Martin Scorsese's SILENCE, adapted from Shûsaku Endô's novel of monks in 17th-century Japan, starring Liam Neeson, Andrew Garfield, Ken Watanabe, and Adam Driver

I can feel the pre-emptive hate from the Wolf fanboys already. I've read the book, and I suspect he *might* manage his best nondocumentary since Kundun.

It's a very violent story, if that helps.

http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-shusaku-endo-silence-film-scorsese-liam-neeson-20140131,0,389038.story#axzz2s31DKtVv

adam driver in 17th c japan! i can picture it.

also lol @ the nu-ilx style for titles of film threads

what, you prefer 'is it ok to anticipate…??'

Huh.

no i prefer this by far!

(xp)

just lol @ dr. morbs using it

it's informative.

How many projects have you seen Adam Driver in? He is a Juilliard-trained actor, u know, and has played a 19th-century Union soldier as well as gay neurotic Louis in Angels in America.

i have seen him in GIRLS and LINCOLN and FRANCES HA. have not seen INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS yet. maybe this weekend.

i love WOWS but morbsy! kundun! i liked it! i have high hopes for this one.

1000x more up for this than Wolf, tho i've got no real issues with the latter

This is the only Endo book I've read, and I disliked it enough to not read any of this guy's other stuff. Maybe a bad translation? It is some heavy-handed shit tho. Lots of novels set in Edo-period Japan that I'd love to see turned into Hollywood movies but this is not one of them :(

omar beat me to kundun, i liked it

funny to me that neeson is stealing DDL's role after DDL swooped in and took Lincoln

lol @ kundun! i liked it!

I've read a couple of Endo books, feels like a very weird fit for Scorsese

It's a very violent story, if that helps.

thats a relief i was afraid it'd be some boring shit about feelings or smth

from one of his recent interviews it sounds like movies about faith are the only things he really wants to make right now

This is the only Endo book I've read, and I disliked it enough to not read any of this guy's other stuff. Maybe a bad translation? It is some heavy-handed shit tho. Lots of novels set in Edo-period Japan that I'd love to see turned into Hollywood movies but this is not one of them :(

― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, February 1, 2014 4:30 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i liked this book as a slight-but-intense story about faith and doubt but i am pretty fearful that its gonna be a sledgehammer on screen.

you ppl don't know shit from shinoda;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silence_%281971_film%29

FADE IN: Rural village, Mount Fuji in the background. Sunrise.

FADE IN SOUND: "Gimme Shelter"

lol

hahaha

VOICE-OVER:

The thing Fr. Rodgrigues loved was stealing. I mean, he actually enjoyed it!

lol eazy

yeah, like that sledgehammer Age of Innocence

(he was gonna do Silence a few years ago w/ DDL and Benicio del Toro... has wanted to make it for 20 years a la Last Temptation)

Ward F, that Shinoda film doesn't exist unless it's "available"

that shinoda film is "available"

there's a legit region 2 release from the masters of cinema label

just askin', i'd like to see it

It's on the Criterion hulu.

yeah, i don't do that

For those that DO, it's there.

After nearly 20 years of false starts, Deadline reports that a Martin Scorsese passion project has finally secured its funding. Silence, based on the Shusaku Endo novel about Jesuit missionaries facing persecution in 17th-century Japan, will begin production in Taiwan on January 30. Fábrica de Cine and SharpSword Films have now committed to financing the movie, which is being targeted for a 2016 release by Paramount Pictures. In a statement, Scorsese said, “I’ve wanted to make Silence for almost two decades, and it is finally a reality.”

The last time it took this long for Scorsese to get a project together was Gangs Of New York, which the director tried to make with The Clash in the late ’70s and finally made it to the screen in 2002 with Daniel Day-Lewis and Scorsese’s then-newfound muse Leonardo DiCaprio. Amazingly, DiCaprio won’t appear in Silence, and will be presumably sitting on a jet ski in Ibiza with a model while filming is under way. After going through a Gangs Of New York-style set of permutations over the years, the cast of Silence now includes Liam Neeson, Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, and Ichi The Killer and Thor actor Tadanobu Asano, replacing Ken Watanabe as, we hope, a guy who keeps shushing everyone.

ho damn, Tadanobu Asano

wait Joe Strummer was originally going to be in Gangs of NY

Silence was originally meant to star Savage Garden

Thor actor Tadanobu Asano

i grant that "thor" might be the highest-grossing movie asano has been in but that just sounds so weird. dude is an axiom of asian cinema going on 15 years.

i wish i could be excited by a new scorsese movie these days, but damn his track record over the past 15 years is bad (i though WOWS and SHUTTER ISLAND were passable, the rest not so much)

Shutter Island is so enjoyably terrible, just a clusterfuck from start to finish. Didn't think he had anything as funny and dynamic as WOWS in him, was pleasantly surprised. Nonetheless, the days of me being excited about a new Scorsese movie are long gone.

Am currently finishing the novel and like it. Am going to watch the Shinoda film next and am looking forward to Marty cribbing some Mizoguchi camera moves and Ozu camera placements in his ( you know he's gonna go there!).

can we get mods to replace Ken Watanabe w/ Tadanobu Asano in thread titlr?

Weehee! I'm glad Tsukamoto is in this.

in limited release Dec 23

http://variety.com/2016/film/news/silence-martin-scorsese-1201870272/

http://www.avclub.com/article/things-get-loud-first-trailer-martin-scorseses-sil-246384

garfield and driver look so, so bad

original film is incredible, its a real shame scorsese feels he needs to remake already incredible asian films rather than come up with new ideas. saying that, i'm not sure i want another wolf of wall street. dignified retirement with just maybe documentaries from now on please?

this seems up scorsese's alley but who knows how it'll turn out? garfield reminds me of someone in the trailer but i can't place it.

scorsese's batting 1.000 so far w/his religious pics for me tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq7EDnC629s

I don't think this is a remake per se

It looks very different from the other film.

not comfortable w considering adaptations of same src txt as remakes

also p sure this is a batman begins prequel

not comfortable w considering adaptations of same src txt as remakes

it's one of my pet hates tbh

yeah, just cuz there was an adap of the novel 45 years ago it seems BS to say there can be no others

i read an article by Fr. James Martin (jesuit writer and priest who did heavy consultation on this film) and it made me pretty excited for it.

garfield givin me the steve zahn vibes

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/27/magazine/the-passion-of-martin-scorsese.html

Endo is Catholic iirc so this seems like an obv fit for Scorsese, whose Catholicism informs so much of his work imo

Seems weird now that Adam Driver is playing second fiddle to Andrew Garfield. I guess it was cast like 3 years ago or whatever.

dang this movie

i think the trailers for this tried to make it look a bit more mel gibson-ish in its religious persecution aspect but it's a very subdued and internal film in a lot of respects, it's quite something. hardly stylized in the usual scorsese sense whatsoever, it's a very "still" film. it moves at an extremely leisurely pace that i found pretty hypnotic but...it's not for everyone, that's for sure.

Driver lost 50 lbs for this, it seems, so playing Joey Ramone is not out of the question i guess.

Scorsese, Japan, interior, still, I'm all over this tbh

Nomar how did u get to see this ?

garfield reminds me of someone in the trailer but i can't place it.

Just saw a trailer for this at the movies and he looks like that guy from Horrible Histories, Mathew Baynton, so much so that I wasn't sure it wasn't him for a while. No doubt not the person he reminds you of though.

... he also looks a bit like Andy Murray, lol.

i saw it as a guest at a WGA screening last night. i wasn't sure what to expect, maybe something far less austere? it's not flashy, it has nary a single scorsese stylistic tic that i can think of, this is a very serious and adult film about religion. it probably won't succeed for everyone but i think many of the people who didn't like his 'gangs of new york' thru 'wolf of wall street' run might end up being some of its biggest proponents. i could be wrong. i think he's done something really interesting here. the performances are all very good to outstanding and it looks amazing.

glad he couldn't squeeze in any Stones tracks

so Garfield's OK? I thought he might liack the gravitas.

i thought garfield was fine, i had only seen him in a couple smaller roles and couldn't get a read on him in those (red riding and social network) but here i think he's gives a good central performance.

*he gives

this movie doesn't really fuck around, you can really see why Scorsese has wanted to make it and you can see it's incredibly personal (as opposed to say, my wondering why he wanted to make Gangs of New York, even though i did like it.)

can we get mods to replace Ken Watanabe w/ Tadanobu Asano in thread title?

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Sunday, September 13, 2015 5:55 AM

btw tadanobu asano was exceptionally good

video

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/scorseses-27-years-silence

Thanks nomar. Can't wait for this. I finished the novel months ago and it's one of those books that haunts, for sure.

initial review roundup

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/martin-scorseses-silence

FC interview by Nick Pinkerton (likely best read after seeing the film).

I couldn’t get the Japanese films out of my mind. Where to put the camera? Tatami level? The old story of the Westerner in Japan. I’m not Japanese; I can’t shoot nature or roof tiles the way Kobayashi did in the opening credits of Samurai Rebellion, or in Harakiri. I’ll say it: I enjoy lining up medium shots and inserts. They call them inserts, but there’s no such thing. It’s a shot. If you have somebody else do your inserts, it’s not going to work. You have to do it. And that comes via Bresson and Hitchcock and Ozu. I enjoy thinking in those cuts.

http://www.filmcomment.com/article/martin-scorsese-silence-interview/

thought this was great

intrigued by this

might actually go watch it

i really want to see this

wide release on the 13th

right now it only looks like it will be playing in 1 theater in Sacramento but i'm def gonna try to get out & see it

Oscar nominations are on the 24th, so it could go wider after that if...

hope so!

morbs did you see it? are you reviewing it and have to maintain "silence" until your review comes out??

seeing this tomorrow with my recently un-lapsed catholic parents

I quit criticism about 3 years ago, nomar. I have not seen the film yet because I could not get up early enough for a cheap matinee during the holidaze.

