Originally Posted by
baby doll
Box Office Mojo doesn't list a production budget for Silence, but I'm guessing a three and a half hour period drama shot in Japan with major stars wasn't cheap to make. Even if it didn't do major business, it's still clearly in a different economic bracket than, say, The King of Comedy or The Last Temptation of Christ (to say nothing of a film by Costa or Reygadas). For the record, I don't think Scorsese's post-'80s blockbusters are altogether artistically bankrupt (I especially like Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Age of Innocence, and The Aviator in descending order), but holding him up as the living embodiment of artistic integrity and freewheeling creativity without acknowledging the very real commercial constraints he's under (despite his obvious clout within the industry) strikes me as a form of denial. As much as I like some of Scorsese's films, none of them qualify as the work of a free man.