Acclaimed director Martin Scorsese has his subsequent challenge on deck — and it’s about Jesus Christ.
The “Taxi Driver” filmmaker, 80, obtained a blessing from Pope Francis for his upcoming film.
After attending the Cannes Movie Competition final week, Scorsese visited Italy and had a dialog with Antonio Spadaro, editor-in-chief of the journal “La Civiltà Cattolica” — translated to the “Catholic Civilization” — Monday.
He revealed within the chat that he lately noticed the pontiff, 86.
“I responded to the Pope’s appeal to artists the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus,” he stated. “And I’m about to start making it.”
The “Aviator” director — who was raised Catholic and infrequently offers with non secular topics in his movies — additionally spoke with Spadaro about his popularity of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1964 epic “The Gospel According to St. Matthew,” in addition to his expertise engaged on his 1988 drama “The Last Temptation of Christ.”
He additionally mentioned “the subsequent step in his research on the figure of Jesus” — outlined by his 2016 movie “Silence.” The movie, starring Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver, detailed the killing of Jesuits in Seventeenth-century Japan.
Scorsese’s sit-down was a part of “The Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination” convention that was held on the Villa Malta in Rome.
The occasion was organized by Civiltà Cattolica along with Georgetown College.
Spadaro and the Oscar-winner had crossed paths beforehand, with the Jesuit journalist interviewing the latter in 2016 about “Silence.”
Scorsese even divulged that he thought of getting into the priesthood in his youthful years and had at all times desired to make a film in regards to the clergy.
“When I was younger, I was thinking of making a film about being a priest. I myself wanted to follow in Father Principe’s footsteps, so to speak, and be a priest. I went to a preparatory seminary but I failed out the first year,” he stated.
“And I realized, at the age of 15, that a vocation is something very special, that you can’t acquire it, and you can’t have one just because you want to be like somebody else,” he added. “You have to have a true calling.”
Father Frank Principe was the “Goodfellas” director’s priest whereas he grew up in Little Italy.
“This man was a real guide,” Scorsese gushed over his previous pastor. “He could talk tough, but he never actually forced you to do anything — he guided you. Advised you. Cajoled you. He had such extraordinary love.”
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