This post might be a bit spoilery

The stylistic choices Scorsese made are def p interesting here - there are one or two Mizogouchi-like moments (shots of boats on misty waters) but I was surprised that he pretty much resisted long tracking shots in favour of yes, shot-countershot (in other words, the film sticks very closely to the traditions/methods of classical American narrative cinema). You can imagine a much more 'hysterical' approach to the same subject matter (only really present in some of the performances - Garfield seems to spend much of the film weeping); so the film's almost complete lack of a musical score, the sounds of 'nature' that open and close the film, the limited colour palette (a lot of brown) and the mostly discrete handling of the violence and torture all speak to the silence of the title. This is a contemplative movie about gigantic human feelings and beliefs.

Felt there were a couple of mis-steps - the voice of Christ moment, and the final shot, which is as hokey as Spielberg at his pandering worst - but you certainly couldn't accuse Scorsese of resting on his laurels. It's inspiring to see such a big name director trying something new so late into his career.

at first blush this felt like a masterpiece. i was overwhelmed by it. i'm sure i'll temper that later but wow.

I love this movie too

much to say but regarding style there was two (at least) really striking moments in which the camera rapidly pulls out and up in moments of extreme pain--but that final shot, which did not strike me as sentimental or in poor taste, reverses that camera movement in a really powerful way.

i also appreciated the permutations of the title, from the obvious silence of God to a kind of devotional silence by the end.

it is really great i believe. and out of all of scorsese's output since the '90s this one is by far the least audience friendly in terms of how it treats religion seriously and intelligently, how much of the dialogue is given over to interfaith dialogue both hostile and diplomatic, the seeming pointlessness of the tortures (none of which are particularly grisly, this is a relatively sedate film for scorsese by those standards), the switch from ego keeping hold to complete loss of control by the end for the main characters. etc etc

i wasn't quite sure of the choice to depict the face of christ in the movie so explicitly and frequently (in the book it's an effective literary device, particularly since the protagonist muses often on the fact that Jesus's face is never described in the bible) but among the many images that linger with me from this movie it's mostly the faces, the fear and agony of the tortured japanese christians in particular but also garfield's very open and expressive demeanor, the magistrate's smugness, neeson's inexpressiveness which becomes garfield's later on.

(also lots of talk about faces in the dialogue, "i can see your face," as one of the authorities says to a christian peasant after trampling...)

Heard that the only English translation of the book is awful.

the translation did strike me as a bit flat-footed--not that i can compare it to the original.

Remarkable film. More thoughts later but am so glad it was Scorsese who made this.

and not Innaritu?

^we were all thinking it

Still a slightly weird thing to write about a remake...

kind of, I guess - I just took it as shorthand: Scorsese is the best fit for this material among current directors who might conceivably have adapted it

(also remake is imprecise imo)

If this were a remake of the '70s film rather than a film of the novel then yeah it would be a weird thing to say. Smdh

Xpost This is what I meant re: Scorsese.

lol this exact conversation plays out upthread

this got considerably better in the second half, once garfields character had repeated the same 'why must they suffer' spiel ten times over, when it finally got into some debate over its subject. but it failed to move past its grevious christian missionary pity, never once asking, is the actual mission of missionaries a noble one, or rather, was the way many christian missionaries acted noble? was it 'christian'? im no expert on the faith in japan, but you dont have to be a scholar to know all the crimes of missionaries across the globe. but if you didnt, this film would not let you know. such an admission would no doubt ruin the entire premise. other than that, its one of MS' most sensitively made films. a minor addition in his filmography overall, but a significant one. but i had had enough of the monotony of the driver and garfield characters voiceovers after an hour.

i meant, i had just had enough of voiceovers (dont think driver did any voiceover)

voiceovers

this is a Scorsese film ffs, we got off light

s the actual mission of missionaries a noble one

this is more or less one of the central questions confronted by the protagonist. and colonialism and the historical transgressions of the church are definitely implicitly and explicitly present.

anyway not terribly interested in debating this at length but suffice it to say that i don't think both side-ism is a really useful way to talk about this film or topic.

i probably sound like a catholic or christian apologist (im not a christian) but i think the movie becomes immeasurably richer if you take stock of what a revolutionary idea christianity was and is in certain contexts--what an incredibly disrupting force it was (for good and ill) and its radical revaluation of human life. seen in that context an image of a japanese peasant refusing to trample (refusing to renounce the meaning and value of his/her own life) and facing actual fucking crucifixion in the ocean, being burned alive ("on fire with faith"), or drowned at sea becomes incredibly powerful--to me anyway.

Silence has been filmed twice before, once by Masahiro Shinoda, and once by Joao Mario Grilo. Which makes sense for a story of Portuguese monks in Japan. It's still a weird thing to say about a film that's been done twice before, since clearly Scorcese's take doesn't preclude someone doing a fourth version.

Every film is better for not having been made by Innaritu, but come on, in no way is Scorcese the best fit for the third version about this book. Joao Pedro Rodrigues just made an incredibly weird biopic about St Antonius of Padua, and has done film before on Portuguese colonialism, how amazing would his version have been? Or perhaps Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Naomi Kawase or Koji Fukada, what's their view on the disruptive power of christianity in Japan?

being burned alive ("on fire with faith")

use of CGI fire really bugged me tbh

my favorite opinions on film are definitely the "i haven't seen this movie but i have opinions anyway" variety

especially when it's the same bullshit virtue signaling we put up with all last year in the election threads. welcome back fred

My favorite posts are definitely the 'I haven't contributed to this thread at all before, but I simply can't give up the chance to shit on this other poster'. That always really makes a thread move in the right direction.

But what's your opinion on late period Martin Scorcese, contra the vitality of Japanese and Portuguese cinema, k3v?

just gonna

Scorsese

carry on

Oh, ffs. Be right back, I have a pitch to proofread...

did i get transported into that scene from good will hunting y/n

anyway scorsese makes good movies and even though he's white and american i'm looking forward to seeing this when it opens

I agree. He has been on a roll this decade. The Rodrigues version of this would be SO GOOD, though.

this is more or less one of the central questions confronted by the protagonist. and colonialism and the historical transgressions of the church are definitely implicitly and explicitly present.

― ryan, Sunday, 8 January 2017 20:23 (one hour ago) Permalink

anyway not terribly interested in debating this at length but suffice it to say that i don't think both side-ism is a really useful way to talk about this film or topic.

i probably sound like a catholic or christian apologist (im not a christian) but i think the movie becomes immeasurably richer if you take stock of what a revolutionary idea christianity was and is in certain contexts--what an incredibly disrupting force it was (for good and ill) and its radical revaluation of human life. seen in that context an image of a japanese peasant refusing to trample (refusing to renounce the meaning and value of his/her own life) and facing actual fucking crucifixion in the ocean, being burned alive ("on fire with faith"), or drowned at sea becomes incredibly powerful--to me anyway.

well that last post makes any point in discussing this probably moot (and yes, it was a disrupting force, but the film doesnt quite seem able to note this) but its not about both sideism. its about accepting this is missionary propaganda. its in love with faith. with the concept of faith. the display of it. the belief in it. but its depiction only of that is at best convenient, at worst, intellectually dishonest. and it does not make the film richer. it makes it weakly, lazily myopic.

i understand a lot of people watching this, esp MS fans, love the mythology of religion/the commitment of believers/films which espouse these things (usually without actually wanting to sign on as a member of any faith, only to see it romantically depicted on screen), but the protagonist confronts the notion of japanese ppl accepting christianity, the idea of a religion being adopted by those of another culture/continent, but it does not, *ever* IIRC, confront the idea of these priests on their missions resorting to pretty heinous tactics and practices.

im all for seeing how cruelly innocent believers were unjustly punished merely for being christian, but for their to be no recognition, for no mention in those conversations, of the shit that priests did to accomplish their goals, was a major flaw of the film.

if however, you have no connection to places/people these practices were carried out on, then i understand that you might find it a bit tougher to consider why this may be seen as a failing.

i did not mean to be dismissive of your point but merely that i fear we'd be arguing over wanting to see different movies.

one scene thought that at least implicitly accuses even well meaning priests is the drowning scene and the adam driver character's heroic and yet totally inadequate response to it. he fails them.

i probably sound like a catholic or christian apologist (im not a christian) but i think the movie becomes immeasurably richer if you take stock of what a revolutionary idea christianity was and is in certain contexts--what an incredibly disrupting force it was (for good and ill) and its radical revaluation of human life. seen in that context an image of a japanese peasant refusing to trample (refusing to renounce the meaning and value of his/her own life) and facing actual fucking crucifixion in the ocean, being burned alive ("on fire with faith"), or drowned at sea becomes incredibly powerful--to me anyway.
― ryan, Sunday, January 8, 2017 4:34 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don’t know why this should be, but Christianity always becomes incredibly poignant when in the underdog role—the clandestine, catacomb Christianity.

I think so too. And I found it in the Japanese actors. Shinya Tsukamoto playing Mokichi; Yoshi Oida, who plays Ichizo: he’s 83 years old. There’s something about people understanding that they matter, that they have a spirit, that they have a soul. And that they’re not just chattel. Something that, as a concept, was one of the things that undid the ancient world system of slavery. It was a new concept, that everyone was equal in that sense of their having a soul, their lives being of value. And I think that’s what gave the Japanese Christians something special. Even if at times, it was misinterpreted, it still gave them something special that they did not have before. I’m not one of them, so I can’t speak of it in definitive terms. The way Endo presents it—Rodrigues says it in the voiceover: they work like beasts, but Christ did not die for the beautiful, he died for the ugly; he died for the evil ones, too. It’s easy to die for the beautiful and the good. So, that’s really interesting. That changes our way of seeing the world. Beyond revolution. That’s what I found in the making of the picture, too.

