New bonds form and an old one endures--that’s the continuum of collaboration on Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Studios) as reflected, for example, in creative ties for production designer Jack Fisk and costume designer Jacqueline West. Killers of the Flower Moon is the ninth feature that Fisk and West have teamed on. Meanwhile in terms of a new-found connection, Killers of the Flower Moon marks the first collaboration with Scorsese for both Fisk and West.
Among the features Fisk and West have worked on together over the years are Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, The New World and To The Wonder, and Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s The Revenant. The latter earned Oscar nominations for both Fisk and West.
Fisk has two career Academy Award nods--the other being for Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. West has four Oscar noms--the others being for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, the Philip Kaufman-directed Quills, and David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
In a Road To Oscar conversation with Fisk on The Revenant back in 2016, he credited West with making major contributions to that film, observing that her “costumes were omnipresent, like portable settings unto themselves.” His paralleling her costumes to the settings created by a production designer reflect how simpatico Fisk and West are in their respective disciplines.
Both, for example, work from the inside out, starting with characters and from that building their costumes and environments. “I met Jackie on New World, a Terrence Malick film,” said Fisk who recalled liking her instantly as they shared research. “Jackie would send me a picture or a note on a location, inform me, sometimes change my approach to a film with her work. With her the wardrobe, like my sets, all come out of the characters. She’s developing wardrobes for the character. That is the best way to work. It tells you stuff about the character--in addition to what the script tells you.”
West noted that she has steadfastly over the years been excited about researching projects--which includes learning from the research of Fisk. For example, she recalled Fisk for The Revenant sending her a journal by a trapper. “It became my bible for that film,” she said.
West observed that Fisk as a production designer delves deeply into the environments he creates. From a character POV, Fisk figures out, said West, “who built this place, what were they like, their monetary constraints, choices that they would have had to make. He works with the set designer closely like I work with all those who help me dress characters.”
West added that filmmaker Malick once called Fisk “his eyes.” West commented that she and Fisk are “both very hands on” as demonstrated by their collaboration on director Francis Lawrence’s Water For Elephants. “Jack put mud on my costumes. Both of us got in trouble for that,” she laughed.
Akin to Malick’s flattering description for Fisk, West received one from actor/producer Brad Pitt who characterized her as being “a method costume designer,” meaning that West tries to get to know people and come up with the clothes they would have picked--with that selection reflecting character traits and values.
For West and Fisk on Killers of the Flower Moon, the priority was to be accurate and do justice to the Osage story. At the turn of the 20th century, oil brought a fortune to the Osage Nation in Oklahoma, who became some of the richest people in the world overnight. The wealth of these Native Americans immediately attracted white interlopers, who manipulated, extorted, and stole as much Osage money as they could before resorting to murder. Based on a true story and told through the improbable romance of Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), Killers of the Flower Moon is an epic western crime saga, where real love crosses paths with unspeakable betrayal. Also starring Robert De Niro and Jesse Plemons, Killers of the Flower Moon is directed by Scorsese who teamed with Eric Roth to write the screenplay based on David Grann’s best-selling book of the same title.
“The biggest challenge,” affirmed West, “was to get the story right so that the Native American Nation is happy with it, that they feel it is an accurate representation of their nation.” West described Killers of the Flower Moon as “such a seminal story that means so much to them. They so badly wanted it to be told but in the most sensitive and realistic way.”
Similarly, Fisk felt it was imperative to “give a fair shake to history and the Osage people.” He noted that meticulous research was needed. Beyond getting to tell this story--and feeling the inherent responsibilities in that task--Fisk was also excited over the prospect of working with Scorsese for the first time, seeing his unwavering commitment to tell the story from the Osage point of view, and feeling his enthusiasm for doing a Western in the wide open prairie of Oklahoma, working with skeletons of towns that were mentioned in the script, and helping to bring them back to life to depict a circa 1920s’ era--one in which cars and horses shared the roads.
West too was eager to collaborate with Scorsese whom she described as “our American Fellini. I love his passion, curiosity and excitement about film.” In prep, West had weekly hour-long Zoom meetings with Scorsese, sharing her research as well as prospective garments, including a wedding coat that was a bold choice for DiCaprio’s character.
Among Fisk’s creations for Killers of the Flower Moon was a pool hall where Burkhart and his uncle, political mastermind William Hale (De Niro), conspired and plotted to profiteer and kill. On one hand, they are secretly planning. But on the other, the pool hall is a venue that serves as a window onto the town so that Hale in particular can keep tabs on what’s going on as the self-proclaimed King of the Osage.
Fisk embraced the chance to show the Osage living in houses--not tepees or out on the prairie. These homes were yet another opportunity to shed light on who the Osage were. At the same time, Fisk said the story is one of “man’s inhumanity to man” and how “greed drives us crazy,” leading to the Osage people being victimized and violated.
West shared that she walks away first and foremost from Killers of the Flower Moon valuing “the friendships I made within the Osage Nation.” She observed that “getting to really become friends with this very elegant and very beautiful Nation of people meant everything to me.
“And of course getting to work with Martin,” continued West was, not to diminish any other collaborations, “a high point for me, absolutely.”
(This is the second installment of a 16-part series with future installments of The Road To Oscar slated to run in the weekly SHOOT>e.dition, The SHOOT Dailies and on SHOOTonline.com, with select installments also in print issues. The series will appear weekly through the Academy Awards gala ceremony. Nominations for the 96th Academy Awards will be announced on January 23, 2024, The 96th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 10, 2024.)