Killers of the Flower Moon and First Reformed

The opening of Bradley Cooper's film, Maestro, is a title card with a quote from Leonard Bernstein:  

“A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.”

When asked about Martin Scorsese's most recent film, the writer/director Paul Schrader said, "I would have preferred Leonardo DiCaprio to play the role of the cop in Killers of the Flower Moon rather than the role of the idiot.  Spending three-and-a-half hours in the company of an idiot is a long time."  A few years back, I had a similar reaction to Scorsese's The Irishman, which had the potential of standing with his best work in the genre, such as Goodfellas and The Departed, yet it fell flat because it lacked clear direction.  What makes Killers of the Flower Moon so disappointing is that it does have a fascinating premise; an Indian reservation where women are mysteriously being murdered, with a backdrop of an economic boom due to the discovery of oil, which has striking similarities to the the California gold rush c. 1849, which also was a time of rapid change and turmoil.  Scorsese is a master of taking grand ideas, and bringing them to the screen in a way that is relatable, i.e. seen through the eyes of a single character who helps keep the audience oriented, while at the same time capturing that grand idea through his energetic style, and cinematic virtuosity.  Alas, only hints of Scorsese's greatness make it to this film; the opening sequence with the Indians dancing in the fountains of oil was a strong start, if only it hadn't been followed by three-and-a-half hours in the company of an idiot.  To add injury to insult, I don't believe that Killers of the Flower Moon meets Bernstein's qualifications to be considered a 'work of art'.  This is too bad, because not only did Scorsese squander a promising premise, and the talents of a great actor, but he also failed to make it interesting enough to care about after the fact.

Paul Schrader's First Reformed is a character study in the most refined sense.  In the film, Ethan Hawke plays a minister of a small church, who is struggling with his own faith, while trying to keep it together enough to help the people in his congregation.  While the scale of this film is only a small fraction of what Scorsese tackled in Killers of the Flower Moon, the clear difference is that Schrader is successful in delivering a compelling film, while Scorsese failed to do the same.  Perhaps "compelling" is to vague a description; what I should say is that while the film was unnecessarily slow, and while the finale was disturbing and out of place, Schrader kept my attention, and more importantly he provoked questions and ideas that kept me contemplating what I had seen well after the film was over.  Now some might argue (and perhaps they're right) that the finale was so clear in its message to abandon faith and pursue carnal desires, that any of the thoughtful discussions and introspection that came before was instantly nullified in one fell swoop.  I tend to have different interpretation of the ending, and since it only takes two opposing views to meet Bernstein's requirement that a 'work of art' has tension between contradictory answers, I believe that Shrader gets the win in today's matchup.