^scorsese gets it.

another way of putting it (and let me say here that i think the movie and novel both contain complexities that go beyond this) is that the climactic moment involves the protagonist recognizing that the sinular suffering of these japanese souls is to be recognized--that the singular quality of their lives matters--and is more important than Christianity as a doctrine, as a public profession of faith, or his own desire for christlike martyrdom. this is to argue for christianity as a principle that undoes principles, undoes ideologies and doctrines.

singular suffering...though "sinular" has a ring to it.

ryan otm

I'm getting more and more uncomfortable with this thread...

theme of thread: "its just the best religion. deal with it."

if you are not able to grasp or accept that there is something like an "essence" of christianity that is distinct from the Church or doctrine then you'll forever be butting your head against this novel/film. it's not about proselytizing (though there is an element of that, surely) but it doesn't strike me as terribly insightful to argue that Endo, writing in japan as a christian in the wake of his own country's catastrophic disregard for human life and the equally tragic and evil results of those actions visited upon his countrymen, should be terribly worried about the sins of the church which are in fact quite remote to him. should those sins be acknowledged? without question. does every narrative that is about christian missionaries need to rehash them? no.

Yeah it just seems one-dimensional to do so.

Been reading this thread and thinking I might watch and strikes me there is something of an Abel Ferrara (or even Pasolini) vibe to all of this (?) a reading of faith and the way it moves and churns inside people and its surroundings..

Scorsese has always praised Pasolini's Christ film as a key one for him... I also found this quote (re Last Temptation:

"The picture I wanted to make was about Jesus on Eighth Avenue, something like Pasolini's Accatone. The pimp represents all of us. He's our mortal condition..."

https://books.google.com/books?id=ljPBGqCn3ccC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=scorsese+pasolini+faith&source=bl&ots=riol1Kwgr_&sig=y0Jm5x9fXiHHAHEYo_2ULLQ3s7c&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiR4YqSzbXRAhUG3YMKHV_DAyIQ6AEIJzAC#v=onepage&q=scorsese%20pasolini%20faith&f=false

should those sins be acknowledged? without question. does every narrative that is about christian missionaries need to rehash them? no.

Hmm. What if we just put the Spanish Inquisition skit as a mid-credits stinger in all of them?

I've said my piece. I never reduced the film to my issue with it. But as I've yet to see anyone making my point I feel it's still valid.

My last comment was more about the historo-evangelising in the thread since then.

Carry on.

StillAdvance otm.

But as I've yet to see anyone making my point I feel it's still valid.

#don'tStopBelieving

Scorsese has always praised Pasolini's Christ film as a key one for him... I also found this quote (re Last Temptation:

Yeah I guess my fear when I heard about this was that it could turn out like Last Temptation, which I didn't like (saw that over ten years ago now).

My memory may play me false but the scene where Kichijiro betrays Father Rodrigues seemed to be a direct homage to the Judas pieces of silver scene in the Pasolini film, right down to the sound design.

I couldn't get over how much the story seemed like a melding of the gospel and Heart of Darkness.

another long interview, in Commonweal (speaking of Conrad)

The priests in Silence belonged to the Society of Jesus, so they belonged to a group, a religious institution. Something has happened to their mentor. They go to look for him. And it’s as if we were to go to another planet today. They go to a place that couldn’t be more different from where they live, both physically—I mean, the actual landscape itself—and culturally. That means the way people speak, and their body language, and every aspect of how they live: how they write, if they do write; how they drink water, inside a kind of bamboo thermos, so to speak. How they live with nature around them. And their perception of the world and the universe around them. I couldn’t really try to explain any of that; I just had to let it happen. I had to let it happen through, for example, the behavior of the inquisitor and the behavior of the interpreter. The interpreter has no name. Is he even really an interpreter? When he’s asked certain questions, he says, “I cannot comment on things from the inquisitor’s office.” Now, in making the film, I knew what their hierarchy was, from the research we did. But if you’re stuck there, like Rodrigues, you’re caught, you don’t know who’s coming into that jail cell or that hut of twigs. You just don’t know. I did get bogged down at first in trying to write this script, and trying to explain a different world and different time, but I realized I had to let it play out. A lot of it is though the pacing. How to find the pacing that is appropriate for that world, without losing an audience?....

RRC: There’s a Heart of Darkness-like structure to this story. Is that something you were consciously thinking of?

MS: No. [laughs] No! Because I think there’s such beauty in the landscape and the people on the way to find Ferreira, whereas Heart of Darkness is so terrifying. I reread that about ten years ago. It’s absolutely terrifying....

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/interview-martin-scorsese

Glenn Kenny on that whole damn-the-missionary thing

Some of my critical colleagues have been expressing dismay in social media that some prominent commentators have blinded themselves to Martin Scorsese's magnificent Silence on the grounds of "Meh, religion," or, more strongly put, "Religion sucks," or, "Both sides do it so why doesn't the movie show the depredations of the Catholic Church." This is unfortunate but I think actually more unavoidable than the La La Land nonsense. The La La Land detractors ridiculously blow up the movie's "chase your dreams" metaphors; the anti-Silence folks pick nits that are either non-existent or entirely beside the point, conveniently skirting the fact that this is an adaptation of a Japanese novel. My opinion on this may be suspect because I was raised Catholic but for me the specifics of the apostasy took second place to larger and even more moving themes. That is, I eventually intuited something beyond Catholicism versus the shogunate and vice-versa. Past faith, I felt Silence addressing issues of will, free will, and whether there really is such a thing as human freedom. The questions it presents, I thought, were more moving and unsettling for the cinematic form in which they were presented. If you're looking at it and going down a list of the things you think it should be showing you because of the cultural baggage you want it to carry (and I'm not saying that the movie is inconsiderate of that cultural baggage—it's not), then you're not going to get it, and too bad.

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2017/01/white-saviors-the-micro-and-the-macro.html

the anti-Silence folks pick nits that are either non-existent or entirely beside the point, conveniently skirting the fact that this is an adaptation of a Japanese novel.

he might be surprised to know that directors often add their own ideas, or just their own ways of seeing a text, too.

If you're looking at it and going down a list of the things you think it should be showing you because of the cultural baggage you want it to carry (and I'm not saying that the movie is inconsiderate of that cultural baggage—it's not), then you're not going to get it, and too bad.

ha. i do love how unquestioningly religious people seem to be about this film. im sure MS (and the church) would be pleased.

people seem to confuse those who found the film beautiful, rich, provocative, and all the rest of it, but still found aspects lacking (which for a film about so many important questions, is surely no unnatural thing), with those dismissing it outright. and from the glut of positive reviews it seems to have gotten (it feels like there is a certain politeness in the few reviews ive read about it), it doesnt seem like there are THAT many 'anti silence' people out there. i could be off base though, ive not been desperate to read every think piece or editorial about it. i get that ppl have perhaps reached saturation point w/r/t white saviours, bechdel tests, minority representation, etc, in cinema and TV, but i dont see silence as a film about white saviours (white martyrs really), just a film that has a very particular vision about its subject and what it does and doesnt want to show, and it is quite prudent about what might get in the way of that message.

The church approved of Pasolini's St Matthew. That didn't matter because it was a great film.

Then again you are the only who questions stuff ever StillAdvance - well done!

well done on focusing on that part of my post. youre not at all petty, and clearly the bigger man. is there a way i can block your 'contributions', meaningful as they are, on this website? definitely a bug, not a feature, if not.

on second thought, im quite happy to be one of the anti silence nit picking brigade. if youre feeling a wave of christian pride watching this movie, thats great, and im glad it makes you feel all proud, powerful or whatever, but im not sure the argument about it not being fair to push all the baggage of the subject onto it IS unfair. the baggage is there for a reason, and to want to deny its importance, its presence, seems too easy. can of worms forthcoming, but its a bit like if MS (or anyone) did a film about colonialism, and made the colonialists seem wholly benign.

then again, im sure that would inspire a post like 'i probably sound like a colonial apologist (im not the descendent of any colonialists) but i think the movie becomes immeasurably richer if you take stock of what a revolutionary idea colonialism was" or similar.

StillAdvance you'll love the third reviewer in this show (starts at 2:50): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08558zv

SA - when they go high I go low.

Just bringing you down to my level.

SA - just curious, would you level the same criticism at Endo's novel? (the narrative of the film is almost exactly the same)

secondly, and i'll drop it after this, the movie (and novel) are pretty directly critical of christianity as an arm of colonialism, the central conflicts of the story are more or less built around this criticism and aspect of christianity in a way that strikes me as even deeper than historical score settling, and it seems relatively uncontroversial and value-neutral to say that christianity was a revolutionary idea that remade the western world (in particular). your problem is not that these aspects are not there but that they are not more prominent. this is a movie about a persecuted christianity minority in a non-christian country that was not in fact colonized but indeed went on some colonial adventures of its own during the lifetime of the author.

your argument seems to be based on some sense that admirers of the film are feeling smug warm fuzzies about christianity while watching it. but it's a story about individual faith and belief, and i'm not sure what it would gain by turning into some historical study of things we all know very well.

will people see this and think "yay christianity boo japan"? alas. will some see it and think "but what about christian persecution of non-christians/colonialism etc."? alas.

to better clarify: im not saying you're wrong to want to see those things in the movie (i disagree but it's a value judgement and an aesthetic preference) but that you're emprically wrong about the content of the movie because that material is presented in a way that's far more relevant to this specific story and setting. if im saying "this movie is about x" and your response is "but it's not about y" then i have no idea what the point of the discussion is or why i should be accused of "historo-evangelizing" merely for trying to unpack the themes of the movie.

btw has anyone complained about what a harsh and one-sided depiction of buddhism is presented in this film? you'd almost think that whatever religious ideology is adopted by the ruling class becomes an excuse for oppression....

also, just as an aside, people often treat the history of religion like geology or something, but it's important to acknowledge something that a historical document can't really bring out but that a novel/film can: the history of religion involves individual people making independent individual decisions to believe, singular moments of conversion and faith.

excited to see this

while we're on the subj, the zwick/cruise "last samurai" is a bizarre blend of anticolonialism and fascist apologia. i think about that movie way too much...

I would still like a mod to delete Ken Watanabe from the thread title

Saw this today and while it looks pretty good I found it overlong and a bit po faced or something.
Found some bits of it unintentionally funny.

