Silence
Just wondering when its going to get started. I thought this link posted by Graham Deans Williamson on imdb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0490215/board/thread/56300429?d=56648776#56648776 ) would be a great start, its a fantastic read and a big thanks again to imdb's Graham Deans Williamson. This interview has info on The Departed, but mainly on Scorsese post-The Departed ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SCORSESE: FAITH UNDER PRESSURE With ‘The Departed’, his resetting of ‘Infernal Affairs’ in an Irish-American milieu about to be released, Martin Scorsese has more than gangster films in mind. He also discusses a more personal project, Endo Shusaku’s ‘Silence’, with Ian Christie. Perhaps it’s no surprise that Martin Scorsese wondered if he ought to make ‘The Departed’. Even though the Boston-Irish setting provided a new spin on the milieu of gangsters, corruption and violence he’s been so identified with in the 30 years since ‘Mean Streets’, he could be forgiven for doubting he had anything fresh left to say about it. “Yet for some reason I kept being drawn to the story and how writer William Monahan had put it together.” As is by now well known, the original tale of two long-term ‘moles’ planted within the mob and the police respectively comes from Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s 2002 thriller ‘Infernal Affairs’, set in the world of the Triads and the Hong Kong police, which has already spawned two local sequels. In transposing this to Boston and refiguring the conflict as between gangsters and police who are both Irish-American, Scorsese has recruited a high-profile cast that includes Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg, in addition to such recent regulars as Leonardo DiCaprio and Alec Baldwin, plus Ray Winstone making his Scorsese debut. By all accounts, Nicholson’s gang boss Frank Costello emerges as a figure of monstrous evil, and the game of cat and mouse with each mole trying to protect his identity creates a climate of terrifying moral bankruptcy and uncertainty. For Scorsese, “It comes out of an anger that’s really strong about the way things are, which I’m trying to harness, because I don’t want to be just nihilistic.” Scorsese is understandably irked by the assumption that he has only made gangster movies, since fewer than a quarter of his 20 features have underworld settings. “This is a world I’m always associated with. I know it, I hate it and I also love it – it’s like a drug in that even though I de-*test*-('") it, I keep going back.” Back because, in this case, ‘The Departed’ allows the connoisseur in him to tap into “the tradition of film noir in America” as well as to explore a contemporary setting where the Irish-American gangsters and police are engaged in “some kind of perennial war that has no foreseeable end. No one knows who they really are, or who anyone else really is. Institutions like the police, government, the church, offer no help. It’s a world that’s morally at ground zero.” Despite that modish note, Scorsese has no desire to jump on the post-9/11 bandwagon, and still isn’t sure if his la-*test*-('") venture into big-budget Hollywood production has any message for America or for those who consume its movies around the world, except that “the only way to go from here is up”. But his continuing belief that movies must have passion and meaning, even while they have to entertain, is palpable. And although he will never criticise a fellow film-maker, it’s clear that he feels isolated among a generation that were dubbed the ‘movie brats’ 25 years ago but have since (with the notable exception of Steven Spielberg) largely fallen silent or retreated into formula film-making LURE OF EVIL I had gone to New York to talk to Scorsese not about ‘The Departed’, which was still under wraps nearing the end of its long post-production, but about his plans to make a very different film. ‘Silence’ is a novel by Japanese writer Endo Shusaku (1923-1996) which Scorsese has had an option on for over 15 years. Set in the 17th century, it uses the story of the Jesuit missionaries who came to Japan and suffered torture and martyrdom for their faith as a basis for exploring the apparent conflict between traditional Japanese and western Christian values. Endo himself was a Japanese Catholic, and Scorsese believes he has an important message for the modern world: a message that Scorsese, the son of Sicilian Catholics and raised in New York, has been struggling to define for himself ever since he ventured out of Little Italy. The novel was proposed to him by one of the churchmen who gathered in 1988 to give their views on the controversial ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’. Paul Moore, then Episcopal Archbishop of New York, found Scorsese’s film, to his surprise, “Christologically correct”. Scorsese laughs as he recalls the phrase, not because he didn’t value such unexpected praise, but because he knows he was working on a more naïve level. Still under the influence of Pasolini’s gritty 1964 ‘Gospel According To St. Matthew’, and burning with a desire to recreate the drama and iconography of the Passion that he had loved since his days as an altar boy, his ‘Last Temptation’ aimed to involve a contemporary audience in the challenge posed by Christ’s incarnation. Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel provided a framework by telling the gospel story from Jesus’ point of view, as a carpenter who recognises his destiny and fights against it. In fact, this meant taking the idea of the incarnation – of Christ as truly human – seriously, rather than as a theoretical given. But what really made ‘The Last Temptation’ a matter for debate was Kazantzakis’ big question: what if Christ was tempted to abandon his mission at the last moment, to step down from the cross and settle for a normal life? This is the ‘last temptation’, and as we’re led to believe Jesus has fallen from it, it’s as if we too are being -*test*-('")ed. Scorsese agrees that the saddest irony is that while ‘The Last Temptation’ probably makes most sense to committed Christians, the majority have never seen it, having been warned to stay away by their priests and ministers. He’s well aware that the whole congregations who were bussed to Mel Gibson’s 2004 ‘The Passion of the Christ’ were the same people told not to watch his picture. He respects Gibson’s convictions, but regards his ‘Passion’ as “more like going to pray” than posing questions about what Christ and Christianity mean today. And he’s still hopeful that ‘The Last Temptation’ will reach a new, less prejudiced audience on DVD. After the archbishop gave ‘Silence’ to Scorsese it took a year for him to read it, which he finally did when he was in Japan to appear as Van Gogh in Kurosawa’s elegiac fantasy ‘Dreams’. Deeply moved by Endo’s portrayal of Christian faith being -*test*-('")ed, he arranged a deal of film the novel through the Italian company Cecchi Gori and started writing the script with his long-time collaborator Jay Cocks while working on ‘Cape Fear’ (1991). In retrospect the timing is significant, since this was one of the films Scorsese had agreed to make in return for Universal backing ‘The Last Temptation’. He still looks back on the period of ‘Cape Fear’ and ‘Casino’ (1995) with a shudder, even if some, like me, regard the latter as a malign masterpiece that explores the lure of evil with an almost Miltonic grandeur. Scorsese’s eventual salvation appeared in the form of ‘Kundun’ (1997), a film that came as a script by Melissa Matheson and was acceptable to his new studio Disney. The challenge of telling the Dalai Lama’s early life story absorbed some of the frustration he felt while unable to pursue ‘Silence’. Apart from its specifically Buddhist dimension, it offered the theme of a young man trying to lead a good life amid obstacles and temptations – which seems to be the underlying template of all of Scorsese’s work. And from the Dalai Lama Scorsese learned a distinction that gave him a new insight into Endo: “Having faith is very different from being spiritually evolved.” SPIRITUAL QUESTS By now Scorsese felt he was beginning to grasp the profound challenge Endo posed to conventional western Christianity. “‘Silence’ was the answer to the void I felt after ‘Last Temptation’. What I found there was this great compassion for Judas and for Mary Magdalene, and the idea of Jesus not as someone who glows in the dark, but as someone who’s afraid to die – remember how he reacts when Lazarus reaches out from the grave.” But he was still no closer to being able to make the film, even though his next project would tackle another spiritual quest, in the less exotic form of Nicholas Cage scouring the streets of what had once been known as Hell’s Kitchen for human wreckage to save. ‘Bringing out the Dead’ (1999) appealed to Scorsese not only as a New Yorker but also as a contemporary take on the theme his hero Roberto Rossellini had explored in ‘Europa ‘51’. There Ingrid Bergman is driven to give up a pampered life and devote herself to helping others in the desolation of post-war Europe. In the more sceptical and hallucinatory ‘Bringing out the Dead’, based on the story of a real paramedic, Cage’s character Frank is torn between an almost messianic belief that he must save people and the acceptance that he’s “only a witness”. Probably the most remarkable aspect of ‘Bringing out the Dead’ is the visions Frank experiences, especially the recurrent one of the street-waif Rose, whom he failed to save. Scorsese now thinks the realisation of these visions may have been too concrete, but insists that he could never go about