To go by stories in the trades, Martin Scorsese is out of the Martin Scorsese business for the time being. Take Thursday’s news about his intention to co-produce (along with Initial Entertainment Group’s Graham King) a damn Queen Victoria movie (i.e., “the early life of the famed British monarch,” etc.) combined with last year’s announcement that Scorsese’s next directing project will be a Japan-set drama called Silence, a “martyrdom-themed tale of two 17th century Portuguese missionaries who return to Japan to minister to Christians,” blah, blah, and you’re left with one sinking realization — the master of The Departed is going back to the realms of Kundun and cufflinks. Terrific. He’s going to make these films and we’re all going to have to suffer through them, and then after three or four or five years — maybe, if God smiles — he’ll have gotten it out of his system, and this will allow him to finally go back and make another Scorsese film.