The road to sovereignty is paved with revitalization of Native languages, and interpreters and actors on the film “Killers of the Flower Moon” told of their experiences in working on the film.

The session “Language Revitalization in Film,” held April 17 at Northeastern State University’s Symposium on the American Indian, delved into the process of teaching actors how to say their lines in Osage and the interpretation.

Members of the panel were Talee Redcorn, Braxton Redeagle and Christopher Cote. All appeared in the film and, and Redeagle and Cote served as language consultants.

The key is sovereignty and what is being done to revitalize language, said Joseph Byrd, moderator of the panel and director of Center for Tribal Studies at Northeastern State University.

With language-learning, Byrd said he and all of those on the panel realize it is a lifelong journey down the path to revitalize and preserve language.

Redcorn, project manager and on the Third Osage Minerals Council, played a little old man and the tribal cultural leader in the movie who spoke only Osage.

“The Osage are very powerful in spirit, culture and handling the day-to-day,” Redcorn said. “These folks here with me at the table want to capture our language and preserve it.”

It made Redcorn’s job easier, he said. The translation allowed him to use the words as they are said, so they could be used to teach kids and the words might live a long time.

Redeagle, director of Osage Nation’s Language Department, worked with Cote translating scripts in the beginning of the project.

“It’s kind of difficult in a language that cares about positions and relationships and spatial keys – where you have to really know what’s going on in the scene and how it is playing out and whose talking,” Redeagle said.

Cote lives in Tahlequah and attends NSU in language revitalization. In February 2021, Cote was approached with an opportunity that he was told he wouldn’t like.

“’We want you to work on the script “Killers of the Flower Moon” and you are the person they have asked to do that,’” Cote said. “Another part of it was they wanted us to teach the actors their lines.”

They wanted Cote and Redeagle to teach the actors before the two had read the script, Cote said. Everything was done over Zoom due to the pandemic.

“That’s how I met Lily Gladstone,” Cote said. “What they wanted me to do is teach her how to talk so she could pick the language up.”

The quandary was how to get somebody to talk in the shortest amount of time, Cote said.

“[We decided] let’s just teach essential language, and from there she just took to it,” Cote said. “I would tell a lot of stories and get her familiar with how the language sounds.”

Cote also worked with Robert De Niro and a little bit with Leonardo DiCaprio.

“De Niro had a monologue where he talks just Osage and he wanted to do a good job,” Cote said.

Lily Gladstone popped in on the panel discussion on Zoom. She talked of how important the work with the panelists was for her in being able to properly portray the part.

“If you have a language and are able to express emotion and able to create in a language, you are more likely to hold onto it,” Gladstone said.

Gladstone said she wanted to be able to think in the language.

“I really wanted to know what I was saying instead of just saying lines, which is helpful,” Gladstone said. “I did find that by the end of the summer, I was starting to construct my own sentences.”

The scenes Gladstone performed in Osage where the emotions were highest, and she said that language has stuck.

“There’s a lot that I’ve forgotten – there’s a lot that I’ve lost,” Gladstone said. “There’s a lot I can follow when I hear people speaking Osage, but as far as the scenes I remember and what I was expressing – when the stakes were very high and emotions were very much in line, those have stayed longer.”

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