| Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints | |
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 Logo | |
| Genre | |
| Created by | Matti Leshem |
| Written by | Kent Jones |
| Directed by | Elizabeth Chomko |
| Narrated by | Martin Scorsese |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
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| Production companies |
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| Original release | |
| Network | Fox Nation |
Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints is an eight-part docudrama series that premiered on Fox Nation in November 17, 2024. [1]
Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints explores the lives of historical Christian saints like John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, Saint Sebastian, Moses the Black, Thomas Becket, Francis of Assisi, Joan of Arc and Maximilian Kolbe, highlighting their acts. [1]
After Raging Bull in the early 1980s, Martin Scorsese considered quitting filmmaking, wanting to travel to Rome to shoot a series of television documentaries on the lives of different saints: "I literally thought it would be my last film," said Scorsese in 2016, referring to Raging Bull. "And at the time, because of the films that Bertolucci and the Tavianis and others had made for RAI, and in particular Roberto Rossellini's historical films, I thought that television was the future of cinema. Or, I should say: television mixed with cinema." [3]
Scorsese intended to set the project up at RAI, and explore the various questions of what it meant to be a saint, and where the figures came from. [3] After the project fell apart, Scorsese channeled his spiritual interests into films such as The Last Temptation of Christ, Kundun , and Silence . Decades later, the series was revived when it was greenlit by Fox Nation. [4]
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American filmmaker. He emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He has received many accolades, including an Academy Award, four BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and three Golden Globe Awards. He has been honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1997, the Film Society of Lincoln Center tribute in 1998, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2007, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2010, and the BAFTA Fellowship in 2012. Four of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".
Raging Bull is a 1980 American biographical sports drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty, Theresa Saldana, Frank Vincent, and Nicholas Colasanto in his final film role. The film is an adaptation of former middleweight boxing champion Jake LaMotta's 1970 memoir Raging Bull: My Story. It follows the career of LaMotta, played by De Niro, his rise and fall in the boxing scene, and his turbulent personal life beset by rage and jealousy.
Maximilian Maria Kolbe was a Polish Catholic priest and Conventual Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a man named Franciszek Gajowniczek in the German death camp of Auschwitz, located in German-occupied Poland during World War II. He had been active in promoting the veneration of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, founding and supervising the monastery of Niepokalanów near Warsaw, operating an amateur-radio station (SP3RN), and founding or running several other organizations and publications.
Joseph Frank Pesci is an American actor. He is known for portraying tough, volatile characters in a variety of genres and for his collaborations with Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese in the films Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995), and The Irishman (2019). He has received several awards including an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award with nominations for three Golden Globe Awards.
Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic. He first became known for writing the screenplay of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). He later continued his collaboration with Scorsese, writing or co-writing Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Bringing Out the Dead (1999). Schrader has also worked extensively as a director: his 23 films include Blue Collar (1978), Hardcore (1979), American Gigolo (1980), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), Light Sleeper (1992), Affliction (1997), and First Reformed (2017), with the last of these earning him his first Academy Award nomination. Schrader's work frequently depicts "man in a room" stories which feature isolated, troubled men confronting an existential crisis.
John C. "Jay" Cocks Jr. is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is a graduate of Kenyon College. He was a critic for Time, Newsweek, and Rolling Stone, among other magazines, before shifting to screenplay writing.
Mother Joan of the Angels is a 1961 Polish horror art film on demonic possession, directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz, based on a novella of the same title by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, loosely based on the 17th century Loudun possessions. The film won the Special Jury Prize at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival.
Joseph Zaso is an American actor and filmmaker.
Diary of a Country Priest is a 1951 French drama film written and directed by Robert Bresson. The film stars Claude Laydu in his feature film debut. A faithful adaptation of Georges Bernanos' Grand Prix du Roman-winning novel of the same name, the film tells the story of a sickly young Catholic priest who has been assigned a small village in northern France as his first parish. The film illustrates the eroding religious faith in the French countryside and the clergy's struggles to reach younger believers disillusioned by the inflexibility, and sometimes hypocritical flexibility, of the Church at the time.
Thelma Schoonmaker is an American film editor, best known for her collaboration over five decades with director Martin Scorsese. She has received numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and four ACE Eddie Awards. She has been honored with the British Film Institute Fellowship in 1997, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2014, and the BAFTA Fellowship in 2019.
The 56th New York Film Critics Circle Awards honored the best filmmaking of 1990. The winners were announced on 18 December 1990 and the awards were given on 13 January 1991.
What's a Nice Girl like You Doing in a Place like This? is a 1963 American black-and-white short comedy-drama film created by Martin Scorsese while he studied at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. It is a story about a writer who becomes obsessed with a picture on his wall. The film stars Zeph Michaelis, Mimi Stark, Sarah Braveman, Fred Sica, and Robert Uricola.
The Last Temptation of Christ is a 1988 epic religious drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. Written by Paul Schrader with uncredited rewrites from Scorsese and Jay Cocks, it is an adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis' controversial 1955 novel of the same name. The film, starring Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Barbara Hershey, Andre Gregory, Harry Dean Stanton and David Bowie, was shot entirely in Morocco.
The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing is a 2004 documentary film about the history and art of film editing, directed by filmmaker Wendy Apple. The film brings up many topics, including the collaborative nature of filmmaking, female representation in the editing field, and emerging technologies of the 21st century. Clips shown in the documentary were taken from feature films of the past century noted for their innovations in editing, ranging from 1903's Life of an American Fireman to 2003's Cold Mountain.
Fox Nation is an American subscription video on demand service. Announced on February 20, 2018, and launching on November 27 of that year, it is a companion to Fox News Channel carrying programming of interest to its audience, including original opinion-based talk shows and documentary-style programs featuring Fox News personalities, outdoor recreation-related programs, and other acquired programming. It also offers next-day streaming of Fox News primetime programs.
Martin Scorsese is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and film historian whose career spans more than fifty years. To date, Scorsese has directed twenty-six feature length narrative films, seventeen feature-length documentary films, and has co-directed one anthology film.
Silence is a 2016 epic historical drama film directed by Martin Scorsese from a screenplay by Jay Cocks and Scorsese, based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Shūsaku Endō, marking the third filmed adaptation of the novel. The film stars Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Tadanobu Asano, Ciarán Hinds and Liam Neeson. The plot follows two 17th-century Jesuit priests who travel from Portugal to Edo period Japan via Macau to locate their missing mentor and spread Catholic Christianity. The story is set in a time when it was common for the faith's Japanese adherents to hide from the persecution that resulted from the suppression of Christianity in Japan after the Shimabara Rebellion (1637–1638) against the Tokugawa shogunate. These are now called the Kakure Kirishitan, or "hidden Christians".
Serafino Murri is an Italian film critic, screenwriter, and film director from Rome.
Mario Gallo was an American film and television actor. He was perhaps best known for playing Mario, the Jake LaMotta trainer in the 1980 Martin Scorsese film Raging Bull.