The Godfather director calls Scorsese “the world’s greatest living filmmaker” while discussing Killers of the Flower Moon.
Francis Ford Coppola praised the new Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon on Instagram before the release of the movie. Coppola referred to Scorsese as his “longtime friend” and “the world’s greatest living filmmaker.” Coppola continued to say in the caption of the movie trailer that Killers of the Flower Moon “delivers in every way.”
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In addition to its dark and ominous plot, Scorsese’s newest movie is receiving a lot of buzz because of the big stars involved. Leonardo DiCaprio, Lilly Gladstone, and longtime Martin Scorsese collaborator Robert De Niro are the cast members in Killers of the Flower Moon.
The movie is based on a true event in which white neighbors are slowly killing a group of Native Osage people in order to exploit oil that has been found on the property. DiCaprio portrays Ernest Burkhardt, a white man who falls for Mollie Kyle, an Osage lady, played by Gladstone. Simultaneously, Ernest is the nephew of William Hale, the main adversary played by De Niro, who seeks ownership of the land’s black gold.
Scorsese and Coppola, two of the most influential directors in recent times, have long been admirers of one another’s work. At one time, Coppola—best known for the legendary film series The Godfather—asked Scorsese to helm The Godfather: Part II. Although Scorsese ultimately declined the offer, their friendship and regard for one another’s artistic vision are still very much intact.
In an opinion piece for Esquire, Scorsese stated that “The Godfather Part II” is his favorite Coppola movie, claiming that the family drama is “constructed like a symphony and directed by a master as a great conductor directs his orchestra, it reaches its highest points of lyricism.”
Scorsese added, “I admire the ambition of the project, its Shakespearean breadth, its tragic melancholy in its portrayal of the dissolution of the American dream…It is particularly the film within the film, the story of young Vito Corleone and his journey from Sicily to the Lower East Side, that touched me in a deep, personal way. Perhaps I saw a bit of my grandparents in that journey; perhaps I recognized my old neighborhood; perhaps I shared the sadness of the dream turning into a nightmare.”
In response, Coppola stated in the same Esquire article that “Raging Bull” was his favorite Scorsese film.
Earlier this year, Scorsese revealed to Deadline that Paramount declined his request to direct “The Departed” at Coppola’s recommendation for “The Godfather Part II.”
“I don’t think I could have made a film on that level at that time in my life, and who I was at that time. To make a film as elegant and masterful and as historically important as ‘Godfather II,’ I don’t think…Now, I would’ve made something interesting, but his [Coppola’s] maturity was already there,” Scorsese said. “I still had this kind of edgy thing, the wild kid running around. I didn’t find myself that comfortable with depicting higher-level underworld figures. I was more street-level. There were higher-level guys in the street. I could do that. I did it in ‘Goodfellas’ particularly. That’s where I grew up. What I saw around me wasn’t guys in a boardroom or sitting around a big table talking. That took another artistic level that Francis had at that point. He didn’t come from that world, the world that I came from. The story of ‘Godfather II’ is more like Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. It’s wonderful art.”
Watch the official trailer for Killers of the Flower Moon gained more than 13 Million views:
