Martin Scorsese's 'The Saints' explores his 'search for transcendence and salvation'

Martin Scorsese has directed countless critically acclaimed movies steeped in violence and pathos, movies such as "Raging Bull," "Goodfellas" and most recently "Killers of the Flower Moon."

They're morality plays disguised as gripping cinema, explorations of good and evil, of failure and redemption. And they all have roots in the same place: the Basilica of Old Saint Patrick's on Mulberry Street in New York's Little Italy, where Scorsese was an altar boy and became entranced by the mythic power of faith.

"For me, as a kid, the only thing that made sense in life was a search for transcendence and salvation," Scorsese, 82, tells USA TODAY. "Movies may be literally my DNA, who I am, but that's always been secondary to the religious issues I grew up trying to understand."

Which explains why he is involved - as executive producer, narrator and general overseer - in "The Saints" (the first episode of Part 2 now streaming on Fox Nation, then weekly on Fridays), seven short films on celebrated Catholic religious figures.

The first four episodes, which came out last November, explored Joan of Arc, John the Baptist, Saint Sebastian and Maximilian Kolbe. The new episodes in the series, which are helmed by a different directors, focus on Saint Francis of Assisi, Moses the Black and Mary Magdalene.

Violent 'Moses the Black' episode seems straight out of 'Goodfellas'

What's instantly evident from watching this latest batch of tales (Scorsese says he is mulling an extension of the series) is the striking connection between the themes of many of his famous movies − notably films such as “Silence” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” − and the lives of these holy figures.

The “Saints” episode on Moses the Black, who lived in 4 A.D Egypt, opens with a marauding band of bloodthirsty thieves raping and pillaging at will. The disturbing scenes are seemingly right out of a Mob epic. Then one day, Moses the Black is struck with the horror of it all and joins a desert monastery, where he's eventually killed by another group of bandits.

For Scorsese, it is precisely the redemptive path from the horrific to the beatific that propels our human journey. "This is why I've been so interested in the characters in my world who were problematic, people you couldn't depend on, like Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro) in 'Mean Streets' and Jake LaMotta (De Niro again) in 'Raging Bull,'" he says. "It's about exploring the good and evil in all of us, the strength and the weakness. So these stories of the saints, they show us a standard to try and live by. Even if we can't attain it, we have to try."

Growing up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Scorsese says he often saw "good people doing evil things, which got me interested in the quest to overcome what's evil in our nature."

For Martin Scorsese, Saint Francis holds a special place in the family's heart

In Scorsese's film on Saint Francis, the director makes clear that Francis was born into a wealthy Umbrian family and was consumed both by the trappings of wealth and the call to battle.

But it was precisely his participation in horrific slaughters against rival towns that left Francis reeling and ultimately led to his decision to renounce his worldly possessions and start a religious order that endures today. That his name is carried on by Pope Francis has particular meaning for Scorsese.

"My mother loved Saint Francis, and I still have a statue of him she gave me," he says.

Filming the episode on the Italian saint was a bit of a family moment: The setting was the Sicilian town of Polizzi Generosa, the very hamlet where the Scorsese family hailed from (the actual family name was "Scozzese," meaning Scottish, a link to an ancient Norman invasion of Sicily, but it was altered at immigration).

"We're in the old building, with the light cascading in as we film the scene where Francis receives the stigmata," he says, referring to the hand and foot wounds that Jesus Christ experienced at the Crucifixion.

"Bear in mind, my grandfather's name was Francesco, like Francis, and I have a daughter named Francesca, who was there with us. And it was all so beautiful for me," he says. "Francis, to me, is the one who comes closest to living the life of the Christ figure."

Mary Magdalene powerful connection with Jesus Christ in 'The Saints'

This series of "Saints" episodes will end just days before Easter with a look at Mary Magdalene, the lone woman in Christ's entourage who, as Scorsese tells it, likely had a powerfully unique relationship with Christ.

"There's something so strong about her, a sense that she had to be really important even if through the centuries she was then described as a prostitute as the church looked to separate men from the women. But who does Christ reveal himself to" when he comes back from the dead, marking Easter Sunday? "It's Mary Magdalene. That's more than a hint of how significant she was to Christ and the Apostles."

If there's a unifying theme in Scorsese's religious tales, it's the renunciation of material things in pursuit of a higher spiritual ground that's in service to others.

"I'd say it's all about finding the kernel of truth about life and eliminating everything around it," Scorsese says. "Going back to Francis, he felt he had failed in that quest, but he kept trying. What he did for the poor and the sick, helping them, still serves as inspiration."

Scorsese takes a beat. His generous eyebrows arch as he seems to measure the efforts of those various saints − often troubled people who turned their lives around − against the world we live in today. Perhaps we are in need of more saintly efforts today? He shrugs.

"You know, they say you can judge the value of a country by how they treat their poor and their sick. And so here we are."