DiCaprio praises Scorsese’s epic

CANNES

Leonardo DiCaprio lauded Martin Scorsese’s filmmaking “ferocity” on May 21 as they basked in rave reviews at Cannes for their Native American crime epic “Killers of the Flower Moon,” while the festival also bowed down before Jude Law as King Henry VIII.

Scorsese’s latest opus, about a wave of murders among oil-rich Osage Indians in the 1920s, was hailed as “searing,” a “triumph” and a “masterpiece” by critics who scored the Cannes Film Festival’s hottest ticket for the premiere the previous night.

Based on a non-fiction bestseller, the film sees DiCaprio as a weak-willed man who marries a wealthy Osage woman and is drawn into the deadly schemes of his kingpin uncle, played by Scorsese’s other long-time muse, Robert De Niro.

DiCaprio called the three-and-a-half-hour film “a reckoning with our past” and was full of praise for Scorsese, saying the 80-year-old’s “perseverance and ferocity to tell the truth, no matter how ugly... is masterful”.

Scorsese said he had put the film in an out-of-competition slot, rather than compete for the Palme d’Or, because “it’s time for others. I got to go.”

The iconic director, who won the Palme in 1976 for “Taxi Driver,” said: “I like the golden statues. I like them very much.

But now I think of time and energy and inspiration - that’s the most important thing.”Early reviews were broadly positive, namely for what The Guardian called Law’s “obese and oozy” incarnation, noting the British star “outrageously steals every scene”.

The Hollywood Reporter also praised the film for “providing a great leading role for an actress to bite into, which Alicia Vikander does with gusto.”