Sensing Indigenous History through Hollywood:
A Zoom Conversation with the Filmmakers Behind Killers of the Flower Moon
2/17 at 6pm CST!
Sponsored by the Film & Media Studies Program of the Department of English, the Teaching, Learning, & Professional Development Center at Texas Tech University, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Martin Scorsese’s searing and deeply self-aware Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) brings the so-called “Reign of Terror,” a time of great violence and murder against members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma, to terrifying life. Following the fraught romance between Osage member, Mollie Burkhart (Lilly Gladstone), and Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), a white outsider who seeks riches at any cost, the noir Western captures both the devastating exploitation of the Osage, and, at key moments, indigenous resistance and resilience. This in-depth conversation with filmmakers behind the Academy Award-nominated production—Executive Producer/Researcher Marianne Bower and Osage Nation Wardrobe Consultant Julie O'Keefe—asks: how can the glamour of Hollywood, its stars and its genres, be used to sense unsung indigenous history? What, we will ask, are the limits and possibilities of such spectacular representation?
On February 17th at 6pm CST, Bower and O’Keefe come to Texas Tech to speak with students of ENGL 4315, ENGL 5351, and the university community about the making of the acclaimed film.
Trailer:
https://youtu.be/EP34Yoxs3FQ?si=Bc6Tp3_ei7Kq7NTP
Register here for Zoom link:
https://texastech.zoom.us/meeting/register/F6cm6si0R-SyoOJTu5sV0A
Speakers Bio: Fareed Ben-Youssef is Assistant Professor in Film & Media Studies at Texas Tech University. He earned his Ph.D. in Film and Media from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of No Jurisdiction: Legal, Political, and Aesthetic Disorder in Post-9/11 Genre Cinema (SUNY Press, 2022).
Marianne Bower is an Executive Producer of Killers of the Flower Moon. In addition to her work on this film, she has long served as director Martin Scorsese's researcher and archivist, beginning their collaboration on his documentary, My Voyage to Italy (1999).
Julie O'Keefe (Osage) is the Osage Nation Wardrobe Consultant on Killers of the Flower Moon. She is also the Indigenous cultural consultant and project adviser on the upcoming series, American Primeval (2025).
Part of Expanding the Circle: Indigenous and Native American Studies funded by a Humanities Initiatives Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this virtual event do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
