Silence starring Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Liam Neeson: Add it to the Must See List

Here it is, the first trailer for Martin Scorsese's long-awaited passion project Silence. Scorsese, a deeply spiritual man, has wanted to make the film based on the book by Shūsaku Endō’s novel since the early 1990’s. 

The trailer is intense—as life was for missionaries seeking to bring Christianity to non-Christian countries. The hubris of Christians—or call it faith—who believe their way is the one way, calling on communities of other beliefs to reject their own way of practicing their religion.

The film follows Andrew Garfield, and Adam Driver as a pair of young 17th-century Jesuit priests “who face violence and persecution when they travel to Japan to locate their mentor (Liam Neeson) and spread the gospel of Christianity.”

I was struck by the promising potential of the performances by both Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield, both of whom are good actors but seem here to be pushed by Scorsese into new territory. The seriousness of the tone, the dazzling look of the film, the subject matter, a period piece about priests all bring The Mission to my mind. 

Silence also stars Tadanobu Asano, Yosuke Kubozuka, Ciarán Hinds, Shinya Tsukamoto and Issey Ogata. The screenplay is by Jay Cocks who was Oscar-nominated for both The Gangs of New York and The Age of Innocence. 

While the film is being released on December 23rd for an Academy Award qualifying run, the film officially opens in January, 2017.

Of course this trailer arrives the day after I published my list

 Top Ten Movies Based on Books for 2017

Will you be adding Silence to your must see list?