Paramount Pictures – 2016(ROME) — Thirty years ago, Martin Scorsese — who was raised Catholic, and even thought of becoming a priest before he found cinema — was rebuked by the Vatican for his controversial film The Last Temptation of Christ.
The movie, which starred Willem Dafoe as a Jesus Christ wracked with doubt, and who has sex with Mary Magdalene in a dream sequence — was deemed morally offensive by the city-state home of the Pope and the headquarters of the Catholic Church.
However, Wednesday was a kind of come-to-Jesus moment for the filmmaker, who was personally invited by Pope Francis to meet the pontiff, who screened Scorcese’s upcoming film Silence.
Set in the 17th Century, the film has Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver playing Portuguese Jesuit priests who travel to then-isolated Japan, to try to find their mentor, played by Liam Neeson, who vanished on a missionary mission in the country where practicing Christianity was punishable by torture and even death.
The movie opens in limited release December 23.
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