Goodfellas...Cape Fear...Casino...Gangs Of New York...The Aviator...The Departed
These are all Martin Scorsese directed films....popular films....none of which I have ever seen or will ever see. Scorsese's latest film....with basically the same stars....Leo and De Niro....the title....Killers Of The Flower Moon....got a nine minute standing ovation at Cannes over the weekend....and has been called....rapturous....along with a litany of other exaltations. This post is a result of just looking at the faces in the photos of DeCaprio and De Niro and Scorsese as that standing ovation took place. It is symbolic in this world of ultimate success....and glory.
I have to go back about thirty-five years....late 1988. Scorsese's film.....The Last Temptation Of Christ came out. Evangelicals were upset at the mind-numbing....mind-numbing blasphemy of the film. It would be like today....your child having to wear a Covid mask to school....evangelicals were that upset. I was one of them.
I have to go back about another fifteen years....to a bar on the Pitt campus....crowded....steamy....plenty of drunks around....and I was one of them. A fight broke out....if you could call it that.....two drunks rolling around in the middle of Forbes Avenue. The next morning I went to the doctor. He looked at the wound on my neck and wanted to know what it was. I told him it was from a bite....of which he wanted to know the animal....of which I had to admit was another man.
OK....back to the Scorsese film....protests and marches sprang up all over America in 1988.....candlelight protests....no words....no shouts....just march and pray....and we did that...on the Pitt campus....about 10,000 of us if I remember right. We walked past the King's Court Theater where the movie was playing....and stopped for a minute of silence....and then continued to march.
I was with a friend at that march.....and about thirty yards past the theater....in the middle of all those people....I asked him to stop a moment. I had the flashback....fifteen years earlier on that very spot....I stopped all traffic while rolling around on the ground....but this day I was stopping traffic on the same spot....only this time in giving praise and honor to Jesus Christ! As I described this to my friend I was overwhelmed by the significance of the moment and the mercy of God on someone such as I.
So....since that blasphemous 1988 movie I determined never to see another film by that director. The Scorsese film may receive the coveted Palme d'Or....(golden palm)....or it may not. The fame for these actors and Scorsese is fleeting. They grow old just as you and I do....but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever! (Hebrews 13:8)
"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands." Revelation 7:9