Was wondering what the last decent film Scorsese had made was cos I wouldn't count this as it.

Couldn't get to feeling much sympathy for the Andrew Garfield character.

& found the japanese inquisitor to be too similar to a Japanese uncle tom charicature or similar.

I didn't feel much sympathy for the guy in the Shinoda film (but obviously he didn't deserve the situation he was in). I don't feel like that was a flaw in the film though.

I thought this was incredible... a minor masterpiece, one of the best things he's ever done.

loved this

Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield looked absurd at first, as if they were in an SNL sketch, but Driver has that ability to change his face for a role, that whole hollowed out cheeks thing. I was bummed he was underused, and Garfield is one of those actors that is unable to be anyone but himself. He's one of my problem actors. But imo he redeemed himself w this.

enjoyed this a lot, don't really have an opinion beyond that - i don't share Scorsese's religious beliefs and that makes me feel conflicted about the way i think he wants me feel about the spiritual conflict but it's not a flaw in the film imo

and tbh altho i think Scorsese tries to weigh the arguments slightly toward the missionaries' side i'm not sure he really succeeds - i think the ambivalence towards religion and religious difference is pretty rich in this

Ending was very different from the Shinoda film, both in the feelings and what they show you.

one technical complaint - yeah i know it's Scorsese - might be that the epilogue/voiced over denouement is a little too long and deflates the rhythm of the rest of the movie

i plan to see this again and i'm particularly interested in how that part plays a second time...it's not exactly the same as the book but it's similarly a kind of increasingly distant denouement (which scorsese then radically reverses in the final shot).

I will definitely watch this again at some point, and consider my quibbles minor at this point

i don't share Scorsese's religious beliefs

I don't think Scorsese is a 'believer'

from reading the interviews, it would be hard to tell he wasn't a believer

but anyway, this was very good

i plan to rewatch it because it definitely felt like a minor masterpiece in my books

the moment that's sticking with me the most is the man singing on the cross and then being washed away. just devastating

thing that is very clear as someone that was raised roman catholic is that this is very much a jesuitic film, and embodies the difficulties and philosophical/theological thoughts that such a person experiences

bless my roman catholic mothers heart but if she saw this film she would be appalled

as a boy i happened to have fallen off that traditional track and explored the teachings of the jesuits informally and sense that there is a lot of subtly suggested meaning, which makes this a very spiritual film and as father martin says, a prayer

Why would your mother be appalled?

this is very much a jesuitic film

if so, I would expect the film to seethe with doubts and hidden despair, while simultaneously having a full set of finely honed intellectual reasons why those doubts and despairs should not exist. I'd further expect that all those reasons are ultimately ineffective, so that the doubts and despairs remain untouched and the despairing doubter is left believing his feelings are prima facieevidence of his own wretched, sinful, unredeemed soul.

oh right context

she was alive during pope john paul ii and roman catholic meaning someone who is ultra conservative and in favour of all the popes stances of that time

im not sure shed agree but i sometimes think she might have been influenced a little by opus dei, but the good parts of it (things get complicated if i explain)

xp

Was nice to see Tsukamoto in a role like this.

Been trying to get my head around Scorsese's answer to this question in Sight and Sound.

http://i.imgur.com/1WPLlsx.png

So … did Jesus tell him to do it or not?

to quote "A Serious Man", embrace the mystery

Ha.

I think the only way to make it consistent is for "That's real" to mean "Ferreira really perceived a voice", for "And Jesus tells him to do it" to mean "He perceives the voice being Jesus telling him to do it", and for the final 'it" to mean "the real voice of Jesus".

All a bit lost in transcription, I think.

ive not read that interview so maybe context is missing but from that excerpt scorsese seems to be saying:

(1) 'did he really' = did ferreira rly say it or doubt it (im inclined to interpret it as, 'did ferreira really doubt it?')
(2) then scorsese clarifies that ferreira did doubt it and lost his convictions/beliefs therefore didnt hear jesus's voice
(3) 'he hears that voice' = rodrigues hears the voice of jesus undoubtedly

filling in the blanks from the before and after of that question, ferreira does it for shallower reasons. put another way, rodrigues' faith runs deeper than ferreira's, and whether it exists in the latter is dubious

where theres a jesus theres a judas

tho kichijiro plays the role of judas it shld be said

video of fr james interviewing scorsese btw

https://youtu.be/TbYiGdinejU

from http://www.americamagazine.org/issue/full-transcript-interview-martin-scorsese

(morbs posted an edited transcription of the interview i believe)

fr martin

hehe

(2) then scorsese clarifies that ferreira did doubt it and lost his convictions/beliefs therefore didnt hear jesus's voice
(3) 'he hears that voice' = rodrigues hears the voice of jesus undoubtedly

Ah, I've got it now – that makes sense, thanks.

yw

There is still a certain ambiguity in the idea that doubters cannot hear the voice of jesus speaking to them, while people with perfect faith can hear the voice of jesus. bcz, neither the church nor scorsese can say with finality how to authenticate such a voice.

depends what denomination you follow or lack thereof

I thought I heard the voice of Jesus during a silent prayer at youth group but then realized someone had Benson on in the other room

what would be the detectable difference then between a harmless delusion, which delivers a message consonant with the teachings of the church but felt as the immediate presence of jesus, and the actual voice of jesus delivering a message for that person alone, but in consonance with the teaching of the church?

Jesus's voice is sexy

Jesus in this movie sounded like Liam Neeson's character speaking which was weird

Yes, the S&S interviewer, like me, thought it actually was Neeson doing the Jesus voice:

https://i.imgur.com/WhBnKhI.jpg

what would be the detectable difference then between a harmless delusion, which delivers a message consonant with the teachings of the church but felt as the immediate presence of jesus, and the actual voice of jesus delivering a message for that person alone, but in consonance with the teaching of the church?

― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Monday, 16 January 2017 22:16 (eleven minutes ago) Permalink

what do you mean by harmless delusion?

the church is ever changing

remember that even amongst jesuits there were and are conflicts between what the church should have stood for and what it should stand for -- has been since its inception and it is thusly now

my fundie Church considered Catholics phony baloney without actually coming out and saying it.

not sure why the interview video didnt embed so trying again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbYiGdinejU

Still processing this, will probably have more to say later. Did anyone else laugh when Adam Driver had a problem understanding confession?

Def Mahty's best non-doc since Kundun (but then i hate most of the intervening slog). No one else will relate, but I found the epicene inquisitor rather reminiscent of WW2 Hollywood Japanese villain (actually a Chinese-American actor) Richard Loo.

Would've given points if Voiceover Jesus had requested "Step on me" to the tune of A-Ha.

I actually really liked that actor's elocution a lot.

a lot of great moments in the movie, but I think one of the most effective was the

*SPOILERS*

.
.
.
.
.
beheading. Not because "o wow, gore factor", but because it illustrated how quickly faith-driven serenity when facing imminent death can still collapse when confronted with a moment of unexpected savagery. Even though it's a quick, immediate death, unlike the slow, drawn out, painful death the earlier civilians got, the former's deaths were poetic in a sense, the beheaded a chilling one.

also found interesting the role that the Jesuits' devotion to pageantry played in their suffering. Trampling the Lord's iconography was seen as an unforgivable sin by Driver early on, even when advising the villagers on what to do. and while Garfield was ok giving the villagers permission to trample, he couldn't do it himself because of what it would outwardly symbolize, even if he knew he stayed true in his heart. even though, divorced of that symbolism, it was a meaningless act that would save his and villagers lives.

shades of Major Barbra maybe idk

Did anyone else laugh when Adam Driver had a problem understanding confession?

yeah, there were 2 or 3 riff on this as i recall, when it was quite clear - to us - what the Japanese characters were saying. "Paraiso" got repeated twice

not sure i've seen Asano in a film in a dozen years -- last in My God, My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?, somewhat ironically. He got middle-aged.

i think Tadanobu Asano as the interpreter is going vv underrated everywhere i'm reading about this film, he doesn't have a flashy role but he's outstanding.

xpost!

well, the more flamboyant interpreter role getting attention, no surprise there. also Yôsuke Kubozuka as the recidivist traitor, who looked familiar but apparently i haven't seen him before.

Driver in starvation-diet mode really looks like he stepped out of an El Greco.

You mean to say you haven't seen the Thor films, Morbs?!?!

More useful recommendations: Asano is great as the ghostlike Yasaka in Koji Fukada's Harmonium and fine as the ghostlike Yusuke in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Journey to the Shore

Weren't you a fan of Himizu, Morbs? Kubozuka is in that, and Tokyo Tribes as well.

kubozuka was good in go (for those interested in zainichi korean themes)

thx, L'boxed has two diff pages of credits for him because of missing accents/filigree.

saw this tonight, glad I made the effort to check it out. lots to think about, v moving

i laughed at the confession moment. there were a few funny moments i thought - like when the inquisitor lets out that long sigh, way longer than you expect & it looks like he's deflating

also when he crawls towards garfield where all you can see is his topknot in frame & garfield has this momentary "wtf" look on his face

i hope this isn't abusing this thread, but i've been reading Marcel Gauchet's "The Disenchantment of the World," and i thought this quote captured what I found so moving and interesting about both the movie and the film. here he's talking about the emergence of the monotheisms of the "axial age" and their new understanding of transcendence...

We were previously in an instituted system of the unchallengeable, where the embodied union of the invisible and the living prevailed, and beings were linked in a unique hierarchical chain joining humans to the Supernatural. This gap between terrestrial powers and the divine principle underpinning their superior status broadens inexorably and cannot be completely controlled by any power. Through it, we enter into the age of potentially unlimited, even if unrecognized, questioning. There is now something permanently beyond the reach of power: what sustains power will soon be able to be used against it…the rule of faith opposes the rule of law. The religious, going against its time-honored commitment to the original and unchangeable, now becomes movement, invention, history. The main practical effect of transcendence as a doctrine is to expose the belief system to dissidence, thus installing instability at its center. It condemns to change a system that passionately desires to remain the same.

movie and novel, i meant!

