Paramount earlier this week announced that December 23 would be the release date for Silence, Martin Scorsese’s long-gestating movie about Portuguese Jesuits on a mission to spread Christianity in Japan.
The studio will put out the film, which Scorsese began developing a quarter-century ago, in limited release right before Christmas and then widen it in January.
The move should gladden the hearts of the many fans of Scorsese, who has been working in surprising registers lately. While returning to a signature street vibe with The Departed a decade ago, he’s in recent years also switchbacked to a 3-D family film in Hugo, a baroque head-trip of a thriller in Shutter Island and a cult-of-personality black comedy in The Wolf of Wall Street.
Silence pushes him out further — aiming, by all accounts, for a meditative and spiritual vibe in keeping with his Dalai Lama exploration Kundun nearly 20 years ago.
Novel
Starring a glittery cast that includes Andrew Garfield, Liam Neeson and Adam Driver, the movie is certain to investigate larger questions of loss and religion in keeping with its source material, Shusaku Endo’s 1966 novel. (Scorsese began shooting the film in January 2015 and has been deep in post-production in recent months.)
But if the Silence release news makes cineastes happy, it also could make those behind competing awards contenders nervous. Scorsese has been on an Oscar streak like few others. Five of his last six films have been nominated for best picture; only Shutter Island, in 2010, didn’t make the list. The Departed, of course, won picture, director, editing and adapted screenplay.
Whether Scorsese’s move to more ruminative territory will fly with voters remains to be seen. (Kundun wasn’t nominated for best picture.)
But the goodwill for the director, and the mature questions he asks, could help make it a favourite. In a season that is seeing La La Land bring back the musical, Denzel Washington take on August Wilson and Ang Lee tackle patriotism and the military, a spiritual Scorsese is one more potent X-factor.
