Martin Scorsese presents Mary’s story in Easter special of ‘The Saints’

Ahead of Easter, Martin Scorsese’s docudrama series about the saints is featuring the queen of all saints: Mary, the mother of Jesus.

“Mary is an unbelievably inspiring character,” Matti Leshem, creator of “Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints,” said. “Regardless of your level of faith, you should be moved by her. You should be moved by her love.”

Leshem, who also serves as a director and executive producer of the series, spoke with OSV News about the second season of “The Saints” and its new episode called “Mary.”

The hour-long extended episode promises to bring Mary’s story to life, beginning with her betrothal to Joseph. Hosted, narrated, and executive produced by Scorsese, an award-winning filmmaker, the special Easter episode is now available following its March 27 debut on Fox Nation, a subscription streaming service.

“She is the quintessential mother — and whether or not you believe that Mary is the Mother of God, on some level, she is mother of us all,” Leshem said.

Leshem, who is Jewish, echoed Scorsese, a Catholic, and his commentary in the episode. In the Easter special, Scorsese exhibits a careful, personal approach toward the Blessed Virgin Mary. He remembers the importance of Easter growing up in New York’s “Little Italy” neighborhood in the 1940s, and goes on to speak about presenting Mary in a way that reveals her maternal humanity.

“In the Christian faith, Mary is a pillar — a perfect soul who steps into her beloved son’s shadow,” Scorsese says at one point. “When you examine her life closely, you start to see her terror, her astonishment, her confusion, her sorrow, her great love. It’s a life unlike any other.”

He adds, “We made this episode in an attempt to get closer to Mary, the mother of Jesus and really for so many of us all around the world, the mother of us all.”

— A special scene with ‘Mary’

Lehshem revealed that one of the episode’s final scenes came directly from Scorsese.

“That scene at the very end where the resurrected Christ appears to his mother was (Scorsese’s) invention,” Leshem said, adding that it “really came out of his imagination and his meditations on Mary.”

The scene comes up in conversation at the conclusion of the episode, where Scorsese discusses Mary with Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author; Mary Karr, a professor, poet and memoirist; and Paul Elie, an author and senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs.

“Father Martin actually references this specific idea, because it’s not in the Gospels, of course, that Christ appears to his mother,” Leshem said. “But there’s some indication that that’s something that could have happened.”

— A care for creative liberties

Leshem said that the makers of “The Saints” take a careful and thoughtful approach in deciding when and where to take creative liberties. In the episode, the script does not follow Scripture verbatim, and some viewers may find certain choices controversial.

Regarding the birth of Jesus Christ, for instance, every filmmaker is confronted with the fact that there are two valid traditions backed by Scripture around whether Mary experienced pain in childbirth: Was she free from it due to her Immaculate Conception, or did she undergo such pain perfectly united to the redemptive suffering of her son? The traditions for each view are as old as the Church itself and the Church has not definitively resolved them. But in such a case, the filmmakers ultimately have to make a choice and do so.

As a rule, Leshem said, they try not to disavow any Gospel.

“For us, Gospel is Gospel, and we take it very seriously in that way,” he said, adding “that when Gospels disagree with each other, or there are clear indications that something is plausible, that it could have happened, we also have great consultants.”

Leshem also highlighted the series’ focus on presenting the saints as approachable and human. He said that, where they can, they try to add to the story and flesh out the characters to make them accessible to modern-day people who “maybe have lost touch with their religion or lost touch with a sense of faith.”

— A Jewish background

Leshem, who spoke previously with the Our Sunday Visitor magazine about his Jewish background and encountering the saints as a boy in Catholic school, spoke about this episode that tells the story of a Jewish woman. He said his faith helps him approach every episode.

With this episode, as a practicing Jew and as someone who has studied Judaism and Christianity, he said, “I feel like I have a sense of what life was like.”

Leshem said he understands the tradition Mary comes from and the tradition Jesus was raised in, which is something the episode includes. He spoke about his personal perspective.

“I always think of Christianity, broadly, as kind of a Judaism 2.0,” he said. “It is the continuation of a path that begins with the Old Testament and goes on to the New Testament.”

He also expressed interest in St. Joseph, who is a part of this episode.

“You see Joseph struggling with the reality of this woman who he loves, who he doesn’t know how not to believe her, but he can’t understand it,” he said. “The truth is, is that there is great mystery to all of this. But you see that that’s what faith is.”

— The heart of ‘Mary’ is ‘a mother’s love’

Leshem said that, in many ways, he is more excited about this episode than he has been about any other one. He said that those involved in the making of this series have been talking for a long time about how to create an episode about Mary.

“It’s, on one level, quite daunting, because everyone knows Mary,” he said. “Even people who aren’t Christian, people who aren’t Catholic, the world over, she’s so iconic.”

He also expressed excitement about making Mary accessible and over the idea that anyone, regardless of their faith or background, might see that her story is special.

“At the heart of it is a mother’s love,” he said, “in such a beautiful way that we really feel, we see really the story of her relationship with her son in a very human way.”

A link to the trailer is here: https://youtu.be/W1TgvJ1pWtY?si=5YGgZeB5mF03MNo6

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