«I am still looking for the right way to tell the figure of Jesus in the contemporary world. If I still have some time, I would like to make one last attempt ». Martin Scorsesea guest of the Taormina Film Fest, has opened a long and dense story about the deep bond between her cinema and faith by communicating its last great project. The director then said that the idea of making a film about the Gospels has accompanied him since the 1960s, when he imagined shooting in black and white in the Lower East Side, in the alleys and peeling buildings where he had grown up. But the vision of “The Gospel according to Matteo” by Pasolini pushed him to stop, to reconsider everything. «I said to myself: I stop. I had to find another way, “he explained. That way would have passed many years later for “The last temptation of Christ”therefore for “Silence”and today perhaps it will arrive at a new project inspired by Shsaku End’s book “Life of Jesu”. “That book has struck me deeply. I could start from there. I still give me six months to understand how to deal with it ».
In the meantime, Scorsese has announced that he is creating a series dedicated to the saints, shot between New York, Serbia and Morocco. It is a project built with the screenwriter Kent Jones and the producer Matt Manning-Meschin, with the involvement of Father James Martin, a consultant already in Silence, and of intellectuals such as the signature of the New York Times Paul Elie and the writer Mary Karr. The episodes, each of just under an hour, are dedicated to figures such as Santa Lucia, San Paolo, San Pietro, Maria, San Patrizio, and are followed by meetings and debates. “It is a way to explore spirituality in a personal, non -dogmatic way, and open a space of dialogue,” he said.
In his story, the director also retraced his religious formation, speaking of the continuous presence of Catholicism as a hidden but very powerful trace of his cinema. “I grew up in a context where there was organized crime, and if something was wrong, they made you pay. The stories and characters I chose to tell always had to do with that world I have lived. The Catholic and spiritual path is the backdrop to all my films, because it represented something important for me, especially in my childhood ».
Faith, for Scorsese, has never been an ideology, but a profound meaning of the mystery. “The sense of the love of God has never abandoned me. Even in Mean Streets it is there: shame, fault, pride, but above all the duty to be custodians of each other. Live in a world of sin, and they tell you that it is enough to go to the church an hour to atone. But that’s not the case ». The memory of the old cathedral of San Patrizio, where as a boy he found comfort was very touching. There he met a young priest who changed his life: «He spoke to us differently, he made us read James Joyce, James Baldwin, Graham Greene. A world opened me. I wanted to be like him. I did a year of the seminary, but then I realized it was not for me. The vocation, after all, is to understand who you really are, “he added with philosophy. A fundamental part of the story concerned the Five Points, the popular neighborhood of New York where Scorsese has grown and which considers the true symbolic matrix of his cinema. «When I went around I saw march houses, cemeteries, the markets where they killed chickens in front of you. It was a violent, real world. The gangster for me was natural. The former were Irish, then the Italians came, then the Puerto Richakes. Each new group undergoes refusal and conflict ».
Just in this context one of the most identity films of his career is inserted, ‘Gangs of New York’that the director calls “my western”. «If I had to indicate my western movie, it would be just that. But it is not a classic western: it is a metaphor in my neighborhood, of the Five Points. There is everything: violence, survival, belonging, marginalization. It is the world I come from ».
According to Scorsese, the conflict is inevitable in every society where a group already installed is confronted with the arrival of another as happens in the United States: «Within an already formed community, every different culture that arrives and tries to integrate generates a clash. It is a story that repeats itself. It happened to Christians and Jews, as well as in Alexandria of Egypt and Sicily itself ». Turning ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ in Oklahoma, he touched how deep the social wounds are in some American communities: «I found myself in the midst of a split company. I understood how bad these divisions do. Subogroups are formed, and then it takes generations to remedy the wounds. To create a united community it takes time, consciousness, culture ».
New York today is almost unrecognizable in this context: «When I go around in the car sometimes I don’t even know where I am. Only a few roads are familiar with me. The rest has changed, “he explained.
In closing, the director wanted to send a message to the new generations: «I think we can get to a deeper truth. But young people growing in violent environments often don’t realize it. They must be helped to understand. They must be supported ». Then a reflection that sounds like a synthesis of his human and spiritual path: «We must pay close attention to anger. It can also be right, it can push you to act. But it can also consume you “