Scorsese on his cinematic future: "I'm Exhausted"


Martin Scorsese / photo courtesy Paramount

Of all the Martin Scorsese interviews I've read these last few weeks, I believe this might be the best one, right up there with Nick Pinkerton's Film Comment piece (Here).

Commonwealth Magazine which seems to be a faith based publication has an in-depth and deeply personal conversation with Scorsese in its latest issue.  I recommend you read the whole thing, but the most interesting tidbit for readers of this site might be Scorsese's thoughts on his future as a director and his religious beliefs.

On seeing himself making movies ten years from now?

 "I don’t know. Even though there’s an enjoyment with filmmaking, and it’s an obsession every time ... I’m exhausted. It’s like, I’ll never make another film! But I’m getting ready. DeNiro is talking to me. You know, it’s the old story: DeNiro and I, we’ve had this project in mind about an old hit man—a true story. He was about seventy-four years old; we happen to be seventy-four. It takes place in the 1960s. It’s about the price you pay for a life that you lead, and a sense of good and evil. So here we are."
"With any movie, the question is, do you really want to be there? You really have to have a story that you want to tell and that you feel you could tell. And also people that you want to be with. That’s the main thing. Life gets to be too short. Ultimately, the one thing I thought I could do in life was—how should I put it? I thought I could nurture the gift I was given by God, the gift of creativity.  Now, in terms of the results, whether they’re good, mediocre, bad—I don’t know. But it turns out it doesn’t matter. It’s about growing as a person, and in your creative work, if you can grow any further. Is there anything more to mine there? Take the analogy about fishing and the intellectual waters. How deep can you fish, you know? How deep can you do it? "

On Religion vs Science:
"It’s a matter of not accepting the certitude of scientific thinking, or even philosophical thinking. Yes, there are many problems with organized religions. But the certitude of who we are, and what this universe is, and this life—it just can’t be. This is an old man talking, but we might be in a world where younger people won’t even consider that which is not material, that which one can’t see, taste, or feel. And ultimately, when everything is stripped away in Silence, that’s really what’s left. It is the spiritual."