Martin Scorsese Meets Pope Francis, Announces Film About Jesus – Report

variety.com:

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Martin Scorsese is on a post-Cannes tour of Italy where over the weekend the director, known for having a religious bent, met with Pope Francis and announced that he will make a film about Jesus. “I have responded to the Pope’s appeal to artists in the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus,” Scorsese announced on Saturday during a Rome conference at the Vatican, according to multiple reports. “And I’m about to start making it,” the director added, suggesting that this could be his next film.

Also on Saturday, before attending the conference – titled “The Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination” – Scorsese and his wife Helen Morris met Pope Francis during a brief private audience at the Vatican.

The conference was organized by Jesuit publication La Civiltà Cattolica and Georgetown University. Antonio Spadaro, editor of the religious periodical, said on the publication’s website that during their conversation at the confab Scorsese alternated between references to his films and personal anecdotes and explained “How the Holy Father’s appeal ‘to let us see Jesus’ moved him,” he said.

Regarding cinematic references, during the conversation Scorsese cited his admiration for Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “The Gospel According to St.