Close Up

9 - 27 May 2018: The Gospel According to Matthew

the-gospel-according-to-matthew-pier-paolo-pasolini.jpg

The Gospel According to Matthew
Pier Paolo Pasolini
1964 | 137 min | B/W | Digital
Italian with English subtitles 

"Pasolini’s disarmingly straightforward version of the life of Christ secured his reputation as a filmmaker, rather than simply a poet dabbling in cinema. Aiming to strip away the sanctimony typical of screen adaptations of the Gospels, Pasolini sought to recover the rough poetry of the original texts, pointedly omitting the “Saint” from his title to secularize Matthew. Pasolini’s Christ emerges as much a political revolutionary as a religious figure, addressing the problems of the poor and undermining the patriarchy of the traditional family. With a visual style heavily influenced by Rossellini’s The Flowers of St. Francis (1950), the film contains a number of frontal, static shots that reveal Pasolini’s love for early Renaissance painting and point toward the radical classicism of his late films." – Harvard Film Archive


Part of our season on Pier Paolo Pasolini