The Many Saints of Martin Scorsese
A review of Marty's Catholic documentary 'The Saints'
I am one of those guys who thinks Martin Scorsese is the greatest living filmmaker. I will watch anything he does, even a documentary series about saints he hosts for Fox Nation, Fox News’ streaming service that has lifestyle programming. I love Scorsese’s religious films, especially Silence, the most moving film about faith I’ve ever seen. If I’m going to listen to anyone talk about Catholic saints, it’s going to be him.
Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints is an eight-episode docuseries where each episode tells the story of a different saint. The first episode is about Joan of Arc. It mostly consists of reenactments of her life, which were filmed in Serbia in a straightforward historical documentary style. This is a Martin Scorsese production, though, so the reenactments look better than History Channel fare, even if they are a little boring. There’s an absolutely gorgeous shot of Joan of Arc walking through a misty field in the early morning after a battle, but it goes on for a few beats too long, like it’s trying to fill time. The camera stays pretty static throughout the reenactments. There are no Scorsese dolly zooms in on Joan’s face, unfortunately.
Scorsese narrates in a similar register to the one he used in his cameo at the end of Killers of the Flower Moon where he recounts the tragic story of Mollie Burkhart. He’s just telling you the history, and letting his tone of voice convey how he feels about it. The modestly reverent way he talks about Joan of Arc is actually quite affecting. She was an imperfect young woman who made the ultimate sacrifice for her faith. She tried to live a good life in a world of sin, which is a theme Scorsese always returns to, often in the form of people who give in to the temptation of sin. In a lovely interview with Jake Coyle of the Associated Press, Scorsese recalls being in St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in Little Italy when he was a kid and wondering about the figures of saints he saw. “The minute I walk out the door of the cathedral and I don’t see any saints,” he said. “I saw people trying to behave well within a world that was very primal and oppressed by organized crime. As a child, you wonder about the saints: Are they human?” To Scorsese, they very much are. The Saints’ take on Joan of Arc, one of the most enduring and enigmatic saints, is sort of like Andrew Garfield’s Father Rodrigues in Silence. They endured unimaginable suffering, and though their faith wavered, it never broke. The series is written by Scorsese’s longtime documentary collaborator Kent Jones, who understands how to make it Scorsesean.
The episode ends with a conversation about Joan of Arc between Marty and three friends, Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin and writers Paul Elie and Mary Karr, that’s thoughtful and fun. One of the things they talk about is how we would have trouble accepting Joan of Arc as a saint today. She was a girl who heard voices that got put in charge of an army. The Middle Ages were wild, dawg.
A TV documentary about the saints has been a dream project of Scorsese’s for over 40 years. He tried to do it after Raging Bull and it didn’t work out. But he found a buyer in Fox, so now it exists. Marty is not a perfect person. He will take money from anyone who offers to fund his art. Silence was partially financed by disgraced producer Randall Emmett, and The Wolf of Wall Street was made with money Riza Aziz embezzled from the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund. The three-hour movies about faith or American greed Scorsese wants to make these days are expensive and uncommercial, so he has to take it where he can get it. At least Fox News isn’t committing white collar crime. I actually kind of appreciate Fox in this case for patronizing a great artist’s personal project and letting him do it how he wants to do it. And that’s the only nice thing you will ever hear me say about Fox News. Martin Scorsese brings people who disagree on most other things together.
I find Martin Scorsese so inspiring. He just turned 82, and he’s still doing some of the most vital work of his career. The run he’s been on since The Wolf of Wall Street will go down as one of the all-time great movie streaks. He’s still exploring the big ideas that interest him and articulating them on the grandest scale possible. They’re personal in the sense that they reflect his point of view, but they’re saying something about the world, not about himself. In between films, he’s keeping busy with projects like The Saints and the Beatles documentary he produced for Disney+, Beatles ‘64. He’s making the most of the time he has left, which hopefully is another 20 years at least.
This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for my family, my health, the people who read my Substack, and Martin Scorsese.
I reviewed Netflix's Keira Knightley-led spy thriller series Black Doves for TV Guide. It’s a good show, but mostly it’s really nice to see Keira Knightley again, doing her Keira Knightley thing.
In a memorable 2018 essay about Knightley's career, the writer Anne Helen Petersen described the characters Knightley typically plays as embodying the idea of "women ostensibly performing a version of proper womanhood — all while quietly negotiating, or cracking under, the weight of doing so." That's exactly what she does here, in an even more literal sense than usual. Helen Webb plays the role of the politician's wife, doing the things that are expected of her — raising her children, hosting Christmas parties, listening to her husband complain about his job — while maintaining her extremely demanding career in secret. When we meet her, she has reached the point where the ongoing negotiations between the compartmentalized parts of her life are breaking down, and she's starting to crack. But she's Keira Knightley, so even when she's cracking, she remains resilient and poised, glamorously dressed and ready with a witty remark. Helen Webb is a clever spin on Knightley's persona, putting her in a heightened and darkly funny contemporary setting.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Thanks for recommending Silence - just added to my list. Great tribute to a great director.