making a film like this in a “Pro-*test*-('")ant” way – despite his respect for Bergman – where the visions would remain wholly subjective. “That’s not me: I have to show them, even if they’re clumsy. I think you really do see these things.” The following year Scorsese was offered the unexpected opportunity to realise his dream of creating a fresco of his city’s earliest period as a battleground for competing factions in ‘Gangs of New York’. But even in this sprawling epic there is something of his continuing spiritual quest, as the how Irish-Catholic immigrants are shown assuming the religious identity they would still have a century later, when young Martin was educated by their descendants, the Irish nuns of St Patrick’s School, and especially by the charismatic Father Principe. It was this young priest, arriving in Little Italy in 1953, who opened the youthful Scorsese’s eyes to a wider world, and also encouraged him to see that apparently contemporary films could have a religious meaning: he described the battered Brando leading the Dockers back to work in ‘On the Waterfront’ as “a kind of Cavalry”. This sense of a world permeated with the drama of Catholicism – in which “the actual transubstantiation is real, better than any movie: you actually consume the body of Christ” – is palpable in Scorsese’s earliest film-making. In ‘Who’s That Knocking at My Door?’ (1968) a church statue literally bleeds before Harvey Keitel’s guilt-torn JR: the same Keitel famously speaks of atoning for sins on the street rather than in church in the opening words of ‘Mean Streets’ (1973). Scorsese still recalls vividly the naïve “faith of youth, which came from my own inward nature, protecting myself as I was growing up. That’s when I read Graham Greene’s ‘The Heart of the Matter’.” But he has since lived through four turbulent decades in the history of the Catholic Church that have seen its authority and integrity challenged on all sides. After the promise of reform launched by the council known as Vatican II in the early 1960s, the church has increasingly set its face against modernisation. This has left many Catholics of Scorsese’s generation disappointed and angry, especially as financial and sexual scandals have revealed an organisation seemingly more concerned with self-protective secrecy than Christian candour. COMPASSION AND AUTHENTICITY Such revelations haven’t driven Scorsese to abandon the Church but rather to become clearer about separating the earthly institution from its role as – well, what, exactly? He has been greatly impressed by Garry Wills’ 2002 bestseller ‘Why I Am a Catholic’ and supports Wills’ wish to insist on a core set of beliefs quite distinct from the “man-made church” of the Vatican. Scorsese says he’s neither a radical Catholic nor even a “good” one by normal standards. Yet he is clearly preoccupied by the question of faith: “How can anyone have faith in the modern world? We saw the explosion of interest in spirituality in the 1960s. Maybe it was driven by drugs to some extent, but at least it was exploring, questioning – and now that’s been shut down. Still, we have to do everything possible to keep asking questions.” Indeed, it’s the question of how to live one’s life with compassion and, as the existentialists would say, authenticity, that has kept ‘Silence’ on his agenda for over fifteen years. Yet it wasn’t until during the editing of ‘The Departed’ that Scorsese and Cocks wrote a script he considers workable. The crux of Endo’s novel appears to be the drama of torture and doubt that leads the captive Father Rodrigues towards committing apostasy – publicly renouncing his faith. What Scorsese has come to realise, after living with the book and studying Endo’s other work, is that “Rodrigues thinks he’s Jesus, but in the end discovers he’s Judas.” The starring role he has envisaged in his own story in fact belongs to the cowardly Japanese convert Kichijiro, a “truly disgusting human being” who keeps falling short of his ideals and asking for forgiveness. Rodrigues is forced to recognise that a Christianity true to Christ’s example demands he grant Kichijiro forgiveness – and, as Endo writes, only when he overcomes his repulsion does “the face of Christ look straight into his” and fill him with shame as he realises his failure. This devastating work, hailed by Graham Greene as “one of the finest novels of our time”, allows Scorsese to pursue his concern with “what Jesus meant” (the title of another influential Garry Wills book) in a dramatic form as challenging as Kazantzakis’ ‘The Last Temptation’. He also thinks that the issues the novel raises are more relevant than ever today. “If you have a real faith, then of course you want to make other people as convinced as you are – go out and save their souls! But you can’t impose your beliefs on another culture unless