Killers of the Flower Moon [Original Soundtrack]

The first 10 minutes of this morally, cinematically, and musically unique Scorsese film showcase all of the flexibility and ingenuity that Robbie Robertson brought to the table for his final piece of music. The film opens with an arresting, still scene of an Osage pipe ceremony, mourning the destruction wrought in the Osage community by white oil-seekers. It then flashes back to the first discovery of oil on Osage land, and Robertson’s score flips from the stasis of the opening to a chugging, train-like ensemble jam spearheaded by a gorgeously-sculpted dirty guitar tone. As the camera pans out to a panorama of the Oklahoma countryside, the texture startlingly cleans and opens out – in 10 minutes, the score exhibits striking range and originality. While it is a score by a venerable classic rocker, it takes more cues from Bob Dylan’s latter-day amorphous, historically-ambiguous Americana soundscapes than from Scorsese’s trusty Stones needle drops. It didn’t get the Oscar it deserved, but it is a brilliant and forward-thinking last hurrah for the Robertson-Scorsese collaboration.