Silence (Martin Scorsese, Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Liam Neeson, Rodrigo Prieto)

[Manu Delpech]

IT IS HERE AT LAST

 

 

 

Silence is Marty Scorsese's passion project he's been wanting to make for 27 years ever since he read in 1989 the book Silence written by Shūsaku Endō.

 

It is set in the seventeenth century, it follows two young Portuguese Jesuit priests (Garfield, Driver) who face violence and persecution when they travel to Japan to locate their mentor (Neeson) and propagate Christianity. They shot for 8 months in Taiwan with a crew of 750 people for a budget of 48 million dollars. It opens on December 23rd as a limited release and in January wide.

It is shot by Scorsese's new go-to cinematographer, ie the great Rodrigo Prieto who shot The Wolf Of Wall Street, and the pilot of Vinyl (HBO) with him. They shot on film for the day scenes and on the Alexa for night scenes, just as they did on Wolf. There's an article to come in the January issue of AC (which will be an issue featuring articles exclusively (except for Passengers shot by Prieto on the Alexa 65) of films shot on film).

Edited November 23, 2016 by Manu Delpech

[Leon Liang]

That trailer was amazing, I've already watched it 3 times on end and counting.

 

Do we know anything yet about the choice to use anamorphic?

[Manu Delpech]

According to IMDB:

 

Arricam LT, Hawk V-Lite, V-Plus, V-Series, Zeiss Master Prime and Angenieux Optimo Lenses
Arricam ST, Hawk V-Lite, V-Plus, V-Series, Zeiss Master Prime and Angenieux Optimo Lenses

 

Which would make sense considering Prieto & Scorsese used the Hawk anamorphic lenses, Master Primes & Angenieux on The Wolf Of Wall Street.

 

Looks fricking gorgeous.

[Tyler Purcell]

I hope Marty doesn't disappoint with his "passion" project. I wasn't to enamored with his last passion project; "Passion of the Christ". At least his NEXT project will be another gangster movie. :)

 

Looks like Rodrigo Prieto want's an Oscar! Trailer flat-out looks amazing cinematography wise. Some shots make me wonder if he did a photochemical finish, even though IMDB says "DI". Also, someone had the audacity to put "Fujicolor" on IMDB as well, which makes me also wonder if some stuff was shot on Fuji. Some of those blue/green shots absolutely look like Fuji.

 

OHH so excited! I hope someone around me gets a 35mm print! :)

[Manu Delpech]

It was The Last Temptation Of Christ, Passion is Mel Gibson.

[Leon Liang]

Plus, Gangs of New York was also a "passion project" and that turned out pretty well in my opinion.

[Tyler Purcell]

It was The Last Temptation Of Christ, Passion is Mel Gibson.

HA! LOL whoops! I knew "christ" was in the name somewhere. :P

[Tyler Purcell]

Plus, Gangs of New York was also a "passion project" and that turned out pretty well in my opinion.

Ohh I didn't know that. Gangs of New York is a very interesting movie technically as well, supposedly made without any substantial grading in post and 100% photochemical finish. Also Daniel Day Lewis is amazing of course, but story wise, not my cup o' tea. I should watch it again if a print shows up at my local 35mm only theater.

[Manu Delpech]

http://movietrailers.apple.com/movies/paramount/silence/silence-trailer-1_h1080p.mov

 

 

Watch this instead of the shitty YT quality link.

[Clint Hulsey]

Saw this over the weekend at the Angelika in Dallas. I'm pretty sure that was the only place it was playing in Dallas and as far as I know, they only have 2k projectors so I am sure some of you in bigger cities saw a better image of it than I did so I won't really comment on how it looked.

 

It's long, and the ending stretches out just like a novel (I haven't read the novel), but I think there is a good balance in the editing and the sparse score to really keep the movie even pacing wise, not going too fast or loud like it is Gangs or Wolf, but at least I didn't feel like it was too slow either (pacing and how a story is put together is so so subjective but at the same time seems to rule whether or not a movie is "liked"). However, while I enjoyed that aspect of the editing, and obviously Schoonmaker is one of the best, I didn't love the way the coverage was edited together. There were some mismatches and weirdness that seemed to hurt the performances a bit.

 

I haven't seen the Japanese version and unfortunately, Netflix doesn't have a disc for it (when I had a Hulu subscription, they had it as part of the Criterion Collection section on it, maybe I'll have to get a subscription again for a month to watch it and some other movies). I did like the Japanese actors cast; seeing Tsukamoto, whose movies and style I really like, and Asano (who plays the Marlowe character in the Japanese mini-series of The Long Goodbye) was fun.

 

The material itself is pretty heavy and your reaction to it may predicate on your religious and political views. As much as I feel like I need to see it again, some of the material doesn't necessarily encourage a second viewing, at least for me.

 

Some shots I liked off the top of my head: a overhead shot while the priests are walking up (or maybe down) stairs while still in Portugal (much like Kundun, the actors speak English and pretend it's not, but at least many of the Japanese actors speak Japanese), the first person perspective shots of Garfield while in the cell, the Jesus painting inserts, especially the ones where Garfield is looking in the water and then sees something else in the reflection.

 

 

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Starts really good, almost like a mystery or thriller (Hearts of Darkness come to mind), then kind of fizzles halfway through and drags on way too long. Good actor like Adam Driver completely underused and just disappears for long stretches until finally gone. But there is some nice work from Prieto in it, although I'm not sure it's either's best work.

 

Before the film was a new trailer to Gore Verbinski's The Cure For Wellness. Completely different, of course, but that's a damn good looking trailer. I really am impressed with Bojan Bazelli ASC. He's just one of those DP's who go pretty much unnoticed from year to year, never gets big nominations, never gets talked about much, but just turns in stellar work consistently. I wish sometimes this industry would award or celebrate some of this talent out there rather than alternate the admiration between the usual 3-5 suspects.