The first official look at Martin Scorsese’s long-awaited Silence was released online on Tuesday night. Starring Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver and Liam Neeson in lead roles, the religious drama is set to open on December 23.
The trailer is thrilling, set to screaming violins, intense martial drumming and blasts of the religious imagery and violence. Garfield and Driver play the Jesuits seeking a missing mentor who may or may not have renounced his faith.
Early in the trailer, we see a beaten-down Neeson kneeling in subjugation — to whom or what isn’t quite clear — and it isn’t long before the Garfield and Driver characters are in equally dire straits. “I pray but I’m lost,” says Garfield’s Rodrigues at the end, then adding the kicker that gives the film it’s title: “Am I just praying to silence?”
Among other memorable images: A dizzying overhead shot of the three priests, in black of course, striding across a stone plaza, and later, ocean waves washing over a few crucified Japanese villagers.
Tadanobu Asano, Yosuke Kubozuka, Ciarán Hinds, Shinya Tsukamoto and Issey Ogata will also be seen in supporting roles. Jay Cocks and Scorsese wrote the screenplay based on Shūsaku Endō’s novel.
After reading the novel in 1989, Scorsese quickly snapped up the film rights and began telling nearly everyone he knew how much he wanted to make the movie. Even while shooting films including The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island and Hugo, he conceded that Silence was the movie he really wanted to shoot.
After 2014’s The Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese put his foot down and said he would not attach himself to another film project until Silence was completed.
