Andrew Garfield calls Martin Scorsese’s Silence both brutal and meditative

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

A new Martin Scorsese film is always something to look forward to, but when it comes to SILENCE, a passion project of Scorsese's which he has been fighting to make for over three decades, it's understandable that our hopes are rather high. SILENCE stars Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver as two young 17th-century Jesuit priests who travel to Japan to investigate claims of religious persecution and whether or not their mentor (Liam Neeson) has broken from the church. As we've yet to glimpse any footage from the film (soon, we hope), we'll have to rely on the words of those involved with its production. Andrew Garfield recently spoke with Fandango and was asked to describe what sort of film SILENCE is.

It's meditative and brutal simultaneously. It's a very mysterious film and I can't quite put it into words. Every time me and Marty would try to get to the bottom of its themes and what the character is going through, we would wind up talking for two to three hours, and every time there would be five minutes of silence at the end because we had exhausted the conversation and had no answers, only more questions. Then he'd look at me and go, 'Okay kid, until next time…' [Laughs]

Garfield added that there's "a lot of violence in it, but it's done in a very different way. It's a very specific type of brutality that was being done reluctantly, and yet with this Japanese eloquence — it had a real seduction about it. It's really fascinating… but I don't want to say too much until you see it. You see it and then we'll talk about it." As I've never read the novel on which SILENCE is based, I'm not entirely sure what to expect from the film, but when Martin Scorsese is excited, so am I. Bring it on.

SILENCE will open in limited release on December 23, 2016 before opening wide in January 2017.