Doomsday
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Post by Doomsday on Jan 16, 2017 13:49:42 GMT -5
Silence I was able to read the book Silence a while back. It's considered one of the most powerful testaments of the 20th century that explores not only faith but questioning faith in times of hardship, doubt and despair. It tells the story of a Jesuit priest Rodriguez (Andrew Garfield) who hears that his mentor Ferreira (Liam Neeson), a missionary in Japan, has apostatized and renounced God in the face of persecution. Rodriguez doubts these claims as Ferreira, an avowed Jesuit, would be willing to die for his faith rather than turn his back on it, and Rodriguez asks to be smuggled into Japan. Once there he sees firsthand how the Japanese Christians must pray and practice in secret or else be subjected to tortures and executions. Rodriguez travels, hides and preaches before finally coming face to face with his mentor, all the while questioning whether God hears him and if so, why he remains silent. Scorsese famously has been trying to make this movie for over two decades and is probably the best high-profile filmmaker for the job. As a guy who's gone on the record about his personal questions of this Catholic faith and as a filmmaker who uses Catholicism as a theme in many of his movies Silence is one that's right in his wheelhouse. The main difference though between Silence and the dumb, feel-good Christian movies that seem to do pretty well nowadays is that it asks questions rather than force feeds a 'Jesus loves me' message that those other kinds of movies do. In that sense Silence isn't just a movie for the devout Christian audience, it's a movie for anyone who has ever asked those serious questions regarding a higher power; why am I here? What's my purpose? If God exists, why is there suffering? And if God exists, does he hear my prayers? Does he even care? And what's even more, Silence doesn't try to give you an answer. It's a movie where religion plays a very important role but is also displayed as something that doesn't have all the answers. In fact, there might not even be a right answer. Rodriguez is ultimately faced with a decision that will challenge his very being; apostatize and renounce God, the thing that made him condemn his mentor, or watch other Japanese die. Rodriguez states in the movie that he delights in the day where he will lay down his life for his faith but never thought he would be faced with the decision to lay others lives down for his own sake. There's also a pretty intense scene, philosophically speaking, where Rodriguez is being interrogated by the Japanese governor and leader of the oppressive, anti-Christian movement. The governor tells Rodriguez that although he thinks he's bringing the 'truth' of Christianity to Japan, that truth isn't the same as that found in Japan. Rodriguez replies that the truth is the truth no matter where or when it is, otherwise it wouldn't be the truth. To me, the observation of the definition of 'truth' is an important discussion to have especially in a day when people say 'your truth might not be my truth,' implying that the 'truth' might have multiple meanings. As for the movie itself, I think Dracula put it best in his Hacksaw Ridge review that Andrew Garfield's talents become more suspect as time goes on. His lack of range and ability often rears its head in Silence as well but not to the degree that it does in Hacksaw. Although he's alone throughout much of the movie, it's clear that he's out of his depth when set alongside Neeson or even Adam Driver who plays a fellow Jesuit who accompanies him to Japan. The movie also clocks in at 161 minutes. If you watched Scorsese's previous effort Wolf of Wall Street, that movie pushes 3 hours and feels like it's about half that length. Silence is a slow burn, a dialogue heavy film that makes it feel like a slog to get through. Beyond that however it might be Scorsese's most important film in years and is certainly one of the most thought-provoking to come out in a long, long time. I actually had to let a little time go by for Silence to sink in. It's clearly a movie that Scorsese threw himself into and made with an intense passion for the story and subject. It challenges viewers by asking questions and as I said earlier is a movie whose themes could appeal to those of varying religious and philosophical backgrounds. It's also not a really a movie for the casual movie-goer and many who go for the 'Scorsese' name will probably find themselves bored. I for one found it to be a movie that I've been thinking about since I walked out of the theater despite the fact that I previously read the book. I can't say the same about any other movie I've seen this year.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Jan 16, 2017 14:08:36 GMT -5
As for the movie itself, I think Dracula put it best in his Hacksaw Ridge review that Andrew Garfield's talents become more suspect as time goes on. His lack of range and ability often rears its head in Silence as well but not to the degree that it does in Hacksaw. Although he's alone throughout much of the movie, it's clear that he's out of his depth when set alongside Neeson or even Adam Driver who plays a fellow Jesuit who accompanies him to Japan. I don't think he's bad here so much as he's miscast. Something about him just seems inherently modern and out of place in a period piece. Almost reminded me of Leonardo Di Caprio in Gangs of New York, so maybe there's hope for him as he matures. |
