Banjos of the Flower Moon: America's Instrument in Scorsese's Latest Film

Banjos hit the silver screen last week when Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon opened in U.S. theaters. The filmmaker's latest opus features two banjos provided by the Oklahoma City-based American Banjo Museum, one of which appears in a scene with fiddler Rayna Gellert, who also put together a band to play a Hoyt Ming tune for the film. 

Based on the 2017 nonfiction book by David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone. The film is set in Oklahoma during the 1920s and portrays the murders of members of the Osage Nation over oil rights. 

Gellert wrote about her experience working on the film in the latest KKRG newsletter, which I recommend subscribing to for updates on performances, workshops and other fiddle-ish news (also check out Gellert's The Squealemite). 

Through a mutual connection, Gellert was contacted by the film's music supervisor Randall Poster to provide stringband music for the score. 

"The main objective was recording a specific tune that Martin Scorsese was attached to using for the scene," Gellert wrote. "Old-time geeks like me will appreciate his cool (if not geographically correct) choice: 'Tupelo Blues,' from Hoyt Ming & His Pep Steppers. Randy wanted to bring me up to New York City to record that tune and a few others, and asked me to put together a band."

Gellert brought in her partner Kieran Kane on guitar, David Mansfield on mandolin and Phil Jamison on banjo and dance calls for the recording session. 

Gellert also appears in the movie, but there was a slight tweak to the band that appears on screen. She recruited Nokosee Fields for the scene, as he is not only a great fiddler but also has ancestral ties to the Osage, Creek and Cherokee, and he grew up in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Kane still plays guitar in the scene, and Jamison appears as the dance caller. However, two local extras filled in as the onscreen mandolin and banjo players. Elijah Ragsdale plays mandolin in the scene, and Lucas Ross plays an S.S. Stewart Champion provided by the American Banjo Museum, where Ross has served as the promotion/outreach coordinator for the past five years. 

"We rehearsed in a hotel conference room, getting comfy with our in-ear monitors and helping our new band members figure out how to look like they were playing the sounds we’d recorded back in New York," Gellert wrote. "We hung out with the delightful choreographer Michael Arnold, who was overseeing all the dancing in our scene — he got Phil involved with teaching the extras to square dance and prepping actor Louis Cancelmi for his character’s moment of drunken flatfooting."

Gellert also described meeting Scorsese. 

"Martin Scorsese struck us as the happiest person on the set, full of giddy enthusiasm," she wrote. "When it came time for our scene, he was gracious and friendly, introducing himself to each of us."

Aside from his career at the American Banjo Museum, Ross is also a local actor and performer in Oklahoma, who has used the banjo as part of his comedy act. He has appeared on local and national TV programs, including The Tonight Show and Disney's The Muppets. He was cast as a character who plays banjo prior to the film's props department knowing he worked with the museum.

"The museum prides itself in aiding to help a project be as authentic as possible when it comes to banjos," Ross said. "Many outside of the banjo community might not realize the different playing style, designs of banjo, as well as time-appropriate performance. I had access to connect them and use our 1890s, five-string S.S. Stewart banjo for the wedding scene party. This portion of the film had a small banjo playing Old Style Music so playing with finger picks or a four string banjo would not have made sense."

Ross describes working on such a large production as "surreal." and calls meeting Scorsese a "true highlight." He joked about having to mime playing the banjo in the scene.  

"Oh the challenges of playing a banjo and making no sound," he exclaimed. "I think my family prefers I play that way all the time." 

Ross added that the film tells an important story in U.S. history. 

"Seeing the final film was an incredible experience and as the story got closer to my scene, thoughts of 'Did I make the cut' dissolved, as they should," he said. "This story of the Osage Tribe was something I was never taught in schools. I walked out of the theater moved, heartbroken and grateful to have been a small footnote in telling this devastatingly important story."

The other banjo scene from the movie features American Banjo Museum executive director and Hall of Fame member Johnny Baier, who plays the museum's 1923 four-string Paramount Style F plectrum banjo in a jazz band. 

"This was a large street dance scene," Ross said, "and Johnny ended up leading Scorsese's music department team in finding the performers and assuring the instruments were historically correct and performed by those who knew what they were doing."

Ross had received a call from the props director about finding vintage banjos, and that is how Baier and the American Banjo Museum got involved with the film. 

"One of my pet peeves with most Hollywood portrayals of the banjo is that the instruments seen on the screen don't fit the musical style or time period of the film or scene," Baier said. "As such, I was ecstatic that Killers of the Flower Moon was doing their best to get it right."

Baier has been the museum's executive director since 2004. After offering to visit the set to coach the actors about how to play the banjos accurately for the styles of music in the film, he was offered to play the part himself and finding other musicians skilled in early jazz music to also be part of the scene.

"The scene we are in takes place at the point in the film where an agitated Ernest Burkhart (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) having just been visited by the FBI, pushes his way through a street dance to confront his uncle, William Hale (played by Robert De Niro), with the news of an investigation," Baier explained. "The scene which was shot over two consecutive nights involved over 250 people including the stars, our band and 50 dancers."

Baier said it was difficult to perform with movie stars like DiCaprio and De Niro working right in front of them, but they "managed to follow Mr. Scorsese's simple direction, 'Ignore Bob and Leo and just play.'"

Being part of the film left a big impression on Baier. 

"Although we got just a few seconds of screen time in the final cut, being a small part in the telling of such an important story in a masterwork of cinema is truly a highlight of my career," Baier said. "If anyone would have predicted that someday my name would be rolling across the screen in the credits of a Martin Scorsese film, I would have told them they were daffy."

It's not often that our beloved instrument gets to shine in the spotlight. The fact that it's a major motion picture by one of the most celebrated filmmakers in cinematic history makes the occasion that much more special. Go see the banjo on the big screen! Hopefully, the other parts of the movie are good too. 

By the way, this isn't the first time Scorsese has included the banjo or old-time music in his films. The recording of Nathan Frazier and Frank Patterson playing "Dan Tucker" can be heard at different points in Gangs of New York (2002), although the song does not appear on the official soundtrack album. 

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[Editor's note: Photos courtesy of the American Banjo Museum Facebook page and Rayna Gellert. Correction: An early version of this story misdated the S.S. Stewart.]