"Silence" to be made into a movie
A few months ago, I was deeply touched by reading Shusaku Endo's book "Silence" The book accounts the story of a young idealistic Portuguese Jesuit priest who slips into southern Japan in order to investigate the truthfulness of a report that one of his mentors had renounced his faith in the midst of the terrible persecution of Christians that was going on in Japan at the time (the 17th century). The book accounts his hiding from those who would arrest him, his eventual capture and the subsequent struggles he endured as he witnessed Japanese Christians being tortured and out to death for his refusal to deny his faith.
The book is a disturbing account, but I was pleased to learn today that Martin Scorsese plans to adapt the book for the screen and that plans are for it to be released sometime in 2010. It will certainly shed light on a neglected time in church history. And it is will trouble people. I certainly was left wondering, after reading the book, which is worse; suffering or the fear of suffering? Undergoing personal suffering or watching others suffer because of you? And I better understood why the Bible warns persecuted Christians against fear more than anything else.
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2 comments:
I finished this book myself last month. I hope Scorsese does the book justice, and is able to capture some its essence.
Me too. I hope that he doesn't resort to the typical Hollywood tendency to focus on the violence. The book, I found, was more frightening by the unseen violence that was referred to in the background than by the actual description of it. The focus is on the fear of suffering and violence more so than the actual violence itself.
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