PULP & POPCORN

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Sometimes, he is drawn to a subject that has an added level of appeal to
people, and you get a film like The Departed or Wolf Of Wa! Street, movies that work as
big entertainments that also happen to be incredibly well-crafted. There are films of
his that are far less beloved but no less beautifully made, and I feel like those are the
films where he really steers head-on into questions about faith and suffering,
concepts that are cornerstones to his beliefs. When he first picked up Shusaku
Endo’s 1966 novel Silence, it must have flattened him. It feels almost tailor-made for
him in many ways. It is the story of the Jesuit missionaries who risked life and limb
to bring Christianity to Japan, where it was completely illegal during the 17th century.
In many of his films, Scorsese has featured protagonists who are willing to accept
great pain and who suffer to accomplish things. One of his funniest films, A"er Hours,
could be read as a wise-ass take on the tale of Job, one man being humbled by
powerful forces beyond his understanding, for no real reason whatsoever. Travis
Bickle and Rupert Pupkin exist on a continuum with Max Cady and even Willem
Dafoe’s Christ, and in Silence, Scorsese has found a perfect lead character to allow
him to pursue those thematic interests.
It is interesting that Andrew Garfield would be asked to star in both Hacksaw
Ridge and Silence in the same basic time period. Both films deal with faith and
violence and what we’re willing to withstand to defend the things that matter to us,
but the way they get to those themes couldn’t be more different. Mel Gibson is a sort
of raw force filmmaker. He doesn’t have a subtle bone in his body, and he doesn’t
care. He will make his points, and he will make them very, very loudly. Scorsese,
however, doesn’t jump right to the punchline because, as a filmmaker, he’s far more
curious about the small things that make us who we are. Both films are filled with
suffering, but only Scorsese’s film dares to explore how there may be grace in that
level of suffering. When his boyhood priest was asked what he thought of Scorsese’s
seminal work Taxi Driver, he responded, “Too much Good Friday, not enough Easter
Sunday.” By that metric, this film is almost entirely Good Friday, and I think it’s a fair
point to debate. Is there a point to this much suffering and sorrow in the name of
faith? Or for some people, does the suffering ultimately even become the point? The
final shot of Scorsese’s film will not offer up any easy summation of the journey that
leads there, and that seems very intentional.