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SnoBorderZero
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Post by SnoBorderZero on Jan 18, 2017 18:58:34 GMT -5
Martin Scorsese continues to impress at 74 years old. He rose to prominence during the new Hollywood movement of the late 1960s and 1970s amidst a famous group of peers that included Steven Speilberg, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and Brian DePalma. In my opinion, Scorsese has clearly surpassed all of them and is the only one (maybe Spielberg but clearly he isn't making top-tier films lately) still creating incredibly bold and unique pieces of cinema. While known for his gritty crime dramas, Scorsese has displayed tremendous skill when moving outside of this genre and has added some unique films to his highly impressive resume. Perhaps some of his more interesting endeavors have revolved around his examination of religion where he undertakes a Bergman-like task of pitting his characters against the uncertainties of faith and the societal conflicts that arise from religion such as in The Last Temptation of Christ and Kundun. Both of these are viewed somewhat as oddities in Scorsese's resume, but in both films he deftly weaves very human stories of larger than life figures, Jesus and The Dalai Lama, grappling with the large issues that religion poses and the conflict that arises from those questioning their faith and power. Scorsese's latest film, Silence, finds him returning to the examination of religion, this time focusing mainly on man's relationship with God and asks the large questions regarding why God is silent in the wake of tragedy and why doesn't God answer the prayers of his most devout followers. Scorsese of course never succumbs to blatantly making a case for or against religion, but instead has created an emotionally stirring and challenging film exploring the themes that most faith-based films completely ignore. Silence is not a film for everyone and is a far cry from the wildly chaotic The Wolf of Wall Street, but those who are patient with this beautiful film will be greatly rewarded by one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.
Silence takes place in the 17th century where Portugal's Christian missionary efforts have been met with violent opposition in Japan by the ruling government. Christian priests and Japanese Christians are being tortured and murdered unless they renounce their faith, and swept up in all of this is Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson) who has recently apostatized much to the dismay of his former pupils Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garupe (Adam Driver). They plan a bold mission to journey to Japan and save Ferreira despite the high degree of danger that awaits them. Once reaching Japan, they are introduced to a small group of Japanese villagers who secretly practice Christianity. This eventually leads to disaster, and Rodrigues and Garupe are forced to split up in order to attempt to cover more ground to find Ferreira while also doing their best to protect the Christian villagers from further harm. Rodrigues is later captured himself, beginning a long and tortuous stay in captivity where he finds himself questioning his faith and wondering why God would allow such suffering to his followers who are risking their lives for their faith.
As I mentioned earlier, Silence is not a film for everyone. Scorsese has never been reluctant to make long films, but whereas works like GoodFellas, The Wolf of Wall Street, or Casino are able to work throughout their lengthy duration times due to their high energy and snappy characters, Silence is a film that certainly feels like its running time. Not in the sense that Silence is ever dull or overly long, but Silence's impact and power resonates from its drawn out sequences of Rodrigues' captivity and the gradual torture of those around him. We can feel the weight and time of their sacrifices, and as a result each time that the characters either hold true to their faiths or relinquish out of fear bears dramatic tension. All this time passes, and yet there are no miracles, no saviors. Where is God? Does he even care that we're dying for him? And yet Scorsese rarely lets the film divulge too much in religious analytical discussions and instead lets the silence, the absence of sensational action, to let the viewer shape their own frustrations and questions. It's bold, and certainly not the stuff of typical Hollywood or pandering faith-based fare, and yet the entire time it all works so well knowing you're in the adept hands of a master. Silence explores the idea that despite remaining faithful in religion, it shouldn't be followed blindly, and are there circumstances where God is testing Rodrigues to defy him for the good of others? Like Jesus, is personal sacrifice key in saving the lives of others?