Rodrigues' insistence that "the truth" is universal affirms that point, but for me the inquisitor sees more clearly. the truth is western, ideological. whether the missionaries realise this clearly or not, their truth is a force for colonialism, it's the truth that leads to the atom bomb.

That last affirmation is one huge leap

Funny thing is that modern japanese society has similarities to christian customs just as say latin american indigenous cultures had similarities to christianity 500 years ago

What is missing from the film, due to time constraints and thematic restrictions i assume, was that this was the shogun operating under the bakufu, a (feudal) military dictatorship that obviously acted out of self interest; ie they sought advice from abroad to decide whod be the best trade partners and, with the influence of spain and britain, thought catholic missionaries would risk japanese govt stability and, furthermore, saw missionary work as trying to overthrow the japanese empire, as this was the information fed to them by rivals of the jesuits, the spanish mendicant order and the english protestants.

One way the shogunate dealt with this was by applying a cold, rigid logic to japanese indigenous beliefs, to control so called barbarians and shape japanese society in their favour as they conquered more territories, even though this rigid logic went against most japanese people's beliefs of the supernatural

On the face of it, it all makes more logical sense, but the japanese shogunate took advantage of this pragmatism and used it to undermine missionary work and killed thousands, and at the same time deterred japanese people's need for something that goes beyond the physical world for a brief period

Of course they nevertheless adopted other beliefs found in christianity/religion, just under their japanese "proprietary" model, under the rhetoric of "japanese-made" and "japanese uniqueness" (ie "we're trying to close off our island from the world so no one takes over us")

yes, i also can't remember whether Endo placed the events in the context of recent regime change, as this kind of persecution, from Rome to El Salvador and a million other places, tends toward the political.

there were a few funny moments i thought - like when the inquisitor lets out that long sigh, way longer than you expect & it looks like he's deflating

― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 18 January 2017 04:34

Yeah that was quite bizarre.

xp

one of the things I liked about the film was that it didn't overplay the political implications of the struggle between missionaries and governors, but it didn't hide them either, it resonated as much as the clash of faiths

xxp

late 1630s in the book (i think they arrived in japan in 1639) and they do mention tokugawa iemitsu in the movie iirc

which means it is set right at the time of the implementation of the seclusion laws

ive not read these wiki pages, so i cant vouch for their validity (the west gets asian/japanese history/info notoriously wrong sometimes), but for those interested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokugawa_shogunate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokugawa_Iemitsu

Issei Ogata, who played the inquisitor, gave a really bizarre lead performance as Hirohito in Alexander Sokurov's film THE SUN a few years ago.

Aw, I need to rewatch that soon. Great film!

i didn't remember that was him, or that he was in the ensemble of Yang's Yi Yi.

Not to derail the thread, but catching up on older Scorsese in preparation for watching this next week, and damn, he has made some bad films... Last Temptation of Christ is kinda horrible. Shutter Island not much better. Now watching Kundun. If Silence is as good as you say, or even half as good as you say, then his last three in a row is the best streak he has had in decades.

Also, as I write in my log what I watch, I've still written 'Scorcese' about 50% of the time.

Shitter Island

Jesus in this movie sounded like Liam Neeson's character speaking which was weird

― Neanderthal, Monday, 16 January 2017 22:21 (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm fairly sure the voice of Jesus is spoken by Ciaran Hinds who plays Father Valignano, Rodrigues mentor in the opening scenes, which makes sense but I can't seem to confirm that online.

I liked this, especially the first half. The second half seemed too long (and I know that length is part of the method) but it seemed to be ending over and over again. The major stumbling point for me was the unnecessary, inadequate and, at times, unpleasant use of cgi. The final zoom in, for example would have been much more elegant as a dissolve. I know that sounds a minor quibble but it was quite a big deal, for me anyway. Similarly the cgi stake-fire deflating the extremely effective and horrifying shot of the piled up bound bodies immediately preceding. Other cgi moments like the boats at nighttime seemed very fake and cgi additions like the mist on the boat scenes and even the heavy rain unnecessarily CGI enhanced during the scene where Kichijiro returns to the cell. Again I know these might seem like minor quibbles but diminish the very good images elsewhere. The film otherwise looks AMAZING IMO. The shots of them with those reed capes! Beautiful production design! Best shot in the film is the top shot of the Christians liaising amongst tall reeds in order to remain hidden. Subtle and beautiful.

I wish Driver had played the lead because his accent was better and Garfield's annoyed me pretty soon into it. Everyone had to do an "accent" but, apparently Neeson didn't get that memo.

I'm a designer, theatre design, so I know I focus on those details.

i didnt even notice the fake mist

i do know that depending on how the day looked the filmed different scenes

scorsese mentions specifically that they took advantage of the natural mist in taiwan when it was there but had no idea they had added more of it

Driver in starvation-diet mode really looks like he stepped out of an El Greco.

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 17 January 2017 17:32 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes! Perfect. In his final scenes they accentuate his emanciation with body paint. And it wasn't very good body paint.

I know I'm beating a dead horse here.

Maybe I'm wrong about the mist. I watched an extra on The Social Network DVD about the filmmaker adding cgi "cold breath" in outdoor scenes for the movie and it looked like a similar effect but I could be wrong.

there was a 20-minute interview with scorses after the movie and he mentions some of the filming they did, and he mentioned using the environment in its natural state

Ok. I think they added but I'm possibly wrong.

not saying youre wrong though just that i couldnt notice the mist cgi

the fire did look pretty fake so i know what youre saying

rly feel u re: cgi, jed; it is something he has a weirdly loose handle on thru the last few movies, resorting to various boring digitalisms w/o any real reason
last shot def did not need christopher nolaning

I know, right?

apparently Neeson didn't get that memo.

the Big Star pass (Redford, Out of Africa), It sort of made Neeson more alien tho.

Mist scenes def called to mind Mizoguchi, as i recently rewatched Sansho.

one of my favorite shots was in the beginning: when hinds, garfield & driver descend the stairs shot from above & they move in unison across the screen

the christians hiding in the reeds, too... beautiful detail

Garfield's accent was one of the things that did grate on me simply because it was so lazy. not that it's an easy one to do, but it just sounded like he was doing generic "foreign guy accent" at times.

he had A+ hair & facial hair tho

for sure

yeah, the hair was too good, but obv partly meant to evoke many Hollywood Jesuses or even Dafoe's

i don't see Driver doing the Garfield role, maybe Ben Whishaw. but Garfield was generally better than i expected.

he had A+ hair & facial hair tho

― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl),

always

yeah i had no beef w garfield at all, has a very good idk "sensitivity" - driver was well suited to the more pragmatic of the two roles

win win all round, basically

Liam didn't have an accent because it went with his faith when he apostatized

whishaw would be interesting in garfield's role. nice call morbs

def mizoguchi vibes, sort of just as a card played periodically, tho, i think - one of the things that was so interesting abt this was its textural resemblance to WOWS, almost a kind of chaptered collage of different tones & feels

thought nicholson was great as the grand inquisitor

ps hey ryan did this movie strike any thin red line notes for you ?; some of those early + verdant chapters put me in mind of it a lil & honestly suggested a different presentation of the material for me

i got some total TTRL vibes, especially the beginning with these interlopers approaching seemingly peaceful foreign land by sea, w/this menacing unknown there in the green.

some of the narration too of course, similarly dreamy but a little bit more on point

also i am impressed that scorsese co-wrote this adaptation, i guess i always forget that he's often a writer w/his scripts but then again this is his first screenplay credit since 'casino'.

ah that's v interesting. can't remember in which interview he talks through having to figure out the structure (nb making anybody using the word remake even more unbearable), the translation of epistolary text to voiceover & so on. i shd really look closer at what he wrote & didn't before this.

couldnt exactly say with TTRL vibes because, as i said in my initial post, i was kind of overwhelmed by this. i hope to see it again soon before it's gone and have a more measured/intellectual response. (i didnt even notice any cgi because i was so wrapped up in it lol.) i was really positive on WOWS and scorsese still really surprised me with this, to the extent it changes my perspective on the rest of his work.

re: garfield, accent aside i really liked him in this. his big rubber weepy face was ideal for the material and the character.

although like malick some of the most moving and interesting aspects of the movie are the points that push purely aesthetic notions of good taste to the edge (the image and voice of christ, the final shot).

I liked this, especially the first half. The second half seemed too long (and I know that length is part of the method) but it seemed to be ending over and over again...
― Acting Crazy (Instrumental) (jed_)

Had the opposite reaction. I was close to giving up on it around the one-hour mark--it was okay but seemed very familiar. I did laugh early on when they were being led to their "first Japanese" and it was shot like the Copa entrance in Goodfellas.

Everything picked up for me when Garfield was captured. Thought Issei Ogata and Tadanobu Asano, as was Neeson's pragmatic shrug when he reemerged. There isn't an ounce of religion in me, so there's nothing that moved me as much as De Niro and Pesci's accidental final meeting in Raging Bull, but neither did I feel let down, the way I have time and again with Scorsese the past 20 years.

Three music credits at the end, including Robbie Robertson. I know I drifted for a few minutes at one point, but I find that confusing...there seemed to be next to no music in this.

"Thought Issei Ogata and Tadanobu Asano were excellent..."

Garrupe is really not the pragmatic one ultimately, is he?

The Departed is pretty bad s well... This is not as bleak as preparing for the latest Woody Allen was, but man, I should have mixed some of the classics into all these newish ones.

*holds gun to temple*

Hey, I'll have fresh and informed opinions on Silence this tuesday, promise! I know you're dying to hear them, morbs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8FNsvkBJsQ

just watched a rough-arse dvdscr.torrent of this - absolutely loved it.

Don't really understand the dislike for Shutter Island.

not enough shutters IMO

it's a comically overblown genre exercise that bores more than it amuses, that covers it for me

Are you talking Shutter Island or The Departed now, nv? Kinda otm with both.

