Andy Drozdziak
Martin Scorsese has shared his desire to ‘make religion more accessible’ by making a new film about Jesus.
The film will be adapted from the book A Life of Jesus, written in 1978 by Shūsaku Endō, and described as ‘a simple and powerful retelling of the life of Christ as seen through the eyes of a Japanese novelist.’
The veteran Catholic filmmaker, 81, was inspired to make the new film after meeting Pope Francis at a two-day conference in Rome, “The Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination,” in May 2023.
During the conference, Pope Francis asked the artists “not to ‘explain’ the mystery of Christ, which is ultimately unfathomable, but to enable us to touch him, to feel his closeness, to let us see him as alive and to open our eyes to the beauty of his promises. Because his promises appeal to our imagination: they help us to imagine in a new way our lives, our history and the future of humanity.”
Martin Scorsese said that he had ‘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.’
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Scorsese shared his intentions for the film, which will be 80 minutes long. “I’m trying to find a new way to make it more accessible and take away the negative onus of what has been associated with organised religion,” he said.
“Right now, ‘religion,’ you say that word and everyone is up in arms because it’s failed in so many ways. But that doesn’t mean necessarily that the initial impulse was wrong. Let’s get back. Let’s just think about it. You may reject it. But it might make a difference in how you live your life — even in rejecting it. Don’t dismiss it offhand.”
Scorsese has often dealt with religious themes in his films, such as The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Silence (2016), which dealt with the persecution of Japanese Jesuit missionaries. He shared that his films deal with ‘redemption and the human condition’ and ‘how we deal with the negative things.’
He said: “Are we decent and then learn to become indecent? Can we change? Will others accept that change? And it really is, I think, a fear of a society and culture that’s corrupted because of its lack of grounding in morality and spirituality. Not religion. Spirituality. Denying that.”
Production for Scorsese’s new film about Jesus is scheduled to begin later this year.
Picture-Pope Francis greets Martin Scorsese and his wife, Helen, at the conference, “The Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination,” at the Vatican, 27th May 2023. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)