silence film

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Why can’t they make for once an uplifting movie about our Catholic faith? if they Pope likes this type of movie, fine, but why can’t they make something that can make us leave the theater feeling good about our wonderful faith.???
 
Dwyer said:
The Pope is able to see whatever movie he wants to see; that doesn’t change my mind; I still would not go see this film and especially would not pay $ for the privilege of seeing it. 🙂
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I’m reminded of the reaction to Graham Greene’s novels, The Power and the Glory and The Heart of the Matter… Like Scorsese’s film, they were controversial among Catholics.

Greene, many years later, met Pope Paul VI in 1965. The Pope said to Greene " “Mr. Greene, some aspects of your books are certain to offend some Catholics, but you should pay no attention to that.”
 
CarolNoel said:
Why can’t they make for once an uplifting movie about our Catholic faith? if they Pope likes this type of movie, fine, but why can’t they make something that can make us leave the theater feeling good about our wonderful faith.???
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You first. I would love to see it. I am sure there is a market for movies and literature that shows the good side. And it would be worth doing. Actually, it’s not exactly a catholic movie per say, but I thought the priest in grand Torino conducted himself well. He was youthful but honorable. Also the protagonist was a colorful man who was struggling with faith, but still a heroic figure overall. I personally did not feel like anyone’s faith was being maligned in that movie.
 
Inisfallen said:
I’m reminded of the reaction to Graham Greene’s novels, The Power and the Glory and The Heart of the Matter… Like Scorsese’s film, they were controversial among Catholics.

Greene, many years later, met Pope Paul VI in 1965. The Pope said to Greene " “Mr. Greene, some aspects of your books are certain to offend some Catholics, but you should pay no attention to that.”
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Silence has a lot in common with Power and the Glory actually, now that you mention it. Same theme. Even has a mestizo-like character.
 
It is definitely a violent film. It wasn’t terribly gory in my opinion though.

For me it was a very disturbing and dark movie just because the topics hit so close to home. It hurts to see members of the Church being beaten down, tempted, and failing. I don’t think it portrays the Church negatively and there is certainly much virtue among every Catholic in the movie.

It was depressing but it was also very inspiring I felt. I would recommend it.
 
Would love to see Silence but it is still not playing in my city. And I live in a major one in Tennessee. I’m beginning to think that there is some conspiracy that it hasn’t played here. Plus this Academy Award snub?

Hollywood doesn’t want people to see these films.
 
I’m very shocked this movie was only nominated for one Oscar. And it wasn’t even a major award either.
 
I have made a thread about this before:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=1032654

Judging by the comments in this thread, and from comments by faithful Catholics ever since the film premiered, this movie (and I am going to extend this to the novel) has divided Catholics - but in a good way. Not in a way that might create rupture (like a certain ahem thing going on today) but in a way that creates debate and conversation among faithful Catholics about what the film/novel is supposed to mean, what its purpose is, and how it relates to the person.

Which leads me to reply to this comment:
CarolNoel said:
Why can’t they make for once an uplifting movie about our Catholic faith? if they Pope likes this type of movie, fine, but why can’t they make something that can make us leave the theater feeling good about our wonderful faith.???

… because, to be honest… life isn’t always like that. Sometimes art has to reflect life as it is, as it is lived through experience, even through an experience such as persecution, in order to get to the Truth about the human condition. In the case of Silence, human weakness and suffering.

I feel compelled to write a thesis/long essay on the themes of Silence.

The film hasn’t premiered here in the Philippines, and I sense that it might not premiere at all. 😦

I have the novel though… but I always try to watch the movie before I read the novel. I’m bad at imagining characters whenever I read fiction…
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"But the talk is not about all this standard (powerful) Catholic stuff. Because it is not clear that Silence is simply about the weakness of a sinner in the face of unbearable circumstances and the mercy he or she encounters at the other end of the “thread.”

