Currently in Cannes to scout funding for his passion project Silence, Martin Scorsese, in a brief-but-somewhat-enlightening interview with Total Film, hasn’t hesitated in comparing the 17th century-set Shusaku Endo adaptation to previous films of his. “It’s similar to Mean Streets, in a way,” he said, for the story “deals with spiritual matters in a concrete, physical world; a world where invariably the worst of human nature is revealed.” This probably comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with Scorsese’s breakout 1973 film: though Silence is said to be primarily a Japanese-language, Japan-set undertaking (as opposed to New York, which the director is so often aligned with), the clash between spirituality and reality has long been a theme in Scorsese’s work, regardless of setting.
Perhaps more surprising are the other parallels Scorsese draws. He refers to Silence as a “suspenseful film, with elements of a thriller,” and says that it will incorporate “themes that were overt in Kundun and Bringing Out the Dead.” This is not unlike what was revealed in a recent interview with Variety, wherein the director made a strong point of explaining that, while Silence is indeed “meant for a smaller audience” than some of his best-known films, it’s still “a thriller. Thriller meaning they are undercover. I’m interested in this, whether it’s undercover priests or undercover cops.”
On paper, this juxtaposition of stately period detail and genre-informed suspense is beginning to sound rather compelling, and Scorsese’s description of the film’s angle — it will have a “smaller approach, more internal,” he said, but “there is landscape” — appears to reflect those conflicting sensibilities. The next step in the making-of process seems to be casting-related: though Scorsese’s already lined up Andrew Garfield and Ken Watanabe for the film, there’s still “an older Jesuit, in his 50s, and another young priest” left to fill. Perhaps he’ll land actors for these two coveted roles while in Cannes? It’s hard to rule out.
Silence will begin shooting in mid-2014.
What do you think of the comparisons to Scorsese’s previous films? Who would you like to see in the two as-yet-uncast roles?