Shutter Island, don't think i've ever sat thru Departed from beginning to end

You don't need to bother with Departed, really. It's pretty much a comically overblown genre exercise that bores more than it amuses.

much like Fred

lol

Watching the Shinoda Silence in preparation for tomorrow, for some weird reason the Portuguese priests are talking English...

G Kenny:

In the interview book Scorsese on Scorsese, discussing his 1984[sic] film The King of Comedy, Martin Scorsese talked about his reaction to people telling him Raging Bull was so visually beautiful: “I decided my next picture was going to be 1903 style, more like Edwin S. Porter’s The Life of an American Fireman, with no close-ups.” An eccentric decision, arguably, but one that it takes someone who is both a cinephile and a cineaste to make. Scorsese then recounts Sergio Leone telling him at Cannes that The King of Comedy was Scorsese’s most “mature” film. “I don’t know if this was his way of saying he didn’t like it,” Scorsese muses. He continues: “[O]ver the years my friends and I have had a running joke about slow movies, where the camera doesn’t move, as being ‘mature.’ I read in the Village Voice that Jim Jarmusch , who made Stranger Than Paradise and Down By Law, said something like ‘I’m not interested in taking people by the hair and telling them where to look.’ Well, I do want them to see the way I see. Walking down the street, looking quickly about, tracking, panning, zooming, cutting and all that sort of thing. I like it when two images go together and they move. I guess it might not be considered ‘mature,’ but I enjoy it.”

It’s worth remembering that this portion of the book was recorded in the late 1980s, around the time that Scorsese was making Goodfellas. He has made almost twenty features since them, some fiction films, some documentaries. He has also aged, of course. So maybe he’s “matured” in ways of which that he’s not aware. I still believe he’s committed, as a filmmaker, to sharing his vision, the way he sees things, with the viewer. In his new film Silence he does so in a way that seems, at first viewing, rather different from his customary method. In terms of cinema style, it’s a movie whose story seems rather simply told. And that’s true. But the simplicity of the telling is the result of a remarkable distillation. Everything that Scorsese knows about filmmaking is in this movie. Nothing that is unnecessary to his vision of both the narrative and the questions that inform it—no, that fuel it, with a consistent restless passion—is included here.

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2017/01/the-strong-simplicity-of-silence.html

Lol, the guy who plays Father Ferreira is Tetsuro Tamba - Tiger Tanaka from You Only Live Twice - in whiteface. Speaking English, of course. Great film, though, hope Scorsese can match this.

they played some clips from that movie at Alamo Drafthouse before Scorsese's...looked pretty good!

There's some amazing images, and Toru Takemitsu contributes an awesome score, mixing renaissance style acoustic guitar with dissonant - and Japanese sounding, though I don't know what the instrument is - sounds. That score kinda explains the whole film. Also, it begins with a lengthy description of who the Jesuits are. People should check it out, it's really interesting. Weird ending though, I would be extremely surprised if Scorsese does the same.

Toru Takemitsu is awesome

Great film, though, hope Scorsese can match this.

I strongly suspect you've set yourself up to be let down. I say that as an expert in setting-yourself-up-to-be-let-down-by-Scorsese. Maybe I'm on the other side of that now, which allowed me to like this.

The endings are very different. I saw the Shinoda film in 2015 and I can't remember why I picked it up because I knew nothing about the film apart from the director doing some films I couldn't find.

I'm a bit worried, because I think guilt ridden Scorsese is my least favorite Scorsese. But watching all that 00's Scorsese underscored how big of a comeback Hugo and WOWS was for him imo, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed! A bit funny, though, with the Iñáriritu bashing upthread, that the film is shot by his regular cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto, who is kinda hit-and-miss.

Ok, no more speculating, I'll have watched this in 12 hours...

You don't need to bother with Departed, really. It's pretty much a comically overblown genre exercise that bores more than it amuses.

― Frederik B, Sunday, January 22, 2017 9:18 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

much like Fred

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Sunday, January 22, 2017 9:35 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

<3

departed is very gd, memorable + sinewy leo performance, damon great in asshole mode. nearly all performances in this movie just v fun to watch

I enjoyed this enough that when it comes to my local repository theater in a few months I'm gonna watch it again. Well, maybe enjoyed isn't the right word, but it was powerful.

i've sorta liked-to-loved all 21st century scorsese, i'd rank them thusly:

silence>wolf of wall street>departed>>the aviator>>gangs of ny>shutter island

never saw hugo

i would rank aviator pretty high, personally
need to rewatch departed & gangs

i like that ranking but might move gony to last after a recent re-watch. it is a strangely sloppy movie

Departed is just a great cop thriller, though i often think it was a mistake trying to elevate it slightly by including allusions to Whitey Bulger and I wish Nicholson's performance was a bit icier for the whole movie, like it is in the early '70s scenes. but overall it's great. I think it's a shade below WOWS because the latter is just so unrepentantly bonkers and has zero corniness. it's more up Scorsese's alley.

Gangs of NY is really stunning to look at and DDL is amazing (these days his performance is overshadowed by There Will Be Blood a few years later i think) and it's completely entertaining for most of its running time but it is pretty ridiculous and Cameron Diaz is just not very good here. i read somewhere Scorsese initially wanted Sarah Polley for her role but was overpowered by Weinstein's wishes?

a rewatch might make me switch up GONY and shutter island too. i don't remember anything really weak about the latter, it just hasn't stuck with me. but it's also the only scorsese from that list i watched on the small screen and i think that one would have been elevated by a big screen viewing.

AMC airs The Departed all the time. I don't mind it except when Nicholson's on screen. That performance grated on me then and it's worse now.

his performance is fun enough but i think the movie would hit a lot harder if he wasn't in Joker mode. or if another actor with a more low key menacing style was in the role. like if you took Ian McShane's performance in Sexy Beast and put it in The Departed, something like that.

GONY is way too Weinsteined. The story has been so script-doctored as to make the historical background almost incomprehensible. Which, for a film based on a non-fiction book, is pretty stupid. I'd doubt it could ever have been great, though, the sets are way too expensive for the bleak, loosely structured story it begs to be.

I need to watch The Aviator. Love the colors in the trailer.

The Departed spends way too long trying to be weighty, then loses it all in it's pulpy twists. It's one of those where the catholic guilt thing drives the whole thing off course.

aviator is p beautiful imo
the star stunt-casting is a bit distracting but leo + blanchett are great

All I remember about the one time I watch GONY is that I was bored and exhausted and wondering, when will this end?

DDL was the only great think I can recall in it, and he was on a different level from everyone else.

Maybe I'd enjoy it more now. At the time - right after it came out on DVD - historical dramas weren't my thing, I was really watching because it was a Scorsese flick and for so other reason.

Ugh, grammatical mistakes.

plz kids, stfu about all the burnable Scorsese films of the last 19 years, there are multiple threads for that

(and not one word about the docs)

fascist

sorry, easily distracted :)

Ok, so that was pretty amazing. It's definitely imbalanced towards the west, though, especially compared to the Shinoda version, but that's okay. It's great that the versions are different.

yeah, I don't expect a movie to aspire to balance so I wouldn't criticize it on those terms either. as a space to inhabit for 2 and a half hours it succeeds pretty well imo.

It just definitely tilts the novel in one direction, is what I meant.

sorry, I wasn't disagreeing with your premise, I haven't read the novel.

btw you better hurry to see this in the US, it's tanking; grossed a bit over a million on 1580 screens last weekend, and a sole Oscar nomination for cinematography is going to hasten its exit.

:(

the courtyard jail looked really comfy!

Watched twice in theatres and got a hold of a very nice screener rip yesterday. Can't wait to watch it again. I think it's one of Marty's best. Like top 10 even.

@NickPinkerton
Final word on Silence's popular "failure": America is a very Christian nation, except for when that Christianity asks you to do hard stuff.

Basically we just want to go to church in sweatpants.

@NickPinkerton
King of Comedy earned $2.5M on a $20M budget and just think of how forgotten and reviled that movie is today.

It's probably top five for me. But I'm no big Scorsese fan.

same here, his best since the 80s. shameful that this would be so ignored in comparison to Wolf Of Wall Street, which for me reflects all his worst qualities and i've no need to ever see again - and yet was nominated up its arse

Wolf of Wall Street probably top five for me as well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

the Osc^rs are a nearly pure negative barometer, as is the above poster

his next w/ DeNiro as a 74-yo hitman they will be comfy with

now i know this has basically bombed but as i read pieces like this one https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/02/steve-bannon-donald-trump-war-south-china-sea-no-doubt

In one radio show, used to promote an article incorrectly claiming that a mosque had been built at the North Pole, Bannon focused heavily on China’s oppression of Christian groups.

“The one thing the Chinese fear more than America … they fear Christianity more than anything,” he said.

i do find it interesting how it finally got bankrolled and made in the current climate.

p sure filming silence started long before (2015 maybe?) before trumps rise

but fwiw it was funded by fabrica de cine, a mexican production company. theyve done other xtian themed movies

as a majority in hollywood are democrats, left-leaning, or liberal, what wont surprise me is getting 1984 on the big screen

there was a whole labyrinthian scandal w/ producers when it fell apart last time, ppl went to jail as MS has said in interviews

thats nuts

link?

Eventually I was able to feel I understood enough of the novel to be able to make another attempt at writing it with Jay Cocks. That was in 2006. By that point, the legal matters, chain of title, and ownership issues were very complicated. Some of the people involved in Italy had been incarcerated.... I think the whole thing was finally made for $46.5 million. Actually it was made for 22. The rest of that money went to lawyers and lawsuits.

http://www.filmcomment.com/article/martin-scorsese-silence-interview/

my cinema is doing a season of all the marty & bobby films, considering going to all of it

pass on Cape Fear

haha oh yeah

dunno what i think of this, i didn't particularly enjoy it. some of its key drama -- doubt chipping away at rodrigues eventually swallowing him -- wasn't staged v well. no idea if this is intentional but i was struck how inarticulate he was; his japanese inquisitors had pretty good arguments!

the last act of his life in japan was a surprise, i'll give it that.

one of the previews was for the next of those 'god it not dead' movies. this thing didn't find its audience, did it...

sure it did! exactly the size audience an adult examination of faith and spirituality gets in America.

