Silence (film)

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Movie
German title Silence
Original title Silence
Silence 2016 logo.png
Country of production United States ,
Mexico ,
Taiwan
original language English
Publishing year 2016
length 159 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 16
Rod
Director Martin Scorsese
script Martin Scorsese,
Jay Cocks
production Martin Scorsese,
Emma Tillinger Koskoff ,
Randall Emmett ,
Barbara De Fina ,
Gaston Pavlovich ,
Irwin Winkler ,
Vittorio Cecchi Gori
music Kim Allen Kluge ,
Katherine Kluge
camera Rodrigo Prieto
cut Thelma Schoonmaker
occupation
synchronization

Silence is a film drama by Martin Scorsese from the year 2016 . The script written by Scorsese and Jay Cocks is based on the novel Chinmoku (Eng. Silence ) by the Roman Catholic Japanese author Endō Shūsaku from the 1960s. The main roles are Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver , who play two Jesuits ; Liam Neeson plays their former mentor, on whose search the characters go.

action

1638 in Portugal . The two young Jesuits Sebastião Rodrigues and Francisco Garupe travel to Japan together to find Sebastião's former mentor, the prominent Jesuit Cristóvão Ferreira . According to rumors, Ferreira is said to have succumbed to apostasy . Both refuse to believe this.

Her path first leads her to the Portuguese colony of Macau . You get to know the outcast convert Kichijiro under dubious circumstances and nevertheless secretly sail to Japan with his help. There they are received in the village of Tomogi by an underground Christian community. Without a priest, only the sacrament of baptism is passed on there. The priests learn that in Japan inquisitors have put a bounty on Christians - and especially on priests. At first they hide in a hut, but because of their carelessness they are discovered by residents from another village. While Francisco stays in the village of Tomogi, Sebastião travels there alone to spread the faith. He learns that Kichijiro's entire family was killed and that he only survived because he renounced Christianity in front of his persecutors.

In Tomogi, the inquisitors have arrested several villagers and are demanding either the death of four converts or the extradition of the Jesuits. When the converts asked how best to respond to threats from the inquisitors, Sebastião said they should renounce. Francisco rejects this strictly. Finally, three steadfast villagers are tied to wooden crosses on the seashore and killed by the tide. Sebastião and Francisco decide to leave Japan separately.

Sebastião chooses the mainland route, away from the villages. In solitude, he begins to doubt his faith and has a vision of Jesus . Eventually he meets Kichijiro again, but is betrayed by him to the Inquisitor Inoue and arrested. His men take Sebastião along with other converted Christians to a prison in Nagasaki .

Inoue is of the opinion that Christianity does not fit in Japan. He sees fighting it as an unpleasant but necessary task. As a sign of turning away from Christianity, he asked converts to step on a picture of Jesus . Sebastião is not ready to ask Christians to do so. He is taken to the coast, where several converts are drowned in the presence of Francisco, who was also captured . Francisco drowns trying to prevent this from happening.

Sebastião finally meets Ferreira, who now lives under a Japanese name in a Buddhist monastery. Ferreira denies Christianity and teaches the Buddhists in astronomy. He is also writing a book in which he points out the mistakes of Christianity. Sebastião despises him for it.

The converts who are still alive are subjected to a special torture in which the people are hung upside down in a pit and a bleeding wound is inflicted on the neck to prolong the agony until death. As a condition for her pardon, Inoue demands that Sebastião renounce Christianity and also step on the image of Jesus. Ferreira also talks to him. Sebastião initially refuses, but then has a vision in which Jesus says he may do so. Sebastião enters the picture and the converts are pardoned.

Sebastião takes a Japanese name. It is now his and Ferreira's task to check the Dutch trade goods for Christian symbols. Sebastião regularly has to testify in writing that he is no longer a Christian. He is assigned a Japanese wife and the name of her deceased first husband. When Kichijiro visits him to confess his sins, Sebastião refuses because he no longer sees himself as a father . Kichijiro is arrested anyway when a Christian amulet is found on him. Sebastião dies after many years and is buried according to Buddhist custom. His widow slips the corpse a crucifix before it is cremated .

background

Historical background

Japan was initially relatively open to new religious currents under the then ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi . The Portuguese, who had been granted the “use” of Japan in the Treaty of Tordesillas , engaged in brisk trade, and the Jesuits made themselves indispensable primarily as translators. Above all, many ordinary Japanese were peacefully converted to Christianity, as Christians, regardless of social class, were offered the prospect of ascending to heaven - a revolution in Japan's strict class system, in which the peasants in particular had hardly any rights. Some high-ranking feudal lords ( daimyo ) also adopted the Christian faith, which nevertheless remained a religion of the lower classes of the population.

A large part of the Japanese feudal lords remained suspicious of Christianity, as the recognition of the church as the highest authority was seen as an attack on the previous Japanese order of power. This mistrust was fueled by the English navigator William Adams, who was stranded in Japan . Adams, who, as an Englishman and Protestant, regarded Catholic Portugal as a hostile country, explained to Tokugawa Ieyasu , who later became the sole ruler of Japan, that Portugal had already used Christianity in the past to incite the inhabitants of foreign countries against one another in order to protect these countries Finally, in the end, completely control. Tokugawa responded with the closure of Japan , which was initially directed primarily against the Spanish and Portuguese. Only the members of the Dutch East India Company were allowed to stay on a small, strictly sealed off island, since the Dutch were only interested in trade and had no ambitions to endanger their lucrative business by attempting to convert or interfering in Japanese politics. After the Christian Shimabara uprising , Christianity was also banned.

