©Courtesy of Life Itself
Martin Scorsese will reportedly begin filming A Life of Jesus this fall, with Andrew Garfield playing the lead. Miles Teller, who had been rumored to play the part of Jesus, is still under consideration, sources say. The script, which Scorsese is coauthoring with critic and filmmaker Kent Jones, is based on the 1973 novel by Japanese author Shūsaku Endō, who died in 1996. Scorsese and Garfield had earlier worked together on a film based on Silence, another of Endō’s novels.
According to press reports, A Life of Jesus will be a short film, perhaps 80 minutes or so, and set in the present day. Scorsese had earlier stated that his treatment would emphasize “Jesus’s core teachings in a way that explores the principles but doesn’t proselytize.”
Scorsese declared that the film will be neither a “straight narrative” nor a “documentary” but a unique production that will try to make the story of Jesus Christ “more accessible” while removing “the negative onus of what has been associated with organized religion.”
In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Scorsese was quoted as saying: “Right now, ‘religion,’ you say that word and everyone is up in arms because it’s failed in so many ways. But that doesn’t mean necessarily that the initial impulse was wrong. Let’s get back. Let’s just think about it. You may reject it. But it might make a difference in how you live your life — even in rejecting it. Don’t dismiss it offhand. That’s all I’m talking about. And I’m saying that as a person who’s going to be 81 in a couple of days.”
The octogenarian director is still basking in the critical acclaim earned by Killers of the Flower Moon, which earned ten Oscar nominations, including one for Best Director. (Scorsese is the oldest director to have been nominated for that prize.)
Production on A Life of Jesus is expected to begin in October in Italy, Egypt, and Israel. Scorsese, who is independently financing the film, has most recently been shooting a documentary about ancient shipwrecks in Sicily. Two years ago, he had announced plans to make a movie for Apple Original Films based on David Grann’s nonfiction book The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder. Work has not yet begun on that film, which was to star Leonardo DiCaprio.
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