(the trailer was for that Sam Worthington-Octavia Spencer jawdropper, right? what church/greeting-card empire paid for that?)

didn't really see rodrigues struggling with "doubt" per se, but more like a conflict between an idealized or heroic version of his faith vs it's actual implementation. in some respects it's a bildungsroman.

hence the "pretty good" (and sort of unarguable on their own merits) arguments of his inquisitors. (like, i.e., something out of dostoevsky)

i appreciated how cynical they were, "it's just a formality" etc

(the trailer was for that Sam Worthington-Octavia Spencer jawdropper, right? what church/greeting-card empire paid for that?)

no, but that was there too! looks super terrible

my viewing companion was pretty unhappy with it, thought it was near unconscionable that we have a pro-missionary movie in the year of our lord 2017, that the japanese were either faithful bumpkins or autocratic torturers. i didn't really argue but i didn't think it was *that* bad, or not bad in that way.

last preview was for the nolan dunkirk, which, heaven help me, i'm kind of looking out for

yeah and it's remarkable how much of the high drama of the movie (if you are moved by it like i was) revolves around mere "formalities"--the kind of paradoxical difference/continuity between worldly professions of faith and the inner silent (ahem) presence of it. so it's totally cynical and yet indubitably true to say it's just a formality, who really cares? in a lot of ways this made me think of the climactic moments of 1984, in that an authoritarian regime of the kind in this movie is content with the formalities but a radically (perhaps fantastically) totalitarian regime
in Orwell needs to penetrate all the way down into the soul, so to speak, so that any possibility of resistance is not just quashed but impossible. so in some ways Silence dramatizes the emergence of a notion that there is something beyond the formalities, beyond the reach of power, as i quoted from Gauchet above.

also suffice it to say (as i think
i said above) that i think the movie/novel is highly ambiguous about missionary work--in effect the one "heroic" deed he performs is to renounce his mission.

not sure if Scorsese has discussed Black Narcissus in relation to this -- not sure that Silence is truly more "pro-missionary" than that film.

the final narration leaves rodrigues' final disposition a mystery but the final shot doesn't. what's the book like?

The final shot is an invention of Scorsese. In the book, he is begged to perform rites in secret, but he declares that it would be sacrilege to do so as a fallen priest - which is a nice paradox, kinda. Which the book screws up, and it's one part where it feels as if Scorsese doesn't really understand the argument that is put forth by the book.

i saw this and liked it. it's very hypnotic. how many times do we see the ritual of apostasy? and each time there's a slightly different consequence, a different dilemma.

there were several very modern-feeling grimaces or reactions from garfield and i laughed each time, WITH him though, i thought they were great touches.

interesting to have a movie whose hero is almost entirely impotent throughout. (i suppose there is a christian resonance to this)

i didn't notice any cgi, fwiw

xp. glenn kenny noted that the final shot is kinda the same as the last shot of citizen kane--perhaps with all attendant questions about it. my feeling now is that it's unambiguous but i'd be open to an interpretation that saw it as repeating the central dilemma (formality vs the real experience of faith).

interesting to have a movie whose hero is almost entirely impotent throughout

hence its kinship to... Life of Brian

lol

to me the dilemma in the movie is actually a pretty standard dramatic arc. when faced with this paradox: renounce the most important thing in the world to you, or see innocent people suffer, you must choose one, cackles the villain as he dangles spidey's girlfriend off one side of a bridge and a subway car full of civilians off the other - rodrigues redefines the dilemma by redefining his relationship with jesus. he enters into a purely personal relationship (jesus is actually speaking directly to him!!). in this way he can spare others (finally!) and this actually creates and strengthens his new relationship w jesus. that much is clear. his wife knows this, or something of it. she's kept this little cross all this time, squirrelled away in the roof or something. he doesn't care, it's not important to him, but SHE does. so she puts it in his hand. which in broad strokes is pretty consistent with what we've seen. but the way the scene is directed it's this big AHA! moment which seemed pretty hokey and out of keeping with what we'd seen so far.

That seems to be the reading that Scorsese is going for, but it's kinda the opposite of the point of the book - and I suspect a 1600s priest wouldn't feel the possibility of a 'personal relationship' with Jesus was at all possible if he had committed apostasy. That's the wonderful paradox: It's exactly because he believes too much in Christianity that he can't go on being a Christian. It's this weird argument, we're the Japanese are sorta the modern ones, claiming that it's all relative anyway, and it's just about power, and he can carry on being Christian inside, and Rodrigues claiming pre-modernly that truth is absolute, and that his version of Christianity is the only right one. And it does become a bit unbalanced when Scorsese then allows Rodrigues to co-opt the Japanese argument in the end.

i thought the Jesuits were generally comfortable with allowing outer lies to protect inner truths tbh

it was a little confusing. rodrigues is like "pfft, trample!" and then, well, not so much.

doing a season of all the marty & bobby films, considering going to all of it

― wins, Sunday, 5 February 2017 13:09 (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pass on Cape Fear

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 5 February 2017 16:25 (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha oh yeah

― wins, Sunday, 5 February 2017 16:26 (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

update: I'm now considering boycotting the whole thing after I learned they're showing them all EXCEPT new york new york

no idea if this is intentional but i was struck how inarticulate he was; his japanese inquisitors had pretty good arguments!

― goole, Tuesday, February 21, 2017 11:27 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

(i'm really sorry for writing so much. i'm at my worse past midnight though)

you have to remember that in a sense, endou's thought processes cannot be changed too much, so they come up in his characters, including rodrigues. while endou was a man of letters, having studied french literature, his japaneseness is deeply ingrained in him. the same way the place where we come from shapes and dictates our inner thought processes. that is to say, the japanese language has way fewer words than the english language. there are also highly specialized kanji that japanese people cannot read unless they have studied it. part of this is why the japanese interpret language indirectly. endou is writing for a normal japanese audience, and this audience lacks the words or, more accurately, kanji to articulate a western concept, so a lot of times it borrows latinate words, but very few japanese have a 'natural' understanding of them, even when written out in katakana

in terms of the arguments: i need to rewatch the movie again (i never got a chance and now i'll have to wait til it's out on dvd/bluray) but the way it's done in the book, the most poignant debate is performed between rodrigues and the interpreter (christianity vs a syncretic form of shinto)

taking each defence at its kindest interpretation, it sounds like a stale mate

endou does this weird thing where he writes in an extremely direct way embodying the beliefs of the character, and so as narrator, he feigns ignorance of japanese history. or rather, he does not impose his own beliefs when writing the dialogues and thoughts of each character. this helps keep the language simple, but it also makes the text overflow with profound symbolism that requires cultural and historical knowledge from the reader

in the book the interpreter gets upset as if irritated that he could not answer rodrigues's last question about who created gods if their belief system is based only on the material world. there is no creation story in shinto nor in the beginnings of buddhism in japan. st xavier corroborates this in his letters (page 333, if anyone's interested), in which he discusses his experiences with the japanese extensively. as a quick aside, there's an entire discussion missing on the history of the society of jesus. i would like to write more about how this isn't a pro-missionary film and explain why i think this is a long prayer, but this entire post is too long and i don't want to write a lot on ilx. but anyway...the cross-examination sounds like a stale mate to westerners because endou doesn't give background information. remember the book's readers were obviously mostly japanese at that time

endou assumes the reader understands what kami and imperial cult is. the japanese leaders imposed a religion that was half syncretic shinto and parts that they themselves made up ("state shinto") so they could rule over the peasants, who were the lifeblood of the japanese clans, because the empire relied on them to work the lands and the clans had not even conquered half of modern japan at that time. the most dominant clan from each time period claimed to be a descendent of gods, so they called themselves kami (gods), a belief that was supported by shinto monks. many 'good things' would happen to the villagers, the clansmen and monks told them, if they worshipped the kami

japanese peasants, as most peasants all over the world, such as latin american aboriginals with christianity, did not intuitively understand or know the concept of shinto. clans therefore used the influence of kannushi (kind of like shinto priests and priestesses, but i'm calling them monks) to convert the peasants. there was a huge overlap between political and religious power in ancient japan, so clansmen actually held high positions and leadership within religious ceremonies and events (as they were seen as kami), and basically forced peasants to praise them

so when rodrigues asks who created the kami (gods) and the interpretor, in the book, has no answer, this is one of those deeply symbolic moments that endou does a lot of. he doesn't really say it directly -- japanese communication is heavy on this. some would say there is a secret complexity in this plain and direct language. there's a sense that what most defines the self is that which is not mentioned. so the interpreter is actually upset that rodrigues is referring to the religion of imperial cult created, to reiterate, to actually dominate and control villagers and seize their lands. once the clans took away their 'right' to live in these barren places, the clansmen imposed forced labour, giving them benefits so long as they obeyed this new invention that westerners named state shinto. the benefits were essentially 'money', and it was taxed

a religion created to deceive the peasants into thinking they should work for the conquerers is not something new. but when it happened in, say, latin america, it was largely interpreted as corruption within the church and political figures/conquistadors. the difference is that these clans, the gods, are not generally seen as corrupt in history. i'm tempted to impart my own interpretation of japanese culture here, but it really is a difficult subject to parse

anyway, when japan first allowed christianity, christian peasants started understanding imperial cult and considered it untrue. the gods had created an environment where money was required and where peasants would inescapably struggle with it. villagers started asking "what god that is good would take so much money from us?" kind of thing. and this is when they ask rodrigues if there were taxes in heaven, and rodrigues, though thinking this was a silly question, informed them that, indeed, there is no such thing as taxes in heaven. they lived a very rough life and the promise of heaven made christianity more enticing, compared to the hardship that the imperial cult imposed

this leads into one of rodrigues's preoccupations that the villagers want to believe in heaven because their hardships are too much to handle. but as the japanese martyrs proved, and this is something ferreira is too scared to mention, their devotion to god went beyond the physical, and extended into a giving community rooted in self-worth and love