you understand that culture properly, which takes time and compassion. Once the Catholic Church was pretty certain of its rightness, as was Islam, and perhaps the Pentecostal Christians today. I can understand that feeling ‘it’s for their own good’, but I resist it. Endo thought the Christianity that would have the most chance in Japan was the feminine side – not the God of judgement but of forgiveness. And I’m interested in how the traditional cultures of Japan, Korea and China accept the evanescence of life and the inevitability of destruction.” But the task of persuading financiers, a studio and actors to embark on such a spiritual quest remains formidable. Might Daniel Day-Lewis be tempted to return to Scorsese’s fold to contribute his unique brand of intensity to the older priest, already accused of apostasy? Might this also be a chance for Scorsese to work with younger European actors if the new Hollywood spurns his unfashionable choice of subject? Could he find a way of stepping off the superhighway of big-budget productions to work once again on the scale of ‘After Hours’ (1985) and ‘The Last Temptation’ (or indeed the ultra-low-budget ‘Taxi Driver’, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year)? Such decisions aren’t easy for a director who has fought so long to establish his authority and keep control of his career in a world where budgets proclaim clout. ABOUT CELL PHONES Meanwhile, back to the present, where ‘The Departed’ awaits its launch after what were reported to be some outstanding -*test*-('")-screening results which may have allayed studio worries about extreme violence and lack of political correctness. This is Scorsese’s first film with a strictly contemporary setting for 20 years, he reminds me. I had been telling him about showing some passages from ‘Goodfellas’ (1990) and ‘Casino’ as an example of modern montage construction, including the sequence from ‘Goodfellas’ where Jimmy (De Niro) calls excitedly from a pay phone to find out how the “making” of Tommy (Joe Pesci) has gone. When he hears the flat account of Tommy being whacked (delivered by Scorsese’s own father Charles, playing a minor mobster), which we’ve already seen in a few vertiginous shots, De Niro vents his rage on the handset in an outburst that’s almost as violent as the earlier killing. All of which, Scorsese confirms, was carefully designed in advance, shot by shot. Phones, it transpires – though now of the mobile kind – also loom large in ‘The Departed’. Extra shooting was needed to clarify this new world of near-constant communication, which has important implications for rethinking traditional space construction by editing. Scorsese has always been in the forefront of making film form an integral part of his storytelling – from the burst of home-movie colour in ‘Raging Bull’ (1980) to the historically graduated colour palette of ‘The Aviator’ (2004). So when he discovered what skilled users could do on mobiles he was keen to include all the tricks of texting – especially “since September 11th had highlighted the perverse uses of all these gadgets”. It’s hard to imagine Scorsese wanting to tackle 9/11 as directly as his one-time protégé Oliver Stone has in ‘World Trade Center’, even though back in 1970 he and Stone helped make the collective Vietnam-pro-*test*-('") documentary ‘Street Scenes’. Yet it also seems clear that ‘The Departed’ does examine the moral bankruptcy that appals many Americans of Scorsese’s generation. “It’s scary; is this really the end of morality?” Having been accused of glorifying gangsters and their brutality in ‘Goodfellas’ and ‘Casino’, he is understandably wary of the new film’s likely reception. “There are elements that won’t be settled until the final weeks of the mix: only then will we know how to layer in certain characters and their eccentric behaviour. It’s a great cast, but you have to wrangle them and rein them in – that’s the trick and that’s what I’m doing with Thelma . I don’t know if it’s pointing anywhere, but I hope that if we reach the bottom we can maybe start to rebuild. The key is the journey, and one character is making that journey – Billy, Leo DiCaprio’s character – but he runs up against a lot of resistance.” Scorsese chuckles, no doubt recalling the battles with Warners over the film’s violence and provocation. And his recent reading material has thrown up another frame of reference for this. “I’ve become very fond of the old Icelandic sagas, with their harsh view of life. Also, I’ve just finished Halldor Laxness’ ‘Independent People’ , which poses the question: is it in our nature to be compassionate, or to deal with problems by violence? That’s the really important issue for me. But of course a film also has to be entertaining – a balance between the box office, the studio and the street.” © Sight & Sound magazine 2006.

