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11 things to know about Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Saints’

Martin Scorsese on the set of his new series on the life of the saints. The show premieres Sunday, Nov, 17, 2024, on Fox Nation. (Credit: Slobodan Pikula/Fox Nation)

National Catholic Register, Nov 16, 2024 / 10:00 am (CNA).

On the heels of his announcement that he will make a film about the life of Jesus, controversial film director Martin Scorsese has now completed a docudrama series for Fox Nation called “The Saints.”

Discussing the project during a private screening in New York City on Nov. 14, Scorsese said this project is the fruition of an idea he’s been ruminating on for years.

“I grew up practically living in St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral downtown and contemplating, meditating on those statues, of those saints, different saints — and wondering about their stories: What is a saint? This is something superhuman? Can they achieve something easier than we can, because we’re human beings? And of course, I realize, no. The point is that they’re human and that there are aspects of them that we can have as a good example to follow or to inspire us.”

Liah O’Prey plays Joan of Arc in the docudrama series “Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints.” Credit: Slobodan Pikula/Fox Nation
Liah O’Prey plays Joan of Arc in the docudrama series “Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints.” Credit: Slobodan Pikula/Fox Nation

Produced as an eight-part series, the Oscar-winning director’s project focuses on the lives of St. Joan of Arc, St. Francis of Assisi, St. John the Baptist, St. Thomas Becket, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Moses the Black, St. Sebastian, and St. Maximilian Kolbe.

Created by Matti Leshem, who co-founded a production company specializing in Jewish history and Judeo-Christian dialogue, and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, who was raised Catholic, “Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints” was written by Kent Jones, who has known the director for years. Scorsese developed the series but also narrates the stories in a didactic way, attempting to tell the true story of each saint, with vivid details and historical context.

Most of Scorsese’s movies have either dealt with Catholic themes directly or touch on issues surrounding virtue and vice, darkness and forgiveness. Upon seeing the series’ trailer alone, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone broached a question to his social media followers: “Wow. Martin Scorsese … coming home?”

But the theme of Catholicism has always been a constant for Scorsese, as he told the series’ writer in 2019 on the topic of forgiveness: “The profound impression of Catholicism at a very early age is something that I’ve always related back to,” he told Jones.

“One may read or become interested in many different ways. … I’m interested in how people perceive God or perceive the world of the intangible — all people, everywhere. But my way has always been through Catholicism.”

The National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, was able to watch two of the episodes at Fox Nation’s special screening in Manhattan, followed by a panel discussion where Scorsese discussed the Catholic faith, his motivations, and why the lives of saints are important.

Here are 11 things Catholics should know about this new series:

1. Martin Scorsese has long desired to bring a series on the saints to life, even before the ever-controversial “The Last Temptation of Christ” or his most recent faith film, “Silence.” But the long-awaited project finally panned out this year. Scorsese explained: “Maybe the fact that there are saints, were saints, and still are saints is something that’s lost on our newest generation. Because we don’t live with them. So we thought this was a good attempt to try and understand what that is and what faith is, really.”

2. Scorsese visited the Irish Dominican Order at San Clemente in Rome in 2023 to research matters of faith for this series as well as religious films he has in the pipeline. “The Saints” production took seven years in entirety to conceive and complete.

3. The cinematic series also features historical footage and photos of the era in which the saint lived, especially the life of St. Maximilian Kolbe. Video shows the priest leaving his home and what life was like during the Nazi invasion of Poland during World War II.

Milivoje Obradović plays Maximilian Kolbe in the Martin Scorsese docudrama series “Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints.” Credit: Slobodan Pikula/Fox Nation
Milivoje Obradović plays Maximilian Kolbe in the Martin Scorsese docudrama series “Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints.” Credit: Slobodan Pikula/Fox Nation

4. Due to the content and context of the stories, including graphic violence and gory details of war, the series is suitable for an adult audience; it is not meant for children. The life of St. Maximilian Kolbe also shows nudity related to his imprisonment at Auschwitz.

5. Each episode ends with a panel discussion with controversial priest Jesuit Father James Martin, known for his pro-LGBTQ activism within the Catholic Church, alongside poet and author Mary Karr and Georgetown fellow Paul Elie.

6. The series shows accurate depictions of how many saints are called as children to their vocations. In the opening sequence about St. Kolbe, he is shown as a child praying while the Blessed Mother appears to him showing her one hand of white and one hand of red, representing martyrdom.

7. In the episode on Joan of Arc, reference is made to her virginity, and twice viewers are shown the process of checking her virtue that may be considered graphic by some. Given the over-sexualized nature of many of Scorsese’s movies, the references are shown in a subtle and tasteful way. Historically, such assessments did occur.