And this is because Silence, following Shūsaku Endō’s 1966 novel of the same name, doesn’t tell us that after the famous apostasy of the first Portuguese priest, delegations of priests offered to go to Japan to suffer martyrdom to do penance for him. Instead, it concentrates our attention on those who apostatized, suggesting that Jesus himself may have given them the “thumbs up.”

From a review by Margaret Harper McCarthy here.
 
Our local television news movie critic panned it, and badly - he said it was long, dull and empty of meaning. (He tends to like movies that are crowd-pleasing entertainment, however.)
 
tomarin said:
Our local television news movie critic panned it, and badly - he said it was long, dull and empty of meaning. (He tends to like movies that are crowd-pleasing entertainment, however.)
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Yes, psychological stories about martyrdom aren’t particularly bound to be crowd pleasers. One wonders what he would make of the story of Christ’s martyrdom, absent any background introduction. Does make for an interesting point to ponder.
 
glad I checked the reviews first

Silence + Scorcese film + directed Last Temptation of Christ = watching John Wick 2 instead
 
Silence still now showing where I am at in Tennessee.

As for the Scorsese hate over Last Temptation, you people need to get over it.
 
TCEL said:
Yes, psychological stories about martyrdom aren’t particularly bound to be crowd pleasers. One wonders what he would make of the story of Christ’s martyrdom, absent any background introduction. Does make for an interesting point to ponder.
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Yes, on the one hand this critic may just be a shallow person, on the other hand it’s certainly possible for a ‘prestige’ movie like this to be dull and sanctimonious. I guess the only way to find the truth is to go to the cinema and see it.
 
tomarin said:
Yes, on the one hand this critic may just be a shallow person, on the other hand it’s certainly possible for a ‘prestige’ movie like this to be dull and sanctimonious. I guess the only way to find the truth is to go to the cinema and see it.
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It was not dull or sanctimonious.

A redemption from The Last Temptation.
 
tomarin said:
Our local television news movie critic panned it, and badly - he said it was long, dull and empty of meaning. (He tends to like movies that are crowd-pleasing entertainment, however.)
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I think the reason why Silence for some people is slow and “dull” is because the novel’s pace itself is slow. At least that’s what how one of my priests describe the novel when he read it, since it involves the long arduous journey from Rome to Lisbon to Macau and to (southern?) Japan. This wasn’t set in the days of jet planes, people!

By the way, readers of the book, how is the movie faithful to the source? I know some of you have read it.
 
CatholicWhovian said:
I think the reason why Silence for some people is slow and “dull” is because the novel’s pace itself is slow. At least that’s what how one of my priests describe the novel when he read it, since it involves the long arduous journey from Rome to Lisbon to Macau and to (southern?) Japan. This wasn’t set in the days of jet planes, people!

By the way, readers of the book, how is the movie faithful to the source? I know some of you have read it.
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I read the book a long time ago and it was a library copy. I am contemplating whether to watch the movie or not. Many reviews have mentioned that the apostate priests not only apostasize, but actually collaborate with the Japanese officials in their crackdown on Christians, essentially betraying not only the institutional Church, but their own flocks. And that ironically, it is Kichijiro, the contemptible weakling, who actually ends his life justified as a martyr. And while the priest’s ultimate eternal fate is of course unknown, I suspect that even if he made it to Heaven he spent a long time in Purgatory first; he certainly did not earn a martyr’s crown.

But I really didn’t get that impression from the end of the book, that the priests had completely betrayed their mission. I got the sense that the priests actually continue their ministry in a more covert way, and they came off much more sympathetically. But my interpretation of the book certainly could be mistaken.

ETA: BTW one interesting point is that to most Japanese people, when they hear “Christian” they think of Catholics, not Protestants. Quite different from the US where most people think “Christians” are not Catholic.

I know an elderly Japanese man, who actually had been in the US for years, and he was actually shocked to see a TV show portraying a married Protestant minister, as he’d assumed all Christian “priests” were forbidden to marry.
 
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