Director Martin Scorsese has long served as a mentor to rising directors, from giving John McNaughton (“Mad Dog and Glory”) and Allison Anders (“Grace of My Heart“) their first shots at studio movies to employing “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon as an assistant on “Casino.” For the season finale of the series “Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints,” which Scorsese hosts and executive produces, he looked closer to home for a protégé — the episode marks the television directorial debut of his daughter Francesca.
Francesca and Martin have been working together for years on a series of viral videos (more on that later), but “The Saints” marks their first collaboration on a longer-form piece of filmmaking, and it was a labor of love for both given the subject matter. Like each episode of the series, Francesca’s installment focuses on one specific Catholic saint — in this case, Carlo Acutis, who was born in the 1990s and harnessed the power of the Internet to spread his faith around the world until he died of a leukemia as a teenager.
“I always imagined the saints being ancient beings,” Francesca told IndieWire. “When I found out there was a young boy who was alive while I’ve been alive, it was incredible to me. He was just a regular kid, he went to parties and enjoyed his time with his friends. But he used the internet in a very special way, an inspiring way. He used his platform for good — I think of him as the first influencer.”
Martin noted that what made Carlo Acutis special was the fact that he lived according to his faith but didn’t judge his peers. “He didn’t criticize,” Martin told IndieWire. “He didn’t put anybody down, and that’s a big question: how can a young person go against the flow or the wave of sexuality, pornography, etc., and say, ‘I’m going to be abstinent,’ without looking as if you’re judging others? It’s an antidote to materialist world we’re living in, and to the worst parts of social media.”
For Martin, the episode is another in an ongoing series of films designed to explore spirituality and moral choices from a variety of perspectives and attitudes — a mission that began with his very first feature, “Who’s That Knocking At My Door,” and which has continued in recent films like his 2016 masterpiece “Silence.” “Even ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ has an element of the fine line between good and evil in human nature,” Martin said.
He felt that Francesca was the right person to tell this particular story, as a member of Generation Z. “I said, ‘Why don’t you try this, because it’s your generation,’” Martin said of the Carlo Acutis episode. “This is not a guy walking around in robes in the desert. This is a kid on a computer. He’s at school with his friends and he’s fooling around and he’s looking at ‘South Park,’ but at the same time he’s choosing to live a religious life.”
Martin’s main pieces of advice for Francesca as she started work on the episode had to do with preparation. “There were two things,” he said. “One is, prepare as best you can on paper, with drawings. You may get to a place with five drawings and have to distill that five down to one or two, but you can say, ‘Okay, at least I got those two.’ You’re prepared and it tells a story. You don’t walk in and waste time, you ideally get to the locations a few days before and double check and see where you can get your angles based on your storyboards.”
Following her father’s guidance, Francesca meticulously storyboarded every shot for “The Saints,” one reason her episode has such visual elegance even though she was often limited when it came to time and resources. “In Assisi, we weren’t able to go into the Basilica of Santa Chiara until the day we shot and we only had about a half an hour in there,” Francesca said. “It was very last minute, getting in there and figuring out the shots. And then we only had 30 minutes to shoot the scene, getting ushered out by angry nuns. It was very chaotic and stressful.”
The final result doesn’t give any indication of the chaos, as Francesca finds an inviting and precise visual language to express Carlo’s faith; the use of natural light that she and cinematographer Igor Marovic develop gives the entire episode an ineffable sense of spirituality that comes through in the imagery. “I love windows and silhouettes,” she said. “In some scenes there’s just a little candle, or a light in a corner, that brings a little warmth and feels like a spirit. Then when Carlo is dying, I tried to keep a little warmth in the frame so it wasn’t like he was alone, but I did make the light and colors a bit cooler.”
In addition to his suggestion that Francesca plan her shots in detail, Martin also advised that she devote time to rehearsing the actors — though she found that there was a tricky balance between rehearsing and letting the performances get stale. “It’s a fine line, because I was trying to rehearse them as much as I could but sometimes I would find things getting watered down,” Francesca said. “Or they were getting a little tired. The key was to avoid over-rehearsing the actors.”
One scene in the episode that Francesca did not direct — much to her chagrin — was Martin’s introduction in which he addressed the camera alongside a piece of decor Francesca would have preferred to keep out of the episode. “Unfortunately I didn’t direct the intro, or I would have gotten rid of the awkward teen photo of me!” she said. “It’s so embarrassing.” Francesca did direct her father for the narration he had to read throughout the episode, which she said was one of her biggest challenges.
“That was hard,” Francesca said. “I kept saying, ‘Do it again, you sound like you’re asking a question,’ and he would really give me hell for it. He had comment after comment.” “I do the same to Kent [Jones], who’s a wonderful writer,” Martin added. “He’ll say, ‘Could you do it again?’ and I’ll say, ‘Oh, now he wants another, why don’t you write it better?’”
The playful banter between Martin and Francesca that went on during the recording of Martin’s narration will come as no surprise to fans of the pair’s viral videos on TikTok and Instagram, which began as a lark but have become essential viewing for Martin Scorsese fans who have reveled in the chance to see the iconic director in a more intimate, personal setting than they’re used to.
“An honesty comes out that if very intimate in a sense,” Martin said of videos like the hilarious one where Francesca invites him to describe feminine products on camera. “I’m shooting ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ and I’m busy, and I really tried to answer the questions honestly because otherwise she wouldn’t go away.” From Francesca’s point of view, her dad is the perfect subject.
“He’s performative, in a good way,” she said. “When the camera turns on he gets this look and a big smile and we have a great back and forth. I just love him with my whole heart.” Francesca added that when the SAG strike happened and Martin was left on his own to represent “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the videos turned into a marketing tool.
“Apple asked us to make some videos to help promote the movie, and there was this huge effect of young people coming to see it because of our presence of TikTok,” Francesca said, with Martin laughing, “The picture was three hours and 15 minutes. Those kids didn’t know what they were getting into!” For Martin, the videos are like “little epigrams, or haikus. You learn something every time. Even when I do a commercial — commercials are not easy. Every shot has a power and has to have a certain connection to the audience.”
Martin says that the key to mentoring Francesca and other directors is helping them achieve their intentions without imposing his own way of doing things. “You can’t tell her, ‘do this, don’t do that,’” Martin said. “If she wants to go to a certain place, maybe you can help her get there by saying, ‘I think I know what it is that’s throwing you off. Should you have that shot there? Try it, see what happens, see what you like.’ You ask the questions not to make them think differently, but to achieve their thinking.”
Although Francesca found showing her cut of the episode to Martin nerve-wracking, at the end of the day she says she couldn’t have asked for a more supportive producer. “I always say it felt like turning in a homework assignment,” she said. “But he is very comforting for me, and very hands-on with everything. I really enjoyed working with him.” And what are Martin’s feelings after working with Francesca?
“I’d love to see what she’s going to do next.”
The Carlo Acutis episode of “The Saints” begins streaming on Fox Nation Sunday, December 7.