Scorsese's silence speaks volumes

Apostasy is the abandoning or renunciation of a belief, usually religious. It is the key theme of Martin Scorsese’s magnificent if flawed Silence, which is set against the backdrop of the European drive to convert 17^th century Japan to Catholicism.

Japan is persecuting Catholics and the Church is withdrawing its missionaries. Nonetheless Father Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Father Garrpe (Adam Driver) are Jesuit priests who beg to be sent into hostile Japan to find news of their mentor Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson).  

Ferriera, it is alleged, has apostatised; that is, he has renounced his Catholic faith and converted to Buddhism. Rodrigues and Garrpe cannot believe this of their mentor; if his faith is questioned then so by extension is theirs. They ask for permission to go into Japan, in secret, to find Ferriera and, in the process, propagate the faith.

This is a passion project for Scorsese. He has been trying to film Shusaku Endo’s novel for 30 years and has always been able to put it off. In some respects, I might argue that the reason for this is that Scorsese himself is something of an apostate.

His superb early career is benchmarked by a series of films dealing with sin and redemption; even from his breakthrough movie Mean Streets which was categorised by a Jesuit friend of the director as ‘too much Good Friday and not enough Easter Sunday’. This period in his career largely ended with Raging Bull (1980) although there is the obvious outlier in the shape of The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), which was itself about the attraction of apostasy. Since then Scorsese’s films have been good but largely empty; they seemed to be technical exercises in pursuit of an Oscar which eventually came to him for The Departed (2006). There is no doubt that few directors have been more deserving of an Oscar than Scorsese, but it is equally certain that The Departed can’t hold a candle to his earlier, overlooked work. Now with Silence, which was due to be his next film after Last Temptation, Scorsese seems to have rediscovered his faith and with it his passion. For all of its faults there is no denying that this is a heartfelt film and it is rare to see a director of Scorsese’s status create such a personal work.

The film begins with an inkling of Ferreira’s torment as he is forced to watch his fellow priests being scalded to death by the Japanese. Neeson’s eloquently mute response suggests a man at the end of his own particular Via Dolorosa, a man on the edge of the abyss. By contrast Rodrigues and Garrpe are full of certainty and missionary zeal; they are absolute in the truth of their faith because it has never been tested. Once in Japan however they are forced to consider their relationship with their faith, with their devoted flock, and with their God.

Rodrigues constantly asks for signs, as though his belief must be validated like a store loyalty card. The film’s equating of Rodrigues with Christ is a little heavy-handed; if there is a comparison to be made it is surely with the anguished Ferreira rather than the needy Rodrigues. However, there is little response to Rodrigues’s many moments of Gethsemane; he is left to confront the silence of God while, at the same time, Scorsese suggests to the audience, he may actually be encountering the deafness of man. His new parishioners are being martyred and tortured around him but still they refuse to give him up, leaving him to look a little callow and undeserving. The more interesting of the two priests is Garrpe; Rodrigues seems to believe an accommodation can be reached with the Japanese while Garrpe is much more of a liberation theologian. Sadly, Garrpe’s character is underexplored leaving us with a one-note variation on the main theme.

Scorsese’s recent work has been characterised by a visual brio, as in The Aviator (2004) or The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), which has disguised the inherent emptiness of the subject matter. With Silence he has stripped everything back with near-monastic rigour. The dialogue is dry and functional, even in those scenes where Rodrigues is being interrogated by a Japanese overlord and his interpreter – excellent performances by Issei Ogata and Tadanobu Asano. It is only when Ferriera finally reveals the reasons for his apostasy and outlines the fundamental futility of their mission that it bursts into shocking eloquence.

Visually the film is equally spare. There are scenes here that echo Rosselini or Bresson – Pasolini’s Gospel of Matthew (1964) also came to mind - but for all of its minimalism there are moments when the film also stands comparison with the work of another of Scorsese’s heroes, David Lean. Scorsese and his cinematographer Rodrigo Pieto have taken scenes of the most horrific torture and martyrdom and infused them with a beauty which is often deeply moving despite the images. I am thinking especially of the showpiece crucifixion at sea which haunts the viewer long after the film has gone.

Scorsese has been criticised for ignoring the Japanese perspective in this film, but I struggle to see what his options might have been. He is a white, European Catholic in his seventies dealing with a mission ordered by white European Catholics of his age. It seems to me that he is entitled to only look at one side of the story providing he does so with honesty and integrity, which I believe is the case here. He makes the case for theological imperialism fairly well, I think.

Silence, as I said, is not perfect. The casting of the bland Andrew Garfield, for one thing, seems like a misstep to me. But the power of Neeson’s performance and the questions he raises for an attentive viewer mean that for me Silence is the beginning and not the end of a conversation.