| Scorsese plans film on Christian persecution | |
| AFP | |
TOKYO — Oscar-winning filmmaker Martin Scorsese plans to adapt for the screen a novel on Japan’s brutal persecution of Christians during the 17th century, according to a museum.
The 1966 novel “Chinmoku” (“Silence”) by Shusaku Endo tells the story of a young idealistic Jesuit priest from Portugal who lands on the shores of Nagasaki in southern Japan — then the only region open to foreigners.
The novel depicts the severe persecution Japan then inflicted on converts to Christianity, many of whom were impoverished villagers and went into hiding.
Academy Award-winning art director Dante Ferretti, who is close to Scorsese, and producer E. Bennett Walsh this week visited the Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture to research the film.
“They are going to make a movie and so they visited to research Japanese Christian history,” museum spokesman Koichiro Nishijima said.
He said that the pair carefully studied a “fumie,” a metal plaque depicting Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary that authorities would make people step on in order to weed out Christians.