It is often the case that, no matter how far people may stray, faith is the last thing to flicker out.
Martin Scorsese has coming out a streaming series on four saints: John the Baptist, St. Sebastian, St. Joan of Arc, St. Maximilian Kolbe.
The trailer is intriguing, but I am apprehensive.
I refused to see his movie version of the ghastly novel by Shusaku Endo’s book Silence. I wrote about that HERE.
There is a hollywood tendency. If something or someone is holy, they have to do knock it down. It’s as if they can’t stand that something simply be good. They have to besmirch in some way, as Peter Jackson did in his LotR with Aragorn and Faramir. So, I am apprehensive about what Scorsese has down to these saints.
John the Baptist
Sebastian
Joan of Arc
Maximilian Kolbe
All four are martyrs. Is there another common thread?
Loading ...
All were persecuted by governments kinda, so I’d expect an ‘authoritarianism bad’ i.e. ‘orange man bad’ kind of subtext (because Trump (woot woot) is more authoritarian than the left *sarcasm*).
Jeanne is my confirmation saint so I’m going to avoid it, it’ll infuriate me too much. Especially if they try to turn her into a champion of republicanism, an idea so insanely anachronistic that the press would probably call it ‘bold’ or ‘provocative’.
Love Scorsese, but sometines I want to slap him.
from the look of the trailer i wonder if he’s going to suggest that these saints are insane: the Baptist certainly looked it in the trailer and his mode of life was far outside the norm, there have long been accusations as to St. Jeanne, to an outsider St. Maximilian’s self-sacrifice would not seem to be the act of a sane man. i don’t think anyone knows that much about St. Sebastian, so pretty much anything goes there.
The trailer makes the film look good but I share Fr. Z’s wariness. The handful of Martin Scorcese movies that I have seen — Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Raging Bull and Cape Fear are what come to mind — all have a distinctive sort a malign spirit to them, so much so that I have a categorical dislike of all things Scorcese. What I have heard of Silence and The Last Temptation of Christ, neither of which I have seen, reinforces my opinion of his movies.
Terrence Malick is at the other end of the spectrum. It is evident from his movies, which are extraordinarily beautiful and compelling, that he loves God. I consider Malick to be one of the greatest spiritual artists alive today. He has a movie coming out in 2025 called The Way of the Wind. It is based on the parables of the New Testament.
Never really understood why Silence is problematic in this aspect; it’s easy to criticize the apostasy that a character did but is it not out of the repel of possibility that someone would mentally “break”?
Not excusing it at all, someone of us in life think we can do things better but when you’re faced in that situation, will 100% of people hold true? Unfortunately not, part of human nature and the struggle, for some unfortunately they can’t just mentally cross the “kill me for my faith I don’t care” when it becomes “real”
I was actually very moved and inspired by Silence, especially by the plight of the Japanese Catholics who clung to the Faith in the face of such brutal persecution. The apostasy part is difficult but I could understand someone breaking (or faking apostasy) in order to save other people from being brutally tortured. It’s a tough situation to be in.
I’ll most likely watch this show on the saints and see what it’s like.
When I read silence, several years before the movie, like Orual, I was very moved by the novel.
1. It emphasized the fact that priests are fulfilled in their vocation when offering the sacraments.
2. The priest protagonist was put in the position of having to hear the confession of the troubled man who had betrayed him.
3. The priest was also put in the thankless position of watching his Japanese congregation being tortured to death. My reaction is what would I do? It is entirely reasonable to think that some priests would respond like the one in the novel, while others would not renounce their faith. Clearly the end of the novel shows he was very ashamed of himself. I think this was the way the Japanese were finally able to crush the open practice of Christianity—the priests never recanted their faith when only they were tortured.
4. The novel The Samurai is just as if not more interesting. In it the protagonist realizes he is really a Christian ( instead of a fake for business reasons), when comparing his faithful servant with Christ. He goes on to plead guilty to being a Christian.
It has been years since I read these, so forgive me if I have gotten some of this wrong.
I think Endo was buried with a copy of his novel Deep River, which I also recommend even though I suspect he is not quite orthodox. But I prefer to presume this is not with full cooperation of his will.
What bad did Peter Jackson do in LotR with Aragorn and Faramir?
I didn’t notice it.