One of the most decorated filmmakers in Hollywood says he is planning to make another film about Jesus.
Martin Scorsese, a 14-time Oscar nominee, says he decided to make a film about Christ after meeting with Pope Francis during a cinematic event in Italy over the weekend.
“I have responded to the Pope’s appeal to artists in the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus,” Scorsese said at the Vatican, according to The Times newspaper.
He added, “And I’m about to start making it.”
Scorsese, 80, directed the controversial 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ and the 2016 faith-centric movie Silence. Although Temptation sparked protests – it depicted Jesus as imagining sexual temptation – Silence was widely praised among mainstream and religious audiences.
Antonio Spadaro, the editor of the Jesuit publication La Civiltà Cattolica, said Scorsese explained at a Catholic conference how the “Holy Father’s appeal ‘to let us see Jesus’ moved him.”
Silence told the story of two 17th-century Jesuit priests who traveled from Portugal to Japan to investigate reports of a fellow priest who allegedly apostatized. There, they encounter believers who are living their faith in secret and willing to die for Christ. Some apostatize. Others, though, don’t. It stars Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver and Liam Neeson.
“I’m interested in how people perceive God, or, I should say, how they perceive the world of the intangible,” he said in 2016.
“After many years of thinking about other things, dabbling here and there, I am most comfortable as a Catholic. I believe in the tenets of Catholicism. I’m not a doctor of the church. I’m not a theologian who could argue the Trinity. I’m certainly not interested in the politics of the institution.”
The Last Temptation of Christ and Silence each was rated R. The former film starred Willem Dafoe as Christ.
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Gareth Cattermole/Staff
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
