Silence (2016)
Silence (2016)
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Screenplay by Jay Cocks and Martin Scorsese
Based on the novel by Shusaku Endo
Rated R
Silence is known as one of Martin Scorsese’s great passion projects that he has had in the works since the 1990’s and has only recently got it made. The other passion projects include The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and Gangs of New York (2002) and I can say without a trace of hyperbole that Silence is the best one. You would think that given his renown as one of the greatest filmmakers on this planet (a sentiment which I share) who has given us films like Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), The Departed (2006) and Hugo (2011) to name a few you would think he would have no problem getting this project rolling right? Well, you would be wrong. Not only has this film been in development hell for at least 3 decades, apparently Hollywood itself tried to persuade him not to make it. And it seems that there were three or four actors who turned it down because they didn’t want to be involved with the films spiritual subject matter.
Um…what?
In the end, Scorsese had to get this film independently financed with actors (and I suppose the crew as well) working for scale just to get it made. What we are left with is a genuinely great if somewhat unconventional film that I fear will be overlooked for a while…(*sigh*).
Sebastião Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver) are Jesuit priests who take upon themselves the perilous task of going to Japan in the early to mid 1600s to look for their mentor Father Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam Neeson) upon hearing (and disbelieving) that he apostatized after being tortured and to see what they can do to help the faithful in Japan in any way they can. The two priests heard that the persecution of Christians was intense after the Christian religion being outlawed by the Tokugawa Shogunate but after arriving they see how perilous it is.
Scorsese is among the small handful of filmmakers left on this planet that still continues to make quality work with very few creative missteps. Even at the age of 74, he still continues to go strong with no sign of stopping. And he has crafted a challenging film about a priest (the film primarily follows Rodrigues) suffering a crisis of faith while in the service of god in a land where it is not welcome. To put it another way, he directs the hell out of this film.
The film is exceptional at keeping the audience on the edge of your seat by really putting you in with the priests and the faithful in all their peril. They can only conduct services for villagers in the dead of night, the priests have to stay hidden in a hut or other places during the day without making a sound, and any and all iconography relating to Christianity has to remain hidden. I was waiting with baited breath throughout the course of its 161-minute running time to see what was going to happen to these people. I was kept in constant suspense. And not the usual suspense that one would expect. As its title suggests, Silence is quite a quiet film. The way the priests and the faithful have to go about in secret and as quietly as possible only serves to make the fear of getting caught all the more palpable. And when you do see some of the faithful be tortured (although not graphic) it shows it as very matter of fact and doesn’t rely on clichés like overly dramatic music cues or other melodramatic methods to elicit sympathy from the audience.
The performances from everyone involved is the primary element that sells it. The biggest challenge for the priest Rodrigues is being put before the Daimyo where he is interrogated about the faith and pressured to renounce it to save the faithful. The scenes in the prison cells and in interrogation are carried primarily with dialogue but it’s directed with a true master touch that is never boring. I was drawn in from the first frames and kept me glued to my seat. Not many movies have that effect on me.
This is one of those extremely rare mainstream films that looks at spiritual/metaphysical subject matter in the best way possible. And by that I mean spiritual subjects in film work best when it is being examined within the context of the story. Andrei Tarkovsky and Robert Bresson practically elevated that to an art form with Andrei Rublev (1966) and Stalker (1979) by Tarkovsky and Au Hassard Balthasar (1966) and Diary of a Country Priest (1950) by Bresson. To explain this idea further, Andrei Rublev was about a medieval painter who struggles to make art that is uplifting to the spirit during the middle ages when Tartar invasions and loads of other troubles seldom make the act of creating uplifting art ideal. But the theme of the film was things that are beautiful and spiritually worthwhile are born from adversity. That is a spiritual idea and one that is found in the scriptures. While we do have companies like PureFlix and people like the Kendrick brothers that release gospel based films, the problem I find with them is that they too often make films that already preach to the converted and while they do find financial success where is the artistry (or subtlety for that matter)?
With all that said, while Silence acts as a tribute to the Japanese Christians that suffered for their faith, it displays priests (primarily Rodrigues) going through a crisis of faith. Think about this. When priests are serving in a country that has outlawed their very existence, the government officials are going to extremes to get the faithful to abandon their faith by means of torture and death, what does one do when one thinks that god is doing nothing? How does one continue to keep faith in the face of so much adversity? What does it mean to really have faith and how does one truly practice it? I won’t go into spoilers but I will say that the film addresses these in a realistic manner and it ends in a logical but satisfying manner.
Visually this film is certifiably beautiful. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, who shot Scorsese's previous film The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), had his work cut out for him. Most of the film takes place outdoors and he and Scorsese strived to make Japan (actually it was shot in Taiwan but you could have fooled me) look almost heavenly especially in contrast to the awful trials of faithful Christians. With the visuals working in conjunction with Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing, the film flows naturally from one scene to the next with virtually no hang-ups. It was originally reported that this film would have a 190+ minute runtime before it was cut down prior to release to its current length. Whatever cuts were made were all the right ones because the pacing is perfect and thus never got the sense that there were things missing or needed.
As I eluded to before, this film was more or less ignored by not only award season shows, but by general audiences. Now I don’t want to go on a rant here but I will now reiterate for those who missed the previews, I hate award season. It is just an excuse for celebrities to get together and pat themselves on the back and (whether they are truly aware of this or not) congratulate themselves on their films that usually collapse under the weight of their own narcissism (you know…like most American independent films) and how beautiful, rich and much smarter they think they are than you. But if there is a benefit from award season hype is that is does help many films get noticed. The advertising that these awards caliber films produce tell people to see them and thus the films get good box office and bolstered reputations. It certainly worked for La La Land (2016). Silence seemed to have been released rather late in the award season time line (so to speak) and thus it wasn’t nominated for the major awards and by extension the advertising was lacking. It was more or less been shut of Oscar consideration due to such misfortunes.
Another angle that could add to this film being ignored is Hollywood’s overreliance on blockbusters. It seems that if a project is not a sequel, remake, based on a comic or other related things it will canceled faster than a Joss Whedon TV show. Don’t get me wrong. I love me some blockbusters be they some superhero films or what not. I can thoroughly enjoy films from Chuck Norris in Invasion U.S.A (1985) or a cerebral work of art like The Sky Crawlers (2008). What I’m getting at here is that Hollywood seems to be afraid of trying to make anything remotely new (by new I mean something that doesn’t print them money annually like Marvel films). Scorsese as well as other talented masters of the medium are lamenting the fact that the atmosphere of creativity they have more or less enjoyed over the decades is continually disappearing even to the point that the cinema (the kind that would allow them to truly practice their craft and not just create things solely for profit that are more or less disposable like a lot of big budget extravaganzas) they love may be going the way of Blockbuster video. Exaggeration? Perhaps. Audience’s shrinking attention spans, the increasing prevalence of video games and other factors may play into it as well but that’s another discussion for another time.
Movies like this only come along when the moon is full and the planets align. It’s just about perfect as far as I’m concerned and given where the film industry is going we may not get a film like this for quite a while. Oh well. We need to cherish what we have and I’m just happy that Scorsese got to make this. It may be the kind of film where one would have to be of the patient disposition (to put one way) to get anything out of it. But if you are like myself who enjoys films that leave you thinking about them long after you see them, check this one out as soon as you can.
