Cannes (France) (EFE).- The American actor Robert De Niro, who has premiered in Cannes “Killers of the Flower Moon” about the massacre of the native Osage people, assured this Sunday that racism is “systemic” and is “the It’s scary,” even though he can’t understand that feeling of superiority. “I mean, he looks at Trump,” he launched.
In a press conference after the premiere last night of the film in which he stars alongside Leonardo DiCaprio under the command of Martin Scorsese, De Niro was asked about his character, a manipulative man who sells himself as the great benefactor and friend of the Osage, while from behind, he plans how to take advantage of them and, if necessary, kill them.
“I don’t understand much about my character,” he confessed. “He does things, he has to be charming,” he adds, “he has to win over people… Why does he betray them? I have no idea”.
For De Niro, American society has only begun to understand and monitor this subterranean feeling of “superiority” recently and, especially, since the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in 2020. “It is something that is systemic and that It’s the scary part,” he stressed.
At his side, Martin Scorsese pointed out that what explains behaviors such as that of the great villain that De Niro embodies in the film (called William Hale) is the feeling of “superiority”. “I love them, but I’m superior, so they’re going to die anyway,” said the director.
And speaking about that “superiority”, but without the need to give further explanations, De Niro launched a “look at Trump” that drew applause from the press room.
Shortly before, without mentioning it, he had also made what was understood as a veiled reference to Donald Trump when speaking of a “banality of evil” that is still present today.
“I’m not going to say his name, that guy is stupid,” he said at the time, although he could not contain himself and point to the former US president just a few sentences later.
Scorsese: Today’s problems are deeper than in the 30s with fascism
Martin Scorsese also spoke of the war in Ukraine and the Russian aggression and advocated the defense of freedom of expression and peace because he considers that the problems that are experienced today are “even deeper” than when fascism destroyed democracy.
In those 1930s, in the period between the two world wars, the situation was terrible, but, in the director’s opinion, now it is even worse because the confrontation has to do “with freedom, which is the most important thing”.
“It’s the freedom to express yourself and lead a bearable life, because life is hard sometimes. You have to live in peace,” Scorsese reflected when asked about the situation in Ukraine at a press conference in which he presented his film “KIllers of the Flower Moon” with Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.
The director of titles such as “Taxi Driver” (1976) described the war in Ukraine as “very worrying” and recalled that the entire region is a geographical area that has been claimed by many countries throughout history.