A Raging Silence

Silence is a 2016 epic historical drama film directed by Martin Scorsese from a screenplay by Jay Cocks and Scorsese. It is based on the 1966 novel by Japanese author Shūsaku Endō, marking the third film adaptation of the novel. The film stars Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Tadanobu Asano, Ciarán Hinds and Liam Neeson. The plot follows two 17th-century Jesuit priests who travel from Portugal to Edo period Japan via Macau to locate their missing mentor and spread Catholic Christianity. It is the third of Scorsese's films about religious figures struggling with challenges of faith, following The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and Kundun (1997). The pre-production phase of the filmmaking for Silence went through a cycle of over two decades of setbacks and reassessments. After filming of The Wolf of Wall Street concluded in January 2013, Scorsese committed to following it up with Silence. On April 19, 2013, Scorsese indicated that he would begin production on Silence in 2014. Irwin Winkler was then announced as a producer, as were Randall Emmett and George Furla, who would provide financing through their company Emmett/Furla Films. Soon thereafter, planning was made for the film to be shot in Taiwan. A long-time passion project for Scorsese, which he had developed for over 25 years, Silence premiered in Rome on November 29, 2016, and was released in the United States on December 23, 2016. Though it received critical acclaim, being selected as one of the top ten films of the year by both the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute and being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, it was a box office bomb, grossing $24 million against its $50 million budget.