Martin Scorsese Teases Upcoming Movie About Jesus After Meeting with Pope Francis: Report
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Following his premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, the director toured around Italy and while in Rome, announced that he was inspired to do a film about Jesus
PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP via Getty
Martin Scorsese is not slowing down.
After premiering Killers of the Flower Moon at the Cannes Film Festival on May 20, the legendary director, 80, took an extended trip around Italy and briefly met Pope Francis during a stop at the Vatican. Shortly after, he revealed he's now inspired to do a film about Jesus.
Per Variety, Scorsese announced the news at a conference he attended in Rome called "The Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination."
"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 stated, adding, "And I'm about to start making it."
The project would not be the first time Scorsese has delved into themes of Catholicism. In 1988, he made The Last Temptation of Christ and 2016's Silence centered on Jesuit Christians.
Antonio Spadaro, an editor with the Jesuit publication that organized the event, thanked Scorsese for his visit in a detailed Twitter post on Saturday.
"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 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.... 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.'"
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While in Cannes for his latest project starring his longtime collaborators Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, Scorsese received a nine-minute standing ovation following the three-hour premiere, Scorsese addressed the crowd during the moment, thanking his collaborators and telling the audience before him, per the outlet, "We shot this a couple of years ago in Oklahoma. It's taken its time to come around, but Apple did so great by us."
He added, "There was lots of grass. I'm a New Yorker. I was very surprised. This was an amazing experience. We lived in that world."
The film is an adaptation of David Grann's 2017 book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.
Set in 1920s Oklahoma, the movie is about the serial killings of members of Osage Nation, who became wealthy because of the oil discovered on their land. The crimes were later dubbed the Reign of Terror.
DiCaprio plays Ernest, the nephew of a powerful local rancher, played by De Niro, and Lily Gladstone plays Ernest's wife Mollie. The cast also includes Brendan Fraser, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins, Jillian Dion, William Belleau, Louis Cancelmi, Tatanka Means, Michael Abbott Jr., Pat Healy, Scott Shepherd, Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson.
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