Why Martin Scorsese ‘wasn’t very good’ as an altar boy

Martin Scorsese attended a Catholic church for years before driving The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). As a child, during the 1940s and 1950s, he was an altar boy at the Old Cathedral of St. Patrick’s Basilica in New York City — a place his family frequented.

The director admitted, however, that he had difficulty filling the role of altar boy. In an interview with Peoplehe explained, “I wasn’t very good at it. It was very difficult for me to be on time for seven o’clock mass. I was always late. The priest had to say, ‘You can’t go on like this.'”

Even so, Scorsese He was an altar boy for years. “The impact of being there while the Solemn Mass was celebrated is incredible,” he said.

The filmmaker also recalled that his years in church left him fascinated by statues of saints: “They bewitched me.”

“Who are these people? And why are they elevated, so to speak, to something special, holiness?”, he reflected. “Were these saints human? When you were young, you thought maybe they were more than human, and that’s something that has fascinated me since that time.”

The theme is explored in the docudrama Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saintsin which he is executive producer and narrates episodes that reconstruct the lives of saints such as Mary Magdalene, Joan of Arc and Francis of Assisi.