Martin Scorsese’s Silence Gets Oscar Friendly Release Date

Variety’s Brent Lang reports that Martin Scorsese’s Silence, produced by Gaston Pavlovich of Fabrica de Cine, with get a December 23 release date. We’ve all been factoring in Silence in our predictions because it’s Martin Scorsese. I’m just going to go ahead and call him the greatest living film director. I don’t think there is anyone who tops him, at least not in America. This is being called a “religious epic” and Scorsese has made one or two of those, most notably (the very underrated) Last Temptation of Christ.  Probably the thing I most admire about Scorsese, and why I think he is one of the very few who earns the label of artist, and why I think he is always at the top of the food chain in Hollywood now, is that he does not return to the same puddle for water every time he needs a drink. He could, if he wanted, give his fans what they want – mob movies, basically. Or boxing movies or Wall Street movies. But he is not afraid to try new things, even if it means he fails spectacularly at them. At his absolute worst, Scorsese is still better than most.

So yeah, readers of this site know how much we love and cherish Mr. Scorsese. Because we were already factoring in Silence this news doesn’t shake up the Oscar race as such. But it is kind of funny to think that Scorsese’s Hugo went up against The Artist in 2011. It makes me half wonder if Silence will go up against La La Land the same way. Hugo ended up matching The Artist with Oscar wins -both films won 5, even if The Artist too Picture, Director and Actor. It’s still impressive and surprised many people that night when Hugo won so many. That is due to the respect and high achievement of Martin Scorsese. If Damien Chazelle is nominated alongside Martin Scorsese and Ang Lee – he can call that in and of itself a great achievement. Both of these directors really do set the standard for high achievement in Hollywood and I suspect both will really love La La Land.