THE PASSION OF
The movie is a passion project for the acclaimed director. He’s been wanting to make it for 25 years. But why?
“It goes back to my environment I grew up in, the different factors that made me who I am,” he says from his office in New York.
Scorsese talks quickly and generously. His NYC speech patterns see him finishing sentences abruptly, clipping them short or missing words as he leaps from thought to thought. He pauses only to clarify meaning and, as befits one of the greatest storytellers of the modern age, is hugely entertaining.
“In the late 40s, early 50s, when I was 8 or 9, I had severe asthma, was not allowed to play sports, and ended up in a parochial school in the lower east side of New York. The old Italian neighbourhood. But the parochial school was run by an Irish group of nuns. I was introduced into the religion around that time.
“But what I began to notice around me was that the world outside the walls of the school and the cathedral which was there — St The distinguished director tells why his latest project, Silence, is so important to him and ruminates on the nature of good and evil, religion and forgiveness
is heavy stuff. We’re discussing life’s big topics; religion, spirituality and the conflicting nature of man.
And, because this is Martin Scorsese, the Mafia has also popped up.
Scorsese’s new film opens in cinemas today. The movie, a historical drama set in the 17th century, is about two Portuguese priests in Japan who are attempting to discover what fate befell their missing mentor while also attempting to spread the gospel of Christ in the fiercely Buddhist county.
The movie's stars, Andrew Garfield ( Adam Driver (
deliver exceptionally studied and powerful performances as the two priests, pious Father Sebastiao Rodrigues and uncompromising Father Fransisco Garupe.
Given the hefty subject matter, it’s little surprise the movie is weighty. It moves at a deliberate and sombre pace, wringing high drama from a simple footstep and escalating slowly from nigh-on unbearable scenes of cruel torture to intensely awful scenes of much crueller death.
this ain’t.