A book interview between director Martin Scorcese and an influential Vatican priest, Father Antonio Spadaro, has just been released, titled “Dialogue on Faith.”
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As Easter approaches, here is a curious gospel: the Gospel according to Martin Scorsese. Over the past eight years, the American director has regularly spoken with one of the most important priests at the Vatican, Father Antonio Spadaro. A book, entitled Dialogue on faith (ed. La nave di teseo), is taken from these dialogues where we measure the importance of religion in the life of the former seminarian Martin Scorsese. The work has already been released in Italy.
The two men share roots in Sicily. But soon, the conversation drifts to Scorcese’s obsession with spirituality and this photo, for example, that he keeps in his tablet. “It’s a photo he’s had in mind since he was five years old, says Father Antonio Spadaro. It was the statue of Christ that he saw when he was an altar boy at St. Patrick’s Church in New York. He had the body and blood of Christ before his eyes and yet the world did not change, it marked him.”
A cinema marked by the notion of grace
What also interests the cinema-loving priest is the impact of these childhood memories on the American’s films. In Scorsese’s work, violence is only the negative of a notion that is discussed a lot in the book. “We had a discussion about grace, which acts where evil is. The translation in his cinema is the following: if we believe in grace, then man can change. And then: ‘Action!’, cinema can begin, things are not fixed. It’s a vision of the world”, continues the priest.
Scorsese recounts his mystical experiences, after a trip to Jerusalem for example. It was during the scouting for The last temptation of Christ, this film where Jesus is called by the flesh. He caused a scandal 35 years ago. “He wanted to make a film about Jesus. The subject of The last temptation of Christit’s the normality of life.”
“It is not the miracles that interest Scorsese but the teachings of Jesus on love.”
Father Antonio Spadarofranceinfo
In the book there is a script, the basis of a new film about Jesus, sent a little over a year ago during discussions between the two men. And as if the roles were reversed, the prelate blurted out at the end of the interview: “Martin Scorsese is a spiritual reference for me”. The book which relates the conversations of the director and the man of the Church is in Italian only for the moment, translations are to come.