Film legend Martin Scorsese -- no surprise -- talks about his latest movie (and Jesus)

Since Day 1 — almost 20 years ago — your GetReligionistas have talked about the religion “ghosts” that haunt many mainstream news stories.

The basic idea is that journalists without religion-beat skills often omit religious facts, history and beliefs when writing many stories in which it’s almost impossible to understand what is going on without reporting these religion angles. Thus, we say these stories are “haunted” by religion “ghosts.”

From time to time, we hear from critics who claim that we want journalists to “force” religion into stories in the arts, sports, politics, business, etc. In the vast majority of cases, these critics are not arguing with us — but with easily available information about the lives of the people involved in these stories. Remember that classic 2016 case with mainstream news coverage (hello ESPN) of NBA superstar Kevin Durant?

This brings me to a recent Time magazine feature that ran with this headline: “Martin Scorsese Still Has Stories to Tell.” On one level, reporter Stephanie Zacharek faced a familiar entertainment-beat story, as in doing a junket-related feature with a Hollywood player who is promoting his or her new movie.

However, what we ended up with is a positive example of a journalist weaving accurate, valid, material about a newsmaker’s religious history into a mainstream news report.

Let me note that, in terms of film-studies doctrine, there is no such thing as an “orthodox” view of the role Catholic faith plays in this superstar director’s life and work. That’s fine. There’s way more to this man’s story than ongoing (in my view valid) arguments about “The Last Temptation of Christ.”

Catholics can, and do, argue about what “kind” of Catholic he is, in terms of beliefs and practice of the faith. Film scholars can debate which of his movies are “Catholic,” which ones have faith soaked into the images and which ones seem to clash with Catholicism.

But everyone agrees on one thing: It’s impossible to talk about Scorsese and leave his Catholicism out of the mix.

Thus, Zacharek’s feature is not an example of a journalist “forcing” religion into a story about a mainstream artist. It’s an example of a story that asks relevant questions about Scorsese and then let’s him talk about his life and art. Thus, it contains quite a bit of valid Godtalk.

At first this is a rather normal arts-beat feature. For example, near the top:

Scorsese’s encyclopedic knowledge of film has made him the patron saint of film bros, and though it’s a title he most certainly never asked for, he’s happy to talk about movies for as long as you like.

The Ringer has published an odd report by Keith Phipps that traces the doomed path of the NC-
17 rating in a time when streaming TV has eclipsed the importance of films. Its headline is an
engaging two-sentence summary: “Thirty Years Ago, Hollywood Won the Battle Against the X
Rating. But It Lost the War.”

Phipps devotes nearly 2,600 words to this topic.

You just know that simple-minded religious people play a major role in this drama. His one reference to cultural conservatives (“a religious right eager to protest whatever they [sic] felt to be an affront to their values”) is as predictable as a media release from Americans United. He adds this:

“They didn’t lack targets and, in fairness, those targets felt closer at hand thanks to neighborhood video stores with curtained ‘adults only’ sections and scandalous music videos just a click away on cable.”

That’s as far as the fairness extends, though. This isn’t hard-news journalism, of course. Still, it would have been nice — interesting even — to see some serious discussions of the views of people on both sides of this issue. Diversity is often interesting.

Phipps makes no effort to demonstrate such eagerness or easily affronted values, but simply notes
these factors as though they were universally established realities.

But here comes an informative turn, as Phipps presents a few examples of films that were
harmed by the dreaded adjective controversial:

Though ultimately more talked about than seen, Jean-Luc Godard’s 1985 film Hail Mary — featuring a modern day retelling of the nativity story — earned protests and the condemnation of Pope John Paul II. But that was a mere prelude to what greeted Martin
Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988. …