A Critical Reflection of Martin Scorsese’s Silence
“A person never knows their own true face. Everybody thinks that the phoney, posed social mask they wear is their real face.” - Shusaku Endo
The 2016 religious drama film Silence, directed by Martin Scorsese, based on the book of the same title by Shusaku Endo, is a captivating film filled with beauty and horror that challenges the viewer in many ways. It is not your typical mainstream movie with a neat ending and clean answers. Just when the movie seems to inspire you, at the same time it challenges you. It forces you into the same situation. Hence, the film is not something to be watched; rather, it is something to be experienced.
My initial reaction after watching the film was sentiments of disagreement, because the ending — and the film’s message — didn’t particularly agree with my Catholic idealism. I was formed reading the lives of the saints and martyrs. Some of my favorite saints include the Canadian Martyrs Isaac Jogues and John Brebeuf — Jesuit missionaries sent to an uncivilized North America who by their enduring witness of being subject to torture by the native Iroquois tribes were like living martyrs and living legends. Reading their missionary accounts invigorated me. I felt like St. Teresa of Avila as a little child who foolishly escaped from home with her favorite cousin seeking to be martyred in foreign lands — all because she heard that martyrdom was the quickest and surest way to heaven.
My next impulse, as a natural film critic and avid cinephile, was to justify the film as a product of the director, who is no stranger to religious controversy. Scorsese also directed The Last Temptation of Christ in the late 1980s, which depicted an imaginary scenario of Jesus Christ coming down from the cross to live a normal life instead of sacrificing his life for the salvation of sinners. Martin Scorsese, an Italian immigrant, is a known lapsed Catholic. In fact, nearly all his films (from Raging Bull to The Departed) have traces of his Catholic resentment or anxiety. It cannot be helped because every true artist pours his very self into his artwork. Hence, it is safe to assume that Silence may very well be the reflection of the spiritual-religious state of its director. In short, according to Auteur Theory, the movie, for what it is, I blame on the director.
Upon some deeper reflection, despite its questionable theological stance, I did appreciate the film for providing a space for dialogue and even debate. No doubt, it is the intention of the filmmaker for this film to be purposefully thought-provoking. The nature of the film is to challenge, to arouse inquiry and self-reflection, to even test our very faith and conviction. What good is our idealized vision of Christianity if it does not meet reality — a real situation that demands a real response, and oftentimes human response? A movie such as this is able to simulate an “event” — a kind of faith-lived experience — in which we place ourselves into, to find out our true character. Perhaps only in the face of martyrdom will we ever really know the authenticity of our faith conviction and see our true face for the first time. The film’s ending itself seems to espouse the value of being true to oneself in every unique situation. In a post-truth society, this may be the most valuable truth of all.