i also want to explain my views on ferreira's idea that when the 'japanese' think of god, they think of the god of the sun, which he calls 'their' god. he uses this as an excuse to justify being a non-believer. endou desires to stay so true to each character that he completely removes any third-person or narrator perspective that could hint to the reader what goes on in another given character's head. what i mean is, st xavier was the first to attempt to evangelize the japanese, but the japanese language did not have an equivalent word for god. it's worth mentioning the japanese language also did not have a lot of the words for a lot of buddhist concepts. so when st xavier introduced the concept of a creator, he did so by using a word they are familiar with (incidentally catholic priests did the same thing when converting latin american indigenous peoples) -- in this case, it was the word dainichi, which means the great sun, and does not really fully convey the meaning of the sanskrit vairocana (remember kanji was borrowed from the chinese). while st xavier used the word dainichi, the monks were happy to help, but when he changed it to deus they basically kicked him out of the country. so it was more of a clash between imperial rule, which was a mix of state shinto and politics, and christianity. in my opinion, in great part, the shinto monks were able to convert and convince the peasants because the catholic missionaries were never able to master the japanese language early on

the various strains of buddhism actually have no clear agreement on whether a creator exists. there are a few theories, and one makes reference to one ultimate god

that's a great post that makes me keener than ever to read the novel. minor quibble: my understanding is that there are (admittedly brief and obscure) creation myths in the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki. obviously none of them have canonical nailed-downness of the Bible tho.

this is good https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/IzanagiandIzunami

most accounts of "Shinto" I've read would say it's all syncretic, a long, muddled accumulation of various animist and ancestor-worship beliefs that is only solidified by the ruling classes using it largely for the political purposes you described. and "gods" feels like an under-translation of kami because of the huge number of people, things and places that can be kami?

only asking questions, I'm not assuming everything I've read is the only, precise truth. because I'm not a Catholic missionary.

(∞)- enjoyed all that, thanks.

"endou does this weird thing where he writes in an extremely direct way embodying the beliefs of the character, and so as narrator, he feigns ignorance of japanese history. or rather, he does not impose his own beliefs when writing the dialogues and thoughts of each character. this helps keep the language simple, but it also makes the text overflow with profound symbolism that requires cultural and historical knowledge from the reader"

The way the second part is written reminded me a lot of Flaubert. Free indirect discourse. It is really weird, because the first part of the book is first person, it's letters from Rodrigues, but then when the narration goes into third person it's like we actually get closer to him, because we get his thoughts unfiltered. It also makes the first person narration in the first part unreliable all of a sudden. None of the adaptations manage to replicate this effect, though both use voice over.

cheers lads

noodle, you're partially right about gods. the word god does not convey the entire historical meaning of kami. but as you say, shinto has pretty much solidified into a more concrete and specific concept, and so has the concept of kami. in modern shinto, there is little doubt that the japanese believe kami to be a deity, and one that a person transforms into in the afterlife. the kami are their ancestors, who also serve as spirits that protect people on earth, and this is why they pray and give offerings to them at the end of the year in a shrine. in addition to this, kami, historically, have also represented something like greek "major gods;" so there's a god of the sea, god of the sun, god of the mountain, etc. the japanese words for these deities include -gami or -kami in their nomenclature

also, there are a few things that remain ambiguous in the film that the book makes quite clear, but i want to rewatch it again before commenting on it. really anticipating this dvd release later this month

decent 2006 documentary on st francis xavier narrated by liam neeson

it starts to talk about the attempts at evangelizing japan at the 36 minute mark, if you don't want to watch the whole thing. it provides some context that helps when watching silence and understanding rodrigues and ferreira

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSZlAHaiLKk

I haven't written about this because my first screening in late December, to quote the voice-over in Network, was not auspicatory; so I watched it again this week. Agree it's Scorsese's best in two decades, since The Age of Innocence at least.

The first hour is the weakest, as if Scorsese were distracted by exposition. The heart of the movie was the imprisonment and subsequent interrogations. The idea that to save a life you have to compromise your personal relation to the Lord comes up in Montaigne and is certainly something I've thought about a lot, and I appreciated the film's even-handedness; it suggests that Rodrigues may have remained Christian by abjuring public displays and listening, as that lovely voice-over quote alluding to Elijah in the desert, to the still small voice. The film understands Christianity's savage record of evangelism -- it's steeped in it -- while accepting the savagery with which the shogun rule had o repel this incursion.

I also appreciated the shot/reverse shot set-up -- Marty didn't absorb Japanese ci-ne-mah. He understood that the novelist is a Japanese man writing about Portuguese men grappling with Japan. It's way closer to Pasolini than Mizoguchi -- and closer to The Last Temptation of Christ than I thought.

tfw u been seein your man for over a year but he wont apostatize 4 u pic.twitter.com/ouhIolB0kF

— Peter Labuza (@labuzamovies) May 13, 2017

got all the feels now

Scorsese responds to a review in the TLS with a defense of cinema aesthetics:

“In a book”, writes Mr Mars-Jones, “reader and writer collaborate to produce images, while a film director hands them down.” I disagree. The greatest filmmakers, like the greatest novelists and poets, are trying to create a sense of communion with the viewer. They’re not trying to seduce them or overtake them, but, I think, to engage with them on as intimate a level as possible. The viewer also “collaborates” with the filmmaker, or the painter. No two viewings of Raphael’s “Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints” will be the same: every new viewing will be different. The same is true of readings of The Divine Comedy or Middlemarch, or viewings of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp or 2001: A Space Odyssey. We return at different moments in our lives and we see things differently.

I also disagree with Mr Mars-Jones’s contention that any adaptation of a novel into a film can only amount to a “distortion” or an “exaggeration overall”. Of course, in one very important sense, he is correct. Alfred Hitchcock once told François Truffaut that despite his admiration for Crime and Punishment, he would never have dreamed of making a film out of it because in order to do so he would have needed to film every single page (in a sense, this is what Erich von Stroheim tried to do when he adapted Frank Norris’s McTeague as Greed). But sometimes, the idea is to take elements of a novel and craft a separate work from it (as Hitchcock did with Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train). Or, to take the cinematic elements of a novel and create a film from them (I suppose that this was the case with certain adaptations of Raymond Chandler’s novels). And some filmmakers really do attempt to translate a novel into sounds and images, to create an equivalent artistic experience. In general, I would say that most of us respond to what we’ve read and in the process try to create something that has its own life apart from the source novel.

http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/film-making-martin-scorsese/

can't believe Adam Mars-Jones has spouted some moronic bullshit

he's new to me

he's a middling lit crit over here who is easy enough to ignore except when he writes think-pieces about his incomprehension of how cinema works, apparently

Really loved this, altho the more i turn over the particular issues of faith and freedom that it wrestles with in my mind, the more they seem unique to the often ridiculous and unique vagaries of catholicism, which are not really present in a lot of other religions (the glorification of suffering, the idolatry/emphasis on outward displays of faith, confession, proselitizing, etc). Still a beautiful and p fascinating film when u accept it on its own terms.

Unique i say

I never wrote about this at length, and while I have reservations I was ravished by it too, its concentration and severity most of all.

i probably sound like a catholic or christian apologist (im not a christian) but i think the movie becomes immeasurably richer if you take stock of what a revolutionary idea christianity was and is in certain contexts--what an incredibly disrupting force it was (for good and ill) and its radical revaluation of human life. seen in that context an image of a japanese peasant refusing to trample (refusing to renounce the meaning and value of his/her own life) and facing actual fucking crucifixion in the ocean, being burned alive ("on fire with faith"), or drowned at sea becomes incredibly powerful--to me anyway.

― ryan, Sunday, January 8, 2017 3:34 PM (eleven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

gd post

i wish that idea came thru more somehow but idk how itd be done

the '71 film is showing at NYC MoMA today and Sunday (albeit in 16mm, which means that's all they could get)

https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/4282?locale=en

Checked it out of the library to rewatch on this fine holiday weekend.

rewatched the original recently and have to say Scorsese did an incredible job, and maybe improved upon it. begs the question, when he can make films like this, why does he have to make things like Wolf Of Wall Street?

so he can follow it up w/ a billion-dollar deNiro-Pacino film

The Shinoda film looks beautiful but is destroyed by one of the worst performances I have ever sat through. Amazingly the guy seems not to have had a role since.

, why does he have to make things like Wolf Of Wall Street?

the grosses of WOWS and Shutter Island paid for the flop of Silence. I don't see the big deal -- dat's Hollywood, Jack.

Oh and Endō co-wrote the screenplay but did not sanction the ending Shinoda chose

I wish the novel were longer.

I was fine with the movie not being longer.

the movie was great though

Yep.

i like that the novel is compact tbh, a virtue that more writers should embrace

I've not seen this, but every time I see the thread title it reminds me of the Paul Mooney review of The Last Samauri.

i’ve been thinking about this movie lately

maybe need to see it again

My boring opinion is it's my favourite he done

It's one of his best

final shot is all-time

I'd totally given up on him after hugo and the wolf of shite street, then he directs two career-best movies in a row.

the Masahira Shinoda version is up there with Marty's too

I tried watching this but bailed out halfway through. Somewhat tedious.

Give it another chance.

I just read the entire thread, it was ten times more enlightening than watching the film.
Scorsese's interest in religious topics is painfully sincere and obvious but I don't think his skill set matches his aims, none of the three religious films he's made work. The final shot in this is warmed-over Tarkovsky.
Stylistically, Scorsese tries to restrain his expressionist tendencies, but what results looks like a particularly slow "serious" European co-production directed by someone like Roland Joffé.

How does the painful sincerity and obviousness show itself in Silence?

I’m sure I said this earlier in the thread, but Silence moved me.

top 5 Scorsese

How does the painful sincerity and obviousness show itself in Silence?

Just that it's obvious that he's working over deeply considered beliefs and trying to communicate them, the film wasn't made just to win a bunch of awards or to kill time.