While all of this may appear to be surface level musings on religion, Scorsese crafts these questions over beautiful images of Japan and black screens containing vivid sounds of nature that are incredibly absorbing. Japan's coasts and valleys are beautiful and teem with vibrant life despite the graphic violence happening in the name of persecution. The cinematography is very subtle for the most part, but there's a raw power to it all that channels the idea that despite God's silence, he is present in Japan. It's interesting in regards to Scorsese that for a man whose films are known for their highly innovative and flashy cinematography, from GoodFella's tracking shots to Raging Bull's rapid frame rate changes, how well he works in such intimate spaces here. It certainly reminded me a lot of Kundun, a film that narratively didn't stack up to its gorgeous technical prowess. There are beautiful images of closeups of religious artifacts draped in candlelight and darkness, the crashing of waves along the beach. It's not exactly in tune with Scorsese's general style, but it's very effective in placing the viewer into this time and the quiet volatility that ensnares it.
Silence will likely not be remembered amidst Scorsese's heavy hitters in his filmography. It's a long film that doesn't contain the brilliant characters, dialogue, and snappy cinematography that he's mastered. But Silence is also one of his most thought provoking and important films, certainly one of his most personal in relaying his own intrinsic struggles with his faith. It's a film for serious filmgoers that asks the questions Ingmar Bergman asked many times in his films, and does so with the typical mastery of Martin Scorsese.
8/10
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Jan 20, 2017 7:48:44 GMT -5
Silence(1/7/2017)
On October 22nd 1988 a fundamentalist Catholic group linked with the far-right National Front firebombed the Saint Michel theater in Paris, a theater that was showing what had become a highly controversial film called The Last Temptation of Christ. The film had been condemned sight unseen by everyone from The Vatican to Jerry Falwell to Pat Boone. People were picketing outside the home of the president of Universal Pictures, it was banned in numerous countries, and everyone involved received numerous death threats. A film this controversial would be the most famous thing that most Hollywood directors would ever be involved with, but for Martin Scorsese it almost feels like a footnote in an extraordinary career. That’s partly because, once the controversy died down, people were left with a rather complicated movie that isn’t easily digested. It’s certainly isn’t my favorite Scorsese film but I do see it as a pretty important movie in understanding Scorsese’s career. The weight of a traditional catholic upbringing has long been a central theme within his work and it’s something that he’s put a lot of thought into… so much thought that when he dives into it he often presents audiences with works that are a little over their heads. That’s probably what happened with Last Temptation even among audiences who were open minded, and perhaps something similar befell his under-rated 1997 film Kundun. Despite this, he has boldly dived back into those waters once again with another long awaited passion project: his adaptation of Shūsaku Endō’s novel Silence.
The film begins in Macau in 1639 where a pair of Jesuit friars named Sebastião Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver) have arrived from Portugal on a mission from the Vatican to assess the location of a priest named Father Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam Neeson). Ferreira had been on a mission to Japan in order spread Christianity there when the local government decided to crack down on foreigners meddling in their country. They banned Christianity within their borders and isolated the country from foreigners. The last word that escaped from the country suggested that Ferreira had cracked under pressure from the inquisitor (Inoue Masashige) and renounced his faith, rumors that Rodrigues and Garupe find difficult to believe given Ferreira’s previous fervor. The two insist on completing their mission despite the grave danger of sneaking into Japan and find a Japanese man living in China named Kichijiro (Yōsuke Kubozuka) who they opt to hire as a guide despite his clear alcoholism and questionable motives. Seeing how determined the two monks are to complete this mission, the head of the local church (Ciarán Hinds) agrees to let them go but warns them that there will be no further missions into Japan and that they are on their own while there.
It would be an understatement to say that this movie is dealing with some pretty heavy themes. The film’s Japanese setting will almost certainly draw comparisons to the works of Kurosawa, but its contemplative religious musings are in many ways closer in nature to the works of Carl Th. Dreyer and early Ingmar Bergman. It’s a movie that is very interested in exploring the power of faith and the internal struggles of its main character as he sees people suffer and die for their faith and contemplate whether a god that seemingly does nothing to answer his prayers is really worth dying for. Central to this struggle is the fact that this character is catholic rather than merely Christian and in a perhaps incidental fashion the movie makes a pretty good argument for the value of the protestant reformation. It quickly becomes apparent exactly how problematic Catholicism is when it’s removed from the institutional infrastructure that provides priests to forgive sins and deliver biblical interpretations and whatnot, and the more you think about it the more it feels like these “requirements” are only in place to give power to the central authority.
