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Oftentimes a well known artist’s newly religious work feels like a cathartic inquisition into his personal beliefs — which is great, but usually results in weak art. So it was with Mark Wahlberg and Shia LaBeouf. So it is with Martin Scorsese’s “The Saints.” 

Fox Nation released the first four of the eight-episode docudrama in November and December 2024 and are set to release the next four in April. 

The series has drawn particular interest because the director, Scorsese, has made many wildly successful movies, receiving the second most Oscar nominations of any director ever. From “Taxi Driver” to “Goodfellas” to “The Departed,” Scorsese’s films are praiseworthy for their storytelling. But because they often feature darker themes, lots of violence, drug use, and sex, it piques the interest of the seasoned Scorsese-head to see him make an earnest show about…Catholic saints?

Each 45-minute episode of that show follows the life of a saint — spending about 30 minutes bringing to life the saint’s story dramatically. The other 15 minutes feature a panel focused on the saint and other general principles of faith connected to the saint.  

In the order they were released, the episodes explore saints Joan of Arc, John the Baptist, Sebastian, and Maximilian Kolbe. These four martyrs — saints killed for their faith — range the whole history of Christianity. From John the Baptist, who was born just before Christ, to Maximillian Kolbe, who chose to sacrifice himself in a Nazi concentration camp, Scorsese takes a broad cross section of the history of holiness.

Though well produced and not heretical (as far as I can tell), this show is not convincing. Producing compelling stories about piety can be one of the hardest things for an artist to do. The reason for this is simple: true piety is inimitable. An actor will never really depict the faith of Joan of Arc. Watching her try on screen feels like cheapening the depth of faith into crass sentimentality. 

The mysterious ways in which God works in our lives are deeply personal, and, when the director must generalize and simplify the story into 30 minutes, the point is lost. Something like “The Mission,” directed by Roland Joffe, more successfully follows the life of a martyr because the 125-minute film can better track the trajectory of sinfulness to holiness.

The path to holiness should be interesting to view, as it is the path for all faithful Christians. It is the path of overcoming the human condition. When someone is persistently faithful, however, it does not make for the best entertainment — at least not for us sinners who may have trouble being inspired by someone who seems to have hardly changed. 

Every human will change. Some on purpose, some not. Change is the most interesting thing a person can do. But of course, change can go a vast number of ways. Most people need to change to become holy, but a lot of these saints seemed to be holy without undergoing any change — at least in the way Scorsese presents them.

That said, Scorsese does give a good summary of the lives of the saints. Perhaps I am a bad Catholic for this, but I was unfamiliar with the details of Joan of Arc’s life and watching this show presented her story in an interesting way. Scorsese, and Liah O’Prey, who played Joan, paint a good picture of what the path to martyrdom is like, even if that picture does not convince the viewer to follow it in any way.

The uninspiring example is unsurprising. Scorsese is not quite trying to convince people to follow in the footsteps of the saints (it seems at least). He said in a November interview with the New York Times that he is a practicing Catholic “at times” and that his faith consists much in dialogues he has had with those in the church.

“For me, it’s time to go back to the perennial values of the church and, which Pope Francis is trying to do, help it evolve to the world of the next century,” he said. “What is the real sense and what is the real truth of Christianity? A lot of people have died for it over the years, and a lot of people have lived a good life because of it. There are values there. What are those values? Can we explore those values and maybe even try to live by them?”

Scorsese’s awkward insecurity in his phrasing suggests that he is not totally convinced by these saints stories even though he may want to be. This becomes more clear in the show’s post-drama section panel. 

The panel consists of James Martin, a priest and author, controversial for his approach to reconciling homosexuality and the Catholic faith; Paul Elie, an author and senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs; Mary Karr, a poet and professor of literature at Syracuse University; and Scorsese himself.

Elie is cold and analytical, Karr tends to say things that are not very relevant and different from a Catholic way of thought, and as a result Martin of all people looks reasonable.

Meanwhile, Scorsese seems to search earnestly for answers in the panel. He clearly put a lot of effort in attempting art, and he wants to know if he really should live by the values of the saints.

Watching the show feels like watching something he made for himself. Did he make it to convince himself to live a saintly life? Maybe so — I certainly hope so. But I did not find it very great. Since it is decidedly not Catholic propaganda, it must be good art to be worthwhile. But that, it does not achieve.

Perhaps Martin Scorsese could learn from C.S. Lewis:

“The world does not need more Christian literature. What it needs is more Christians writing good literature.”

If you are still really interested in watching this, then go for it. The St. Sebastian episode is the best of the four. In this one, as with the Kolbe episode, the saint makes more of an active choice to suffer martyrdom than the other two, which makes for better cinema. In the other two, their deaths come by refusing to waver in faith while imprisoned. 

Sebastian’s is better than Kolbe’s because first, he was a Roman praetorian guard, which is awesome, and second, Kolbe’s episode focuses too much on coping with his relationship to antisemitism (not to mention the full frontal male nudity) — though Kolbe’s martyrdom is very moving.

Meditating on the lives of the saints can be an excellent form of prayer for Catholics, but Scorsese’s show doesn’t do this well enough. It’s boring.

If you want to know basic things about the saints, then Scorsese’s show will do. But if you want to experience great art or really meditate on the lives of the saints, look elsewhere.