A screening of Martin Scorsese’s “Silence,” based on the 1966 epic historical novel by Shūsaku Endō, was held at Keating Hall on the evening of Feb. 26. It was followed by a discussion with Father George Drance, an artist-in-residence in the theatre program; Father Michael Zampelli, associate professor of theatre; and Professor James McCartin, a Dean Fellow who teaches theology.
As attendees helped themselves to complimentary pizza and settled into their seats, an enthused Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock introduced the night’s agenda. Apicella-Hitchcock, head of the visual arts program, organizes and moderates the “Films Worth Talking About, Even if Difficult” series sponsored by the Office of the Dean.
“Silence,” released in 2016, follows two 17th-century Jesuit priests from Portugal on a mission to find a lost mentor and spread Catholic Christianity in Japan. They travel to the country during a time of intense religious persecution, in which Christians are made to renounce their faith through torture or else be mercilessly killed.
Young priests Sebastião Rodrigues and Francisco Garupe, played by Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver, find initial acceptance in small coastal villages where the Christian faith is still intact. But word of the priests and their travels imperils the very communities they seek to help.
The unity of one suffering … (with) the suffering of the God who became human, the suffering of Jesus on the cross, has been experienced by people across history as edifying, as transformative and as somehow enabling them to have some sort of dignity. James McCartin, Dean fellow and professor of theology
The men splinter off from each other, and soon, bloodshed fills their days and nights. They watch as peasants are rounded up and given an ultimatum by the inquisitor (played by a delightedly villainous Shinya Tsukamoto): Stomp on a stone engraving of Jesus Christ, thereby condemning your belief, or die.
One man named Kichijirō repeatedly tramples on Jesus to save his life, but crawls back to Rodrigues begging for forgiveness for his sins. He is a morally ambiguous character with an even more uncertain relationship to God — something that resonated with Father Zampelli.
“I feel like I see myself in him a lot, especially that line (Kichijirō says): ‘I would have been fine if they weren’t in persecution,’ right? ‘I would have been fine 20 years ago, but it’s just too hard now. I’m just not strong enough.’ And I feel like I get that somewhere inside of me,” Zampelli said.
McCartin touched on another point of complexity, which was the oft-misunderstood idea of finding grace through suffering.
“The unity of one suffering … (with) the suffering of the God who became human, the suffering of Jesus on the cross, has been experienced by people across history as edifying, as transformative and as somehow enabling them to have some sort of dignity,” McCartin said. “I want to suggest that perhaps part of it is because they already know they’re undergoing suffering.”
The first time I saw it, I was on a bus coming back from a mission trip with my church, and I felt like all the things discussed in this — about doubt, and how you can feel just how heavy the silence is and how painful it is to not know if God is really there — I felt like that’s the kind of stuff they don’t teach you in Sunday school. William Holland, FCRH ’29
William Holland, Fordham College at Rose Hill ’29, had seen “Silence” four previous times before that night’s screening. He offered poignant insight on what the movie meant to him.
“The first time I saw it, I was on a bus coming back from a mission trip with my church, and I felt like all the things discussed in this — about doubt, and how you can feel just how heavy the silence is and how painful it is to not know if God is really there — I felt like that’s the kind of stuff they don’t teach you in Sunday school,” Holland said. “It’s something that I felt like was represented really well here.”
By the third act of the film, Rodrigues is a shadow of the man he once was, who has formally apostasized after years of relentless intimidation. Christianity, he is told, does not grow in Japan, where the only god they worship is the sun. All of those people who died did so for him — he who pressed rosary beads into their hands, listened intently to their pent-up confessions and forgave them, over and over for their sins — not God.
Yet something sustains Rodrigues to the very end of his days. The final shot of the film pushes in on the loosely clasped hands of his corpse, where, hidden to those carrying out his Buddhist funeral rites, rests a small wooden crucifix.
Drance invoked the philosophical and ethical principle of “epikeia” — which in simple terms means a law can be broken in the pursuit of a greater good — to rationalize Rodrigues’ extreme subjugation of his faith.
“What was most interesting about Rodriguez is that his journey of epikeia was constantly transforming,” Drance said. “What might seem like a flip, or what might seem like a 180, is just, ‘I think I understand this context,’ and then it changes.”
Zampelli voiced his agreement, saying that inhabiting identity is never static.
“Rarely do we know who we are and then go out in the world and act, right? Maybe that’s some kind of fantasy that we have. I feel like we’re always discovering who we are in the process of acting in the world,” he said.
Next up in the “Films Worth Talking About, Even if Difficult” series is Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “Pictures of Ghosts,” which will be screened on April 16.
