Review
The Gospel According to St. Matthew
- Director
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Year
- 1964
- Rating
- Reviewed by
- Gon Curiel a.k.a. Groucho
- Review date
- Wednesday, April 03, 2002
Pier Paolo Pasolini taught the world a lesson in 1964, when he filmed this straightforward, absolutely unpretentious, anti-Hollywood version of the Gospel. Since Pasolini was a fervent Marxist, he based his screenplay in the writings of the Apostle Matthew. Jesus is thus portrayed as a man who defends equality and good deeds with no need of remuneration, at least in the world as we know it.
One of the biggest assets of this movie is its cast. All unknown faces, all newcomers. A Spanish actor by the name of Enrique Irazoqui plays Jesus with such simplicity and humbleness that it’s unbelievable. The same happens with Susanna Pasolini, the director’s mother, who plays Mary. The film puts these people in believable sets that have nothing extraordinary in them, which continuously gives the viewer a feeling of realism like no Hollywood movie could ever attempt. The photography is exquisite too.
This masterpiece could very well be considered the best film about Jesus Christ to date. Out of the hundreds that have been made, it’s surely the best I’ve seen.
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Comments
Groucho wrote at 6/22/2002:
Sounds quite interesting Moe. I see that the cast is composed of people who usually appeared in such epics, right? Certainly an all-star cast. Which is funny, considering one of 'The Gospel According to St. Matthew''s assets is its lack of a famous cast. When seeing it, I had the feeling that I was watching the real thing, for it was completely unpretentious. What a lovely movie. That's the word: lovely. You GOTTA see it! Morris wrote at 6/22/2002:
Indeed, they've very different in scope. I gotta watch the two sides!New comments are temporarily disabled
Morris wrote at 6/22/2002:
To tell you the truth I had not heard about this movie until now, but it sounds good. Of what I've seen there's no movie about Jesus Christ that really stands out, but there's a 1977 miniseries directed by Franco Zeffirelli that could actually be considered a masterpiece. Just check out the cast: Laurence Olivier, Ernest Borgnine, Anne Bancroft, Olivia Hussey, Anthony Quinn, Claudia Cardinale, James Earl Jones, Christopher Plummer, Fernando Rey, Rod Steiger, Peter Ustinov, Ian Holm, Robert Powell as the title character and many more. It's one of those times when the cast is actually worthy of the project.