I was ten years old when Martin Scorsese released The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988. I remember the adults of my church discussing it scornfully. “Jesus, tempted? How could someone be so irreverent about God?” I didn’t understand the issue, but the shock of seeing these church stalwarts so worked up over a movie made a big impression on me. Years later, I watched the film for myself and came to a different conclusion. Scorsese had not flouted Jesus’s deity but had explored his humanity, and his conclusion was a powerful testimony to Jesus’s faithfulness.
Now, Scorsese has made another film as an explicit expression of his faith. Silence provokes more thought than any film I’ve seen in years. As a Protestant, I think about my church’s differences with Roman Catholicism. As a missionary, I think about contextualization: how do we translate the gospel for new cultures and languages? As a church leader, I think about the roles of priest and pastor, how they overlap and don’t.
But even more so, Silence provokes feeling. It tells the story of a 17th-century Jesuit missionary, Rodriguez, who travels from Portugal to Japan in search of his mentor. About 100 years after Francis Xavier had brought Christianity to Japan, the nation has outlawed the faith. Rodriguez steps into danger, both to find his friend and to serve the underground Christians of Japan. In the first half of the film, he hides out in coastal villages, ministering to congregations that have been without priests for years – which means they’ve been without church. But then the government inquisitor captures Rodriguez, and the situation changes. They try to break him, not by torturing him, but by torturing other Christians and making him watch. All they want him to do is to step on an icon of Jesus. Should he give in to save others? Scorsese makes us feel the stakes, the visceral pain of the choice.
Elijah has already written about Silence, comparing Scorsese’s film to the Shusako Endo novel he based it on, in which Rodriguez is an unreliable narrator. Endo leaves his ending ambiguous about Rodriguez’s faith, and Elijah sees the film as Scorsese’s interpretation of the book. I’m slightly ashamed to say that I haven’t read the novel yet, so I can’t comment on that. But Silence makes a fascinating contrast to The Last Temptation of Christ, and I want to explore that connection.
In order to do this, I need to completely SPOIL the endings of both films, so be warned.
The controversial segment of Last Temptation was the end: Jesus passes the cup, steps down from the cross, and goes on with his life. He marries Mary Magdalene and fathers children, living as an unremarkable man rather than dying as the savior of the world. Until he realizes that something is wrong. He’d made the wrong choice and ruined everything. At that point, the film rewinds through the post-crucifixion scenes and we see that they were a temptation in Jesus’s imagination. He says, “It is finished,” breathes his last, and faithfully gives up his life.
Silence also hinges on a fateful choice. Rodriguez steps on the icon, to save several others from death. He too lives out his life, which includes a job in the inquisitor’s office, a wife and children. One could imagine a Last Temptation riff where the film rewinds to show Rodriguez denying the inquisitor – the post-choice future had all been in his mind. But no: Rodriguez really chose apostasy, and he really did endure years of renewing that act to convince the government of his change of heart. But, unlike the earlier film, Silence treats his choice for life and conventional flourishing as the right, faithful choice. In fact, at the moment of his choice, he hears the voice of Christ encouraging him to step on the icon. God breaks his silence to invite his apostasy.
Of course, the choices are different. Jesus chose suffering and death to save others, while Rodriguez chooses comfort and life to save others. The inquisitor tries to pit the two great commandments against each other, making Rodriguez choose between loving God or others. But God’s audible word resolves the choice for him, telling him that – even in this extreme case – loving others is loving God.
Is this always true? I’m not sure, though Scorsese makes a compelling argument. His ending here deserves more controversy and attention than Last Temptation’s.
You might also find these reviews of Silence helpful: