Martin Scorsese announced he will be making a new film about Jesus Christ after meeting with Pope Francis over the weekend.
“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, and I’m about to start making it,” said Scorsese, a life-long Catholic, announced during a Rome conference at the Vatican on Saturday.
Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time Scorsese took on the story of Jesus. His 1988 epic The Last Temptation of Christ was met with widespread controversy, including ranging from protests to death threats. But he made up for it with 2016’s Silence, and it seems like the Vatican has given Scorsese their blessing.
Thank you to Martin #Scorsese for accepting the invitation to join us of La Civiltà Cattolica and Georgetown University – along with his wife and daughter – in the meeting of 40 poets and writers from different Countries with #PopeFrancesco, who said among other things, "This is… pic.twitter.com/yG6bEyo2Wq
— Antonio Spadaro (@antoniospadaro) May 27, 2023
The famed director met with the Pope at “The Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination” conference, where Pope Francis encouraged artists be “original” and “creative.”
“This is your work as poets, storytellers, filmmakers, artists: to give life, to give body, to give word to everything that human beings live, feel, dream, suffer, creating harmony and beauty,” Pope Francis said. “Will they criticize you? All right, carry the burden of criticism, also trying to learn from criticism. But still, don’t stop being original, creative. Do not lose the wonder of being alive.”
