Martin Scorsese just reflected on the fact that his early exit from a Catholic seminary school that would have changed his life.
The 82-year-old opened up about his obsession with religion in Rebecca Miller’s new documentary Mr. Scorsese, which premiered on October 4, at the New York Film Festival.
As the Taxi Driver director recalls in the series’ first episode, he was deeply moved when he first attended Catholic mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City around the age of seven and even pursued religious education into his teenage years.
“There was a preparatory seminary, and that was on 85th Street somewhere. I did okay for the first few months, but something happened,” Scorsese shared.
He continued, “I began to realize the world is changing. It was early rock and roll and the old world was dying out. I became aware of life around me. Falling in love or being attracted to girls; not that you’re acting out on it, but there were these feelings, and I suddenly realized it’s much more complicated than this. You can’t shut yourself off.”
“The idea of priesthood, to devote yourself to others, really, that’s what it’s about,” he could be further heard saying in the documentary.
“I realized I don’t belong there. And I tried to stay but they got my father in there and they told him, ‘Get him out of here.’ Because I behaved badly,” he explained.
While the Killers of the Flower Moon director did not state what he had exactly done however, Joe Morale, one of his childhood friends, claimed in the documentary that Scorsese “had a heavy eye for the ladies” as a teenager.
Martin Scorsese’s fascination with religion has remained a constant throughout his life and career, as the director has made multiple movies concerning Catholicism in his career, including 1988’s The Last Temptation of Christ and 2017’s Silence, as well as covering the life of the incumbent Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, with 1997’s Kundun.
