circumcsion and feigning interest in the Israelites, reveals his real plan to the Hivites: to take the daughters of the Israelites in marriage, so as to get to their wealth:<\/p>\n So Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city, saying, <\/span>21\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cThese people are friendly with us; let them live in the land and trade in it, for the land is large enough for them; let us take their daughters in marriage, and let us give them our daughters. <\/span>22\u00a0<\/sup>Only on this condition will they agree to live among us, to become one people: that every male among us be circumcised as they are circumcised. <\/span>23\u00a0<\/sup>Will not their livestock, their property, and all their animals be ours? Only let us agree with them, and they will live among us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Gen 34: 20-23<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The character of Bill Hale, to include his life plan, is essentially that of Hamor the Hivite. Hamor intends to integrate into the Israelite culture and use the Israelite women to get to their wealth. In the movie, Hale has already done this to a large extent: he has worked his way into the Osage culture, gradually winning their confidence. We see him already well into the the process of using the daughters of the Osage (the Israelites) to get their \u201clivestock, their property, and all their animals,\u201d i.e., to get all their land and oil, their \u201chead rights\u201d as they are called in the film. It is only Ernest finding his conscience, that prevents Hale\u2019s nefarious plot from succeeding.<\/p>\n Lastly we come to the Osage tribal elders, who repeatedly threaten how \u201cin the old days,\u201d they would have destroyed the white men, killing them on principle for their underhanded tactics, their abuse of their women and rape of the land. Yet, unlike Simeon and Levi, and more like Jacob, the Osage elders have themselves become too practical and too comfortable in their own corruption to attend to more profound matters of honor and shame. They, like Jacob, have forgotten about honor, exchanging it instead for material wealth and, in a very real sense, for peace.<\/p>\n Still, it is their lack of moral outrage, and their diminished masculine vigor, which confirms Hale\u2019s ironic prophecy that \u201cthe time of the Osage has passed.\u201d Having become entangled with Hale\u2019s own power, the Osage have sacrificed their ethos and identity for the shallow irenicism and economic prosperity that Hale\u2019s counterfeit friendship has provided. Lacking among the tribal chiefs are a Simeon and Levi who stand up and resist the white Hamor saying \u201cShould he treat our sister[s] like harlots?\u201d<\/p>\n If\u00a0Flower Moon<\/em> sacrifices some depth and complexity in favor of narrative tropes, Sean Durkin\u2019s biopic The Iron Claw<\/em> does nothing of the sort. I am a hard critic on movies, so for me to suggest a movie rises to the level of aesthetic brilliance is quite rare. But The Iron Claw<\/em> does just that. This is a brilliant piece of moviemaking that hits the right balance between realism and literary typology in its characters and story arc. Like Flower Moon<\/em>, there is hardly an instance of forced or canned dialogue in Iron Claw<\/em>. Nor did I hear one line that acts as a conscious allusion to some other pop-cultural product. In other words, the characters speak like real people coping with real circumstances, not like movie characters coping with movie-like circumstances. Moreover, when it comes to moral complexity, every one of the major characters is complex, just like every one watching in the audience is complex.<\/p>\n The main arc of the story centers on the relationship between the professional wrestler, Jack Adkisson (\u201cFritz\u201d Von Erich was his ring name), and his sons Kevin, Kerry, David and Mike. Another son, Jack Jr, we are told died young, and a sixth son, Chris, is left out of the film due to artistic constraints. In real life, five of Adkisson\u2019s six sons died before him, three of them\u2013Mike, Chris and Kerry\u2013by suicide. Only the second oldest, Kevin, is still alive today.<\/p>\n All of the performances in the movie are academy-award worthy (assuming the academy awards still gives out awards for artistic endeavor, and not just for artistic scandal. I wouldn\u2019t know as I haven\u2019t watched one since Billy Crystal hosted). Zac Efron is especially good in his depiction of Kevin, the only surviving von Erich brother, and the main character of the story. The motivation for the movie is, of course, the series of tragedies that plagues the family. Of six otherwise healthy and utterly able-bodied men, only one lived into full-fledged adulthood.<\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n With the exception of Jack Jr., who died by accident as a child, the reason given in the film for the other deaths is fairly clear: the obsession of one man, Jack Adkisson (Holt McCallany), in becoming a champion wrestler. Theologically speaking, \u00a0it is Jack Sr.