Martin Scorsese’s Jesus Film Collaborator Father Spadaro Reveals Early Draft of Script in New Book – Read an Excerpt (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comNick Vivarelli International Correspondent Last May, after “Killers of the Flower Moon” premiered at Cannes Film Festival, Martin Scorsese traveled to Rome with his wife, Helen Morris, to attend a conference titled “The Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination.” There, the director announced that he had responded to an appeal by Pope Francis to artists “in the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus.” The conference was organized by Jesuit publication “La Civiltà Cattolica.” It took place after the journal’s editor, Father Antonio Spadaro, held a series of one-on-one conversations with Scorsese that have just been published in Italy in book titled “Dialoghi sulla fede” (“Dialogues on Faith”).
The final chapter of this book is titled, as translated from Italian, “Screenplay for a Possible Film on Jesus” by Scorsese.
Spadaro, in the book’s introduction, specifies that the less than 20-page text is not the actual screenplay that Scorsese will be working from to make the film, but instead an early draft that Scorsese sent him and gave him permission to publish.
Scorsese has been working with longtime collaborator Kent Jones on the film’s screenplay, which is based on Japanese novelist Shūsaku Endō’s book “A Life of Jesus.” He reportedly plans to shoot the 80-minute film later this year.
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