Christians had to convert back or were killed. In order to track down Christians, armed troops marched through the country, forcing all inhabitants of a village, e. B. stepping on a picture of the Virgin Mary , which Catholic Christians considered sacrilege . Within a short period of time, thousands of converts were killed and the rest driven underground. The Kakure Kirishitan could only practice their religion in secret. If discovered by the authorities, the entire family could be executed. Nevertheless, Christianity remained alive in small enclaves, with a modified liturgy and own prayers developing over the years.

development

Silence is based on the novel Chinmoku (1966) by the Japanese author Endō Shūsaku . The novel is loosely based on historical events. Father Cristóvão Ferreira lived from 1580 to 1650 and gave up his Christian faith after being tortured in Japan. The figure of Sebastião Rodrigues is based on the person of the Italian Jesuit Giuseppe Chiara , who worked in Japan.

Chinmoku was first made into a film by Masahiro Shinoda in Japan in 1971 , but was not published abroad. In the early 1990s, Martin Scorsese was interested in a remake and has been pursuing the project ever since. At that time he said about the novel:

Silence is just something that I'm drawn to in that way. It's been an obsession, it has to be done.

Silence attracts me in a certain way. I am obsessed [with the project] and have to make it happen. "

- Martin Scorsese

After the project had been on hold for a while, Scorsese actively resumed it from 2009, holding talks with actors such as Daniel Day-Lewis , Benicio del Toro and Gael García Bernal . After that, however, he initially devoted himself to other projects such as Shutter Island (2010) and Hugo Cabret (2011).

production

In April 2013 it was finally announced that the production of Silence had finally started after 23 years. Andrew Garfield and Ken Watanabe were cast for the film in May 2013 ; The latter, however, had to give up the project a short time later and was replaced by Tadanobu Asano .

The film had a comparatively tight budget of an estimated $ 50 million , which resulted in parts of the crew, such as producer Irwin Winkler , working for the minimum wage. In addition, they were looking for a convenient location to portray 17th century Japan. The choice fell on the Taiwanese capital Taipei , where the film was shot from January 30th to May 15th, 2015. As part of the construction work, there was an accident on the set on January 28, 2015, in which one worker died and two others were injured.

publication

The film premiered on November 29, 2016 in Vatican City . Scorsese was received by Pope Francis in the Apostolic Palace . Scorsese invited around 300 members of the Jesuit order to the premiere.

Cast and dubbing

The Film & TV sync took over the German dubbing of the series. Clemens Frohmann directed the dialogue and Michael Schlimgen wrote the dialogue book .

role actor Voice actor
Father Sebastião Rodrigues Andrew Garfield Louis Thiele
Father Francisco Garupe Adam Driver Robert Glatzeder
Interpreter Tadanobu Asano Matthias von Stegmann
Father Alessandro Valignano Ciarán Hinds Jürgen Heinrich
Father Cristóvão Ferreira Liam Neeson Bernd Rumpf
Mokichi Shin'ya Tsukamoto Fumio Okura
Ichizo Yoshi Oida Chiaki Ikuta
Kichijiro Yōsuke Kubozuka Yusuke Yamasaki

Awards (selection)

Rodrigo Prieto was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Cinematography in 2017 . The New York-based National Board of Review recognized Jay Cocks and Martin Scorsese in 2016 in the category of Best Adapted Screenplay and also named the film among the ten best of the year.

criticism

“Film adaptation of the novel by Endō Shūsaku, with which Martin Scorsese discusses questions of faith and doubt in a demanding manner and thus builds a bridge to his own work. The visual brilliance and the perfect setting of the film are contrasted by a narrative rhythm that is not always coherent and an introduction that is too long, which, however, is not of great importance given the engagement with the subject of ruthless persecution of religious beliefs. "

literature

  • Thomas Möllenbeck: Silence - The silence of the witness. Martin Scorceses theodicy of private religion, in: Th. Möllenbeck / L. Schulte (ed.), Testimony. To the spiritual origin and the presence of the Christian. Münster 2018. pp. 167–178.
  • Dana Poppenberg / Gerhard Poppenberg: Martin Scorsese. Introduction to his films and film aesthetics. Paderborn 2018. pp. 206–220.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Release certificate for Silence . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. Age rating for Silence . Youth Media Commission .
  3. Martin Scorsese To Make Noise On 'Silence' At Cannes; Emmett / Furla Funding The Film ( English ) In: Deadline.com . Retrieved January 16, 2016.
  4. ^ Adam Driver Joins Martin Scorsese's 'Silence'; Kristen Wiig & Alexander Skarsgård To Star In 'The Diary Of A Teenage Girl' & More ( English ) In: Indie Wire . Retrieved March 2, 2014.
  5. Liz Shackleton: Martin Scorsese's 'Silence' to wrap in Taiwan (English) . In: Screen Daily , May 5, 2015. Retrieved September 9, 2016. 
  6. Tragic Death On Taiwan Set Of Martin Scorsese-Directed 'Silence' ( English ) In: Deadline.com . Retrieved February 20, 2015.
  7. Pope Francis and Martin Scorsese: A drama for Rome , mirror . November 30, 2016. Retrieved December 1, 2016. 
  8. Silence. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on March 28, 2019 .
  9. Silence. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 22, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used