Late filmmaker’s documentary airing
‘The Osage Murders’ by Bishop, who died in the Rio Grande, will debut on Smithsonian Channel
Famed filmmaker Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, based on the true story of how the discovery of oil on the Osage Nation in the 1920s led to the slayings of newly wealthy Osage people, premiered to critical acclaim and a nine-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival last week.
The $200 million feature film starring Leonardo DiCaprio won’t be available stateside until October.
However, an hourlong documentary made by New Mexico filmmaker David Bishop explores some of the same territory and will premiere Monday evening on the Smithsonian Channel.
The Osage Murders was one of Bishop’s last projects.
Bishop, 50, who had ties to Santa Fe but was living in Española, died May 6 while rafting the Racecourse section of the Rio Grande in Northern New Mexico with two friends. Their raft capsized in the cold, fast-moving waters. The friends survived but rescuers found Bishop’s body floating facedown in the water about a mile down the river.
The Osage Murders is one of six segments in the third season of the America’s Hidden Stories series and explores the disturbing history of what has come to be known as the Osage “Reign of Terror” through narration and interviews conducted by Bishop, who was Osage, according to a statement from Arrow Media.
“It’s very much a companion piece,” Arrow Media executive producer Anna Davies said in a recent phone interview from London.
The Smithsonian Institution had long wanted to delve deeper into the story, and Scorsese’s recent adaptation of David Grann’s book about the 100-yearold murders gave a sense of urgency to the project, Davies said, and ultimately to the decision to hire Bishop for the film.
“This is a story that belongs to the Osage Nation,” she said. “It’s their story to tell, and it was the Smithsonian Institution who introduced us to David. We wanted to reach out to a filmmaker from the Osage Nation, and it was just incredibly lucky he also had been exploring the subject matter. It really was one of those perfect moments of synergy.
“It was very clear that having [Bishop] on board was what was going to actually make it happen,” Davies said. “It just wouldn’t have been right to try to sell this story without an Osage person actually out front.”
Bishop initially was hired as a producer, Davies said, but his role quickly evolved into that of on-screen host and narrator of the story.
Osage Nation Assistant Chief R.J. Walker — a childhood friend of Bishop and one of the people interviewed in the documentary — said in a phone interview Thursday his parents and grandparents rarely spoke about the slayings, and he’d wondered for a long time when the story was going to be told.
“It’s important for people to understand how this history has been suppressed by the generations that lived through it,” Walker said. “It’s now being told basically two generations later, and I think David is representative of so many Osages like himself that are just now uncovering what happened.”
Davies said Bishop completed work on the film in October, but the Smithsonian Channel — which is owned by Paramount — wanted to delay its release to coincide with the buzz surrounding Killers of the Flower Moon.
“He did such a great job with the documentary, and we’re just incredibly proud of what he brought to the story,” Davies said. “I just feel so sad that he is not going to be able to enjoy the praise.”