Passion project

AT THEof filming Roger Corman exploitation flick in 1972, actors David Carradine and Barbara Hershey gave young, beardless director Martin Scorsese a novel. by Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis described a reinterpretation of Jesus from the Gospels that posited a battle between Christ’s divinity and His humanity. Speaking to the filmmaker who swapped the priesthood for cinema, Scorsese nurtured the project for over 15 years in the face of one false start, studio nervousness, budget cuts, switching actors (Willem Dafoe for Aidan Quinn) and pressure from religious fundamentalists as the movie opened to controversy; 25,000 protestors marched on Universal Studios, four major exhibitors refused to show the film, and in Salt Lake City a screen was slashed and a print stolen. Over the years, it’s become renowned as the lodestone of Scorsese’s oeuvre, touching on his key themes: faith, and the difficulty of being a good man in the real world. To mark the Criterion Collection release, we wanted to ask Scorsese about the joys and pains of bringing the film to the screen. We sent over some questions for him to consider, not expecting the 2,500-word email we’d receive in response from Martin himself. What did he have to say? Read on...