by staff writer with agencies
TAIPEI, TAIWAN -- March 15, 2014
Martin Scorsese plans to shoot his Japanese movie "Silence" in Taiwan
rather than in Taiwan, after seeing what Taiwanese-American director
Ang Lee was able to accomplish there with Oscar-winner "Life of Pi." In fact,
with more and more Hollywood films shooting parts of their films in Taipei and
other scenic spots around the island nation, some people have taken to
calling the evolving cinema world of Taiwan as "Tollywood."
Although the Scorcese film is based on an obscure 1966 Japanese novel
that tells the
story of a hapless Jesuit missionary trying in vain to introduce Christianity to
Buddhist and Shinto Japan in the 1600s, Scorcese has already scouted
locations in Taiwan after getting a welcoming greenlight from Lee.
In February of 2014, Scorcese and a small production team visited
Taiwan on an eight-day trip to scout locations for the movie. They
visited Taipei, Taichung and Hualien in their search for potential
film locations for the movie, which is based
on a Japanese novel set in Japan. Scorcese feels the Taiwan location
will be less stressful and more colorful
than shooting the period piece in the real Japan of today, since
Taiwan still contains architecture and village scenes
from the Japanese Colonial Period (1895 - 1945) when Japan ruled the
island with a colonial mindset.
Taipei Film Commission director Jennifer Jao told local media that
Scorcese "likes Taiwan very much" and plans to be back on location in
the summer to shoot the film.
"We hope that the film will be shot entirely in Taiwan," Jao told a
reporter for Apple Daily, adding that the commission will provide
crew, some cast members, film equipment, transportation services and
media assistance to Scorsese and his team during filming.
According to media reports, actors signed up to be in the film include
Liam Neeson (''Taken''), Andrew Garfield (''The Amazing Spider-Man''),
Ken Watanabe (''Inception'') and Adam Driver (''J. Edgar'' and
''Lincoln'').
The 71-year-old director and his crew went undiscovered in Taiwan
during their February visit as they scouted locations, but when a
customer at a Hualien recognized the director, the entertainment media
had a field day snappinmg photos and writing stories.
Prior to touching down in Taipei, Scorsese had been in Tokyo to
promote "The Wolf of Wall Street" along with stars Leonardo DiCaprio
and Jonah Hill by his side.
While "Silence" will be shot in
Taiwan, the movie will be released as a Japanese-language film with
Japanese dialog dubbed in in post-production, according to sources.
Garfield and Watanabe have already been cast in the movie,
the sources said.
Scorcese went to Cannes last year to try to sell "Silence" -- a personal pet
project still in development after 24 years of gestation -- to foreign
buyers, and he's ready to roll on the project he started in 1989.
Taipei
City and the surrounding countryside will serve as the principal
photography locations and Taiwanese film officials, already happy with
the global
publicity that native son Lee's ''Life of Pi'' brought in, are more
than welcoming to
Scorcese's plans, according to local media here.
While Taiwan is not Japan, Taiwan was a colony of Japan for 50 years
and much of the country still retains many areas and
buildings that look like they belong right in the middle of old Tokyo.
Scorcese apparently got the idea to shoot the movie in Taiwan after
personally conferring with Lee and getting his personal
recommendation. Scorsese said Lee recommended that he seriously
consider thinking about shooting "Silence" in Taiwan when the two men
chatted after attending a screening Scorcese's ''Hugo'' three years ago.
Lee was in the middle of filming "Life of Pi" at the time and had
nothing but good things to say about the crews and government
officials he was working with in his native land. Scorcese listened,
and after "Pi" won an Oscar for Lee in early 2013, he made his
decision to film in Taiwan, too.
The Japanese novelist Endo (1923 - 1996) was a minority Catholic
in a Buddhist and Shinto nation and "Silence'' -- titled ''Chin-mo-ku"
in Japanese -- tells the tale of a Jesuit missionary who faced severe
prejudice and persecution at that time in Japan's history. The novel,
which won the 1966 Tanizaki Prize in Tokyo but was never read much
outside Japan, is partly written as a letter by a foreign missionary
who questions and yet revels in the existence of a Christian God.
Critics in Japan have said that the theme of ''a silent God'' who
supports a Jesuit in adversity was greatly influenced by the Endo's
own personal experience of religious discrimination in Japan.
Scorcese, who is Catholic himself, has long been fascinated by the
Christian religious impulse and vocation, as seen in his 1988 Paul
Schrader-scripted ''The Last Temptation of Christ," is no stranger to
arguing with God. "Christ" was based on the Greek writer Nikos
Kazantzakis's 1960 novel which spoke of the life of Christ in human
terms rather than traditional divine terms.
So expect "Silence" to continue Scorcese's dialogs with God, hidden or not.