The scope of history outweighs the demands of cinematic drama in Martin Scorsese’s newest epic, Killers of the Flower Moon. Based on the non-fiction bestseller by David Grann and adapted by Scorsese and Eric Roth, the film tells the story of a series of murders of Osage people in Oklahoma in the 1920s. This was a time in which the Osage were considered some of the wealthiest people in the world, thanks to reserves of oil that had been discovered on the land to which they had been forcibly resettled by the American government. That same government, though, did what it always does and sought to capitalize on these bountiful resources; so a headright system was developed whereby Osage land was allotted to individuals instead of shared communally. While the Osage people continued to own the land and the profits that arose from it, the parceling of the land was designed to weaken the Osage community and to make it easier for the land rights to be sold to others. The Osage were also appointed (white male) “guardians,” supposedly to protect and handle the Osage people’s wealth, but also, implicitly, to take control of it.