\u2019s obsession with his own identity, his own self, that drives each of his sons, in turn, to their grave. In psychological terms, Jack\u2019s ego is so big that he sees each of his children not as separate individuals, unique human beings, but as a mere extensions of his own self. As such, their life-goals are not their own, they are his. Each of the von Erich boys exists so that Jack can become what he always wanted to be in his youth but never did: a success. The father lives vicariously through his sons, treating them as instruments, as means to an end. It is an end that ultimately breaks each instrument, save one.<\/p>\n Jack\u2019s love for his sons openly fluctuates depending on who is, at any given time, succeeding in the mission of fulfilling Jack\u2019s<\/em> dreams. At the dinner table, we see Jack openly discuss with his sons how they can rank up or down in his estimation based on how well they perform in achieving his dreams. The resulting dynamic is an extended litany of disappointment, disillusionment and death. Each von Erich son is tormented by an unrelenting and merciless expectation to perform. When they fail, they lose everything, to include the affections of their father. When they succeed, they gain little, for it was never clear to them whether what they won is what they<\/em> actually wanted.<\/p>\n Still, Jack Adkisson is not Bill Hale. He is more complex than that. His ego is maniacal, that much is certain. However, why it is that way we do not know. We are left to wonder if his own ego is not the tragic result of some broken relationship, or set of circumstances, perhaps going back to his own father or desperate series of events. We aren\u2019t told directly, but we feel led to speculate.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, Jack has some qualities worth emulating, and the film does not shy away from presenting those qualities along with the many vices. He loves his children\u2026sort of. He is, in some genuine way, a very present husband and father\u2013 a stark contrast to the stereotypical \u201cabsent dad\u201d of late 20th-century America. He is a provider, of sorts, and he at least tries to give his sons guidance about life and how to live it well. He tries to encourage them, he compliments their efforts, he plays with them. He is not a drunkard, a philanderer or a lout. Fans who watch combat sports, particularly boxing, will know the type, the \u201cfather-trainer\u201d is often a great blessing and a terrible burden to the professional athlete.<\/p>\n As such, the character of Jack raises several deep moral and theological questions for the audience. In one scene, after David\u2019s death, Jack speaks of God\u2019s providence in regard to the timing of David\u2019s early demise. In a sense, this is true; for all things do come to pass according to the will of God. However, to what extent is Jack also responsible in the deaths of his sons: where is his culpability in their untimely deaths? The answer is clearly somewhere<\/em>! Even though David\u2019s death is from natural causes, severe enteritis, the film implies that Jack\u2019s obsession with winning drove David to do things to his body, and his mind, that lead to its breakdown. The other two deaths shown, those of Mike and Kerry, are more obviously causally connected to Jack\u2019s unyielding narcissism. When human beings are treated like tools, the tools break.<\/p>\n One of the themes throughout the film is Jack\u2019s suppression of his and his sons\u2019 emotions. When tragedy strikes, either in the form of career disappointments, like Kerry losing a limb after a motorcycle accident, there is only one response: suck it up! This type of warrior mentality is easy prey for today\u2019s feminized commentator. The idea being to simply dismiss this kind of machismo as an outdated, and outright evil, expression of masculinity (One can already hear the Andrew Tate analogies.)<\/p>\n However, the issue with Jack\u2019s attitude toward emotions is not one of kind, but of degree. In a culture where emotions have run wild, and often are leveraged against reality itself, there is a proper place for restraining the passions. Unfortunately, in the case of the von Erichs, Jack confuses emotional restraint with the total elimination of emotion. Not being allowed to cry at the death of a beloved brother is not emotional restraint, it is emotional abuse. Of course, just as abusive, is crying at each and every turn in life. Effusive and unchecked emotion diminishes the seriousness of things, which leads to confusion about how to evaluate degrees of goodness, and badness, in the world.<\/p>\nA Biblical Prototype: Flower Moon and The Story of Hamor<\/h2>\n
The Iron Claw (2024)<\/h2>\n
The Father Dynamic and Living Vicariously<\/h2>\n
Of Macho Men and Divine Providence<\/h2>\n
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