8. The portrayal of Joan of Arc requesting a guard to make a cross for her before being burned at the stake is accurate. However, Scorsese omits the famed line: “Lift high the cross so I may see it through the flames.”

Liah O’Prey as Joan of Arc during the inquisition as portrayed in Martin Scorsese’s new series, “The Saints.” Credit: Slobodan Pikula/Fox Nation
Liah O’Prey as Joan of Arc during the inquisition as portrayed in Martin Scorsese’s new series, “The Saints.” Credit: Slobodan Pikula/Fox Nation

9. During the Nov. 14 panel, Scorsese spoke about Dorothy Day, who is currently being considered for sainthood, recalling a time when he was in the servant of God’s presence. “She was at our little youth center; Father Frank Principe had her come and talk. He pointed to her and said, ‘See that person; she’s really good.’ I grew up way downtown. Now, it’s a very chic area, but when I was there, it was a very down place. The Catholic Worker was the only place that I recall in terms of helping these men, some women that were dying in the streets.”

10. The episode on St. Maximilian Kolbe references controversial content regarding the priest’s alleged antisemitism, referencing a small sect that many at the time believed to be factual, but Jedrzej Giertych, author of “Libel Against a Saint,” defends Maximilian saying: “Father Kolbe was certainly not an enemy of the Jews as such, and in particular was anything but a ‘racial’ or ‘zoological’ anti-Semite. He saw in the Jews souls created by God, for which he prayed continually and whom he sought to help when they were in need.”

Milivoje Obradović as St. Maximilian Kolbe in Martin Scorsese’s new series “The Saints” available for streaming Nov. 17, 2024, on Fox Nation. Credit: Slobodan Pikula/Fox Nation
Milivoje Obradović as St. Maximilian Kolbe in Martin Scorsese’s new series “The Saints” available for streaming Nov. 17, 2024, on Fox Nation. Credit: Slobodan Pikula/Fox Nation

11. In an interview with The New York Times this week, Scorsese was asked about what his faith life looks like right now, and he said: “At times I’m a practicing Catholic. At this point, my relationship with it is a dialogue that I have with certain clerics and priests.”

Scorsese is considering several faith-based and personal projects, as he turns 82 on Sunday, including “A Life of Jesus.” Speaking to The Los Angeles Times in January upon the script’s completion, Scorsese said the inspiration for the film came last year after he met Pope Francis at the “Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination,” a conference that brought together artists and creatives from across the world. After this meeting, Scorsese said: “I have responded to the pope’s appeal to artists in the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus.”

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.


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9 Comments

  1. Looks interesting but when the likes of the omnipresent Jimmy Martin is involved, the old medieval warning: Here be dragons! is the correct way to go!

  2. “My relationship [with the Catholic faith] is a dialogue I have with certain clerics and priests,” including “Rev.” James Martin, who I feature in my saints series…who “preaches” the Jesuit ideology that it is settled “science” (per the Jesuit apostate Eminence Hollerich) that it is OK for a man to inseminate the intestines of another person, and adults should teach that to children and young people.

    Three things:
    A. an anti-Christ ideology, and…
    B. Insanity, per biology…
    C. re-packaged psycho-sexual pollution.

    A dead-end.

  3. A coda to my comment rejecting the Scorcese series:

    Not only does Scorcese promote the apostate “Rev.” Martin, he promotes the woke scold college “professor” Paul Elie, who dealt-out his cancellation-smear of Flannery O’Connor, brutally smearing her as a racist, to signal to the world his “woke-rectitude.”

    To Scorcese, Martin and Elie: you are selling pollution. You can eat it all yourselves.

  4. The upper echelons of the American cultural élite are well populated with those who fancy some kind of attachment to Catholicism short of actual acceptance of the faith.
    They should be reminded that no-one can be a Catholic on their own terms.

    • “Sometimes I am a practicing Catholic” says it all. What does that mean? You believe in what? And who did you choose to talk with for your journey? A protester will not bring you closer to Jesus and the Church. Do we go to a divorced man to ask how to stay married? I will ask the faithful man who has just celebrated his 50th anniversary.
      There are many good movies about the saints. Can we bring those back to the theaters??
      As a practicing Catholic, I have no need for this man and his movies to assist me in living out my faith.

  5. I wish Scorsese would concentrate on violent, profanity-filled films about the Mafia and gangs, etc., and leave the Catholic Church alone. I am glad others are avoiding The Saints due to the presence of Irreverent James Martin and his cohorts.

  6. After watching the first episode I was shocked to see fatherLGBTQmartin as one of the commentators. As I became nauseous listening to Martin talk, I was asking why Scorsese would have him as part of the show and the answer came to me instantly….probably most of the Catholics in Hollywood love Martin including Scorsese.

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