I’m amazed by the similarity of The Last Temptation of Christ and Silence, although they are both adaptations. This probably explains why Scorsese personally insisted choosing them under great pressure, and spent 16 and 26 years respectively to finally bring them on screen.
They are both about spiritual struggles, though largely different in terms of their contexts. One is a revival of the gospel in Israel; the other is a fiction about two Portuguese preachers bringing Christianity into Japan. One is about the holy figure who is weak and ambivalent; the other is about a normal person with strong faith. In the end they all go through their own form of revelation.
Jesus thought he is not the Messiah, but he finally becomes one; Rodrigues thought god is eternally silent, yet he finally hears god speaks to him through his own mind. The greatest point in common is probably that god lives inside them, and is alive through them. Jesus or Rodrigues, they are both human with divinity. It’s the same for everyone, whether you believe in religion or not; we are all guided by our own faith.
HD
