Martin Scorsese Talks About His New Film 'Silence'
— -- The critically-acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese talked about his new movie "Silence," and reflected back over his decades-long career in an interview that aired today with "Good Morning America" anchor Lara Spencer.
"Silence," starring Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, and Liam Neeson, is the tale of two Christian missionaries each searching for their lost mentor. Scorsese, speaking from the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City, where there is currently an exhibit dedicated to his legendary work, said "Silence" is a film he has been trying to make for 28 years.
"I mean for me it's the struggle every day between faith and doubt," Scorsese said of the film.
When asked if the film is based on his own personal experiences, Scorsese said, "I think so, and that's one of the reasons I couldn't get...I couldn't figure out how to do it."
"I was in the middle of it. I still am. But at least this has been expressed somehow," Scorsese added.
Scorsese told Spencer that before he became a filmmaker, he thought his calling was to be a priest.
"I tried for a year in..a preparatory seminary," Scorsese said. "But I was invited to leave at the end of that year."
"I was very bad in my...studies and behavior," Scorsese added.
The exhibition on Scorsese at the Museum of the Moving Image looks back at the iconic filmmaker's career, but also at his personal life.
Scorsese said that from the exhibit he hopes people will take a look at his sketches, "that's what I started doing, when I was a kid," he says of his drawings. The director famously sketches out many of his own story boards, and he says that he started doing this when he was only 11-years-old.
Scorsese said it would be hard to pick a favorite film out of all the ones he has worked on.
"I mean, I guess the initial explosion, so to speak, was 'Mean Streets,'" he said, referencing his 1973 film starring Robert De Niro.
"I'd like to do one more with De Niro," Scorsese said. "We're talking about this film called 'The Irishman.'"
Scorsese added that he has a special relationship with De Niro, because they grew up together in Manhattan's Lower East Side.
"We were both adolescents together," Scorsese said. "He knows the world I came from. So he knows that's the...he knows the roots. He's the only one who does. There is a certain reaction to a word or a movement, I don't know where it comes from, and we just look at each other and 'Oh I know'"
Scorsese also told Spencer that he also has a special relationship with actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred in his 2013 film, "The Wolf of Wall Street."
"There's a 30-year difference," Scorsese said. "But he has a similar sensibility."
"Silence" is currently in theaters nationwide. The "Martin Scorsese" exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York City, will run through April 23, 2017.
