Martin Scorsese’s Upcoming Movie About Jesus Will Likely Be His Shortest Film Ever

The screenplay is complete for director Martin Scorsese’s new film about Jesus Christ, and it’s looking like production will officially start later this year. And though The Irishman director is infamous for crafting cinematic epics with extensive runtimes, this latest movie is set to be his shortest film yet.

In a Jan. 8 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Scorsese revealed the new production has an intended length of just 80 minutes. The abbreviated runtime is an extreme departure from his most recent film, Killers of the Flower Moon, which totaled nearly 3.5 hours, and would make it his shortest ever after his 1967 directorial debut, Who’s That Knocking at My Door, which clocked in at 90 minutes.

“I’m trying to find a new way to make [the story] more accessible and take away the negative onus of what has been associated with organized religion,” Scorsese told The Times. The best way to do this, he believes, is by making the movie short and sweet — highlighting Jesus’ core teachings in a manner that doesn’t border on proselytizing.

The film is based off of the book “A Life of Jesus” by Shusaku Endo, the author of the 1966 novel Silence, which Scorsese also developed for the screen. Unlike Silence, which was set in the 17th century, Scorsese said the new project will be set mostly in the present day.

The original book is a retelling of the life of Jesus, from living in first-century Palestine to embarking on a holy pilgrimage. The novel’s purpose is largely to help readers better understand the story of Jesus through an immersive narrative that takes readers along on the Messiah’s travels.

“I’m trying to find a new way to make [the story] more accessible.

The Goodfellas director first announced the new project after meeting with Pope Francis on a tour of Italy: “I have responded to the Pope’s appeal to artists in the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus,” Scorsese said during a Rome conference at the Vatican in May 2023, which was organized by Georgetown University and a Jesuit publication called La Civiltà Cattolica. “I’m about to start making it.”

After the conference, Scorsese and his wife Helen Morris met in private with Pope Francis to talk about cinema, Catholicism, and how the two intertwine — a conversation that would become the basis of inspiration for Scorsese’s next film, according to Antionio Spadaro, editor of La Civiltà Cattolica.

It’s no secret Scorsese has a soft spot for religion, having grown up in an Italian American neighborhood in New York City. In his youth, Scorsese attended a Catholic high school before attempting to become a priest himself — a journey that was short-lived after he failed out during his first year at the preparatory seminary.

“I believe in the tenets of Catholicism,” Scorsese told a Jesuit publication in a 2016 interview. “I’m not a doctor of the church. I’m not a theologian who could argue the Trinity. I’m certainly not interested in the politics of the institution. But the idea of the Resurrection, the idea of the Incarnation, the powerful message of compassion and love — that’s the key. The sacraments, if you are allowed to take them, to experience them, help you stay close to God.”

Indeed, the Academy Award winner’s religious bent is on full display in movies like 2016’s Silence and 1988’s The Last Temptation of Christ. Both films are largely centered around the ideals of Christianity, despite being set several centuries apart.

But the Taxi Driver director is hesitant to use the term “religious” in association with his work, he revealed in his interview with the Los Angeles Times: “I hate to use that language, because it’s misinterpreted often. But there’s basic fundamental beliefs that I have — or I’m trying to have — and I’m using these films to find it.”

Thumbnail credit: Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for WSJ

Katie Reul is a freelance journalist whose entertainment reporting has been featured in IGN and Variety.

Author: Katie Reul. [Source Link (*), IGN All]

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