YES, DDL should definately be cast, as it would be heaven for these two geniuses to work together again, but he should be cast as the younger priest, since you can't put DDL in a small role and he looks at least 10 years younger than he actually is. I think it would be a great project for DDL to follow There will be Blood, which looks excellent as well. I think De Niro should be cast as the older priest, and Javier Bardem to be cast as the other priest who follows Father Rodrigues(DDL). This film has the potential to Scorsese's most personal film, and perhaps his masterpiece. Maybe Andy Lau can be cast as the Japanese Convert Kichijiro!

Finally, some news about Silence... Thanks, arnzilla! :) Even though, its start is already a year delayed, it's good to know it's still his upcoming project. Let me add a bit more from the article you posted: Martin Scorsese came to Cannes on a quest to save world cinema. Once he leaves, the great American filmmaker hopes to get to work on a foreign picture of his own. This should mean that at least the Japanese actors won't have to speak in English.

Thanks for the news about "Silence" Arnzilla & Will. It's defenitely a film that is on my list... and a point of human history (cultural untolerance) that is dear to me.

Thanks Will & Arnzilla for the good news about Silence. I was beginning to think it would never happen. :D

From an interview with producer Gianni Nunnari, at Movieweb: To switch gears here for a moment, you are also working on the Martin Scorsese movie Silence. Can you tell me anything about that, or how that is coming along? Gianni Nunnari: Silence is probably my best project. We've worked so hard on this project for so many years. I think Martin is doing something else next. The go of Silence depends on a lot of availability. And how you puzzle all the casting, and all of that. I think Silence has three or four big casting roles. Which Martin is working hard on filling. I think he has the characters worked out, we just have to wait for the actors' availability. So, he has one more movie in front of that. Then we will go into Silence. Can you talk about any of the actors you might be considering for that? Gianni Nunnari: Its extremely premature. I can only tell you that they are very close to Marty, and they are very big actors. Is anyone coming back from The Departed? Gianni Nunnari: Uh, no. I'm talking about in general. All of Martin's gang of actors. How has it been working with Martin Scorsese these last couple of years? Gianni Nunnari: You know, it's Martin Scorsese. I personally know Martin as one of the first directors from when I started working in Hollywood. I think it is the best situation that a producer can have in his life. You know? He is a director that you can marry to a project. He sources every single aspect of the movie. In terms of writing with the writer, working with the team, working with the actors, working with the casting directors. It is complete. I don't think there is any more complete director than Martin Scorsese. Do you have any news about The Departed sequel? I've heard that Mark Wahlberg is going to be the star of that, and that they are bringing back Alec Baldwin. Is there any truth to that? Gianni Nunnari: I don't know. I heard it the same way you heard it. We would all like to see a sequel to The Departed. There is probably the desire to do it. You cannot stop the desire. Do you know if Scorsese is interested in doing that? Gianni Nunnari: I don't think I'm aware of any director or anything other than the idea of trying to create a sequel for The Departed. So... there's something else before Silence gets going next summer? :D

Yay! New info. Thank you, Will. All of Martin's gang of actors. Rodrigues - DDL? Garrpe - Keitel? Ferreira - De Niro? I'm assuming Scorsese casts older than the book. There's also Dafoe and Nolte I guess. So... there's something else before Silence gets going next summer? :D"The Wolf of Wall Street" sounds like the only thing he could get underway by year's end.

Yes, there probably won't be much of an age difference between yound and old priest, after all. The way he talks about "actors' availability" and "very big actors" makes it almost certain that De Niro will be in it. I was thinking Dafoe for Garrpe, Day-Lewis for Rodrigues and De Niro for Ferreira. I can't place Nolte anywhere in this story, but I wouldn't mind Turturro for Garrpe. "The Wolf of Wall Street" sounds like the only thing he could get underway by year's end. Oh :| Can't say I'm looking forward to that one. Wouldn't he have to start on one of his Paramount films instead? Whichever is going to be, he'll have to not "follow" it very closely all the way through, if he's indeed planning on starting Silence in a year or so.

Thanks Will... Happy to hear about this project.

Arnzilla "The Wolf of Wall Street" sounds like the only thing he could get underway by year's end. Wow, will Leo be done with BOL by then? He is going to be a busy boy. Would really like to see it though!:D Love to see another Scorsese collaboration.

Oh, definitely. Maybe that's why I haven't stop watching it. I wouldn't mind if the whole film was just images with his voiceover. 8) So, if I understand you right, you're saying that if Silence were to start in September 2008, then the in-between film would have to wrap... now? Why can't they just give him the money to do Silence now! :x Anyway... Maybe he could do one more documentary. Thank you for the Departed post-production article. What kind of work do you think Legato would do in Silence?