I don’t think the nihilists over at the Twitterverse took the news very well, but over the weekend Martin Scorsese said that he was going to make a film about Christ.
Here’s a video absolutely nobody has reported on today, it involves Scorsese and his upcoming film about Jesus, which I now firmly believe will be his next film.
Scorsese was part of an event organised by Georgetown University and La Civiltà Cattolica, and was questioned by the director of the Jesuit journal, Fr. Antonio Spadaro SJ.
The conversation between the two was in-depth and direct. Scorsese, made references to his films, and shared personal stories, explaining how Pope Francis' calling him to "show us Jesus" onscreen moved him.
When asked on details about the film, Scorsese was very vague, but it seems as though he’s in a very spiritual mindset for this one:
I can’t very much be specific about it. I want to depict the Jesus of now, the immediacy of Jesus, the here, the now. Not, as beautiful as the basilicas are, but the Jesus of here and how it is expressed. Is it expressed with the people towards us or does the change come from within? Which is what I believe it does, change comes from within.
I’ve tried for many years to find how Jesus is expressed in the world. I found I could express this more directory, certainly with The Last Temptation of Christ, and to a certain extent Kundun, but certainly with Silence. With Silence I find I started to grapple with the mystery in the right way.
Scorsese adds that for years he’s been looking to make a film about the life of Christ. He wanted to make one in the late ‘60s, in 16mm black and white. However, it was seeing Pasolini’s “The Gospel According to St Matthew” that made him decide against it.
Of course, he did make “The Last Temptation of Christ,” but, when asked about it, Scorsese says that the film brings out a lot of misguided anger in people and that this isn’t the film that he now wants to make.
He goes on to tackle “Silence” in which he states,
“I don’t know if it’s a successful movie but it’s an attempt at understanding.”
Earlier this week, Scorsese was on a tour of Italy where the director met with Pope Francis and announced that he would be making this film about Jesus.
“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. And I’m about to start making it.
He practically swore to the Pope that he’d be making this movie. No details as to when production would begin on the film, but we’ll keeping a very close eye on this one.