Roger Ebert once related a story of Scorsese telling him during the 70s or 80s that he “thought he would go to hell for violating the church's rules on marriage and divorce” before eventually rejecting the dogmas of the Catholic Church and becoming an agnostic. Given that this is at its heart a movie about the Rodrigues character’s inner turmoil about his faith and his increasing skepticism about the rules that he’s been tying his faith to, I imagine that this is a story that is deeply personal to Scorsese. It is not, however, a story that is deeply personal to me. As someone who dismissed my catholic upbringing at age 12 with no real struggle it is really hard for me to connect with this kind of person as he writhes in agony over the fact that god isn’t saving his flock from their enemies and the movie doesn’t do a whole lot to make me empathize with him either. That having been said I’m not sure how many practicing Christians are going to be able to connect with this either as, and I don’t want this to sound too condescending, but I feel like the people who are happily faithful tend not to think too deeply about the religions they practice and the finer points of faith. In many ways this is a movie that will be too contemplative and questioning for religious audiences that lack theology degrees and yet too focused on matters of faith to really connect with people who just sleep in on Sundays.
In many ways I do kind of feel ill-equipped to fully grasp this movie, at least on a first viewing, and I kind of have a hunch that the same goes for a lot of the critical community circa 2016 given how the consensus surrounding the movie seems to be of the “respectful but now overly enthusiastic” variety. I suspect that people would be a bit more eager to dive in had the movie spent more time discussing the political situation that led Japan to persecute its Christian population and gave a bit more time to the Japanese Inquisitor to explain his actions. I was certainly waiting to hear him at least lay out the argument that these missionaries very well could be used for the purposes of setting up the nation for colonization in much the way they were used against the indigenous people in the Americas and perhaps point out that this behavior is hardly unique to Japan (there’s a reason that the word “inquisition” is more closely associated with Catholic Spain than Buddhist Japan). That’s not to say I would have necessarily agreed with that line of reasoning given that freedom of religion and freedom of expression are core tenants of liberty, but the debate would have certainly interested me. However, I don’t think that debate is what interests Scorsese about this story and that’s certainly his prerogative.
At the end of the day you have to analyze the movie you’re given and not the movie you maybe wish you were given. The movie I was given is one that I desperately wanted to like more than I actually did. I really want there to be a place for serious weighty movies like this to thrive, especially in this larger budget level, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t going to find much of an audience, at least not during its initial run. You’ve got to feel sorry for Scorsese, he made the mistake of releasing a very adult movie during very childish times. And yet, I have to admit the movie didn’t really sing for me either despite the fact that it’s clearly very smart and quite well made. It’s definitely a movie that I plan to see again, repeatedly, and I also want to look up a lot of what’s been written about it by people who know more about its historical and religious context of what’s going on here. For not though all I can say is that it’s a quality movie that did not quite deliver that excited feeling I normally get from new Scorsese.
**** out of Five
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daniel
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Post by daniel on Jan 23, 2017 22:16:35 GMT -5
I liked this. I didn't love it, but I liked it. It all played out somewhat predictably, but the performances and the writing kept me engaged despite the long runtime.
8/10 - great movie.
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Nov 26, 2017 1:38:47 GMT -5
$5.96 on Amazon....at least it was. It may go back. But at that price, I figured it was worth a blind buy.
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Doomsday
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Post by Doomsday on Nov 26, 2017 13:21:27 GMT -5
As much as I admire it I’m not sure if it’s a movie that I’ll be watching frequently. It’s sorta like the Deer Hunter, not a lot of instances where I’ll be in the mood to kick back and pop that baby into the PS4.
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Nov 26, 2017 18:17:23 GMT -5
It’ll be in the Walmart bin. |
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