Mr. Scorsese takes a different tack. Rather than aim for moral development of the audience through empathy for Osage suffering, he focuses on Ernest Burkhart. Ernest is the paradigmatic wolf, just as Mr. DiCaprio has played other wolves throughout his career, on Wall Street and elsewhere. Mr. Burkhart acts on simple, underdeveloped moral principles — and often not exactly out of malice, but self-interest. Mr. Burkhart is driven by base desires — financial gain and other perquisites of power — toward horrific acts against his own family.

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Persons: Scorsese, Mollie Burkhart, Ernest Burkhart, Ernest, DiCaprio, Burkhart, Scorsese’s, — Hobbes, Machiavelli, Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, Arendt, Levinas, Vine Deloria Organizations: United, Osage, American Samoa Locations: United States, Osage Nation of Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, American