Retrospective: The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964)

From           James Kendrick <kendrick@eramp.net>
Organization   CyberNews Network
Date           4 Apr 1998 17:25:26 GMT
Summary        r.a.m.r. #11828
Keywords       author=kendrick
Newsgroups     rec.arts.movies.reviews
Message-ID     <6g5qe6$l1j$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu>

"The Gospel According to St. Matthew" ("Il Vangelo
secondo Matteo") (Italy, 1964)
A Film Review By James Kendrick

Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Screenplay: Pier Paolo Pasolini (based on the
Gospel of St. Matthew)
Stars: Enrique Irazoqui (Jesus Christ), Margherita
Caruso (Mary, as a Girl), Susanna Pasolini (Mary,
as a Woman), Marcello Morante (Joseph), Mario
Socrate (John the Baptist), Settimo Di Porto
(Peter), Otello Sestili (Judas), Ferruccio Nuzzo
(Matthew)
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Review: ** (out of ****)

Pier Paolo Pasolini's "The Gospel According to St.
Matthew," certainly ranks as one of the most
unexpected films of all time. It was unexpected in
a number of senses, including the fact that the
film's writer/director not only rejected all forms
of organized religion, but he was also a Marxist
and an admitted homosexual.

So why did Pasolini make such a film? There are a
number of reasons, including his love and respect
for his mother, who was a devoted Catholic, and
his affinity for the socially aware Pope John Paul
XXIII (to whom the movie is dedicated). As
Pasolini himself put it, he made the film in a
"furious wave of irrationalism," much of which was
brought on by his growing unease with the ideology
of traditional Marxism and its antagonistic
relationship with Christianity.

Because Pasolini was such an unlikely candidate to
make this film, it shouldn't come as too much of a
surprise that his disarmingly simplistic style ran
counterpoint to other Christ films. "Gospel"
arrived right between two grand, Technicolor Jesus
epics: Nicholas Ray's "King of Kings" (1961) and
George Stevens' "The Greatest Story Ever Told"
(1965). This is not to mention the onslaught of
Hollywood's other Biblically-themed movies around
that time, including Cecil B. De Mille's "The Ten
Commandments" (1956) and John Huston's "The Bible"
(1966). What all those movies had in common was
their <I>movieness</I> -- they were large, boldly
conceived spectacles with enormous special effects
budgets and casts of thousands (Stevens even went
so far as to cast John Wayne as a Roman guard!).

When Pasolini's version was unveiled, it was
something of a shock. Filmed entirely in the
rocky, southern portions of Italy, and featuring a
cast of non-professional actors including the
director's own mother as Mary and a truck driver
as Judas, "The Gospel According to St. Matthew"
was quite a revolutionary film. There was no
grandiose color -- it was all shot in dusty black
and white, and the camerawork varied from
neorealism to shaky <I>cinema verite</I>. Although
the script adhered to the text of the Matthew's
Gospel in exacting fashion, "Gospel" was almost
the antithesis of all Christian epics before it.
It was small, spare, and deliberately plodding.

Unfortunately, what Pasolini's simple, bleak
vision proves is that small and spare is really no
more effective than glorious and overblown when
trying to adapt the Gospels to the screen.
Pasolini takes his film so far in the opposite
direction from those who had preceded him, that he
loses any sense of vitality and affection in the
story. The combination of his essential disbelief
in his subject matter and the Marxist imperative
to make a film with a national-popular dimension
renders the resulting film impotent on either
side.

While fundamentalist Christians were generally
accepting of the film, Pasolini was berated by
Marxists for having deserted them. Pasolini
defended himself by complaining about the
stagnation of traditional Marxism at that time,
and that he was trying to revive the ideology
through a rather unconventional "dialogue" with
Christianity. Because of this, many critics have
tried to shoehorn "Gospel" into a Marxist
interpretation, but it rarely works. Granted,
Jesus can be seen as a social outcast working on
behalf of the struggling proletariat, but it
stretches credulity to see "Gospel" as a truly
Marxist work of art.

Pasolini always defined himself first and foremost
as a poet, which is revealing in "The Gospel
According to St. Matthew," especially in his
choice to base the entire film on a single Gospel.
Pasolini made the decision early on to remain
almost completely faithful to the exact text of
the Book of Matthew, with no bridges between
scenes or added explanation about characters or
situations. His claim was that "inserted words or
images could never reach the poetic heights of the
text."

However, this ultimately turns out to be a
weakness in the film, because it ends up being
choppy and incomplete. The Book of Matthew does
not make for a good screenplay -- it's organized
topically rather than chronologically, and anyone
not familiar with the characters and situations in
advance might be somewhat confused at how the
story unfolds. The Gospels were written in almost
fragmented form, and each paints a slightly
different portrait of Jesus. The truest account
comes from the four Gospels being taken together
as a whole. By using only Matthew's account,
Pasolini made the project a little more
manageable, but only at the sacrifice of clarity.

One of the film's strengths is its use of actual
Italian peasants and beautiful location work.
Although it is historically inaccurate (aren't all
Biblical movies?), it's the spirit that matters,
and this is one of the points that Pasolini nails
down. The Book of Matthew was specific in its
portrayal of Jesus as a man who disdained a
typical leader role, and cared for the people no
one else cared about. Pasolini's Marxist
sensibilities are at their strongest when his
documentary-style camera is recording the wrinkled
and dusty faces of the poor people Christ spoke
to.

However, this same strength also works against the
film in certain portions. Pasolini often becomes
too fond of the masses, and the film moves back
and forth between identifying with them and
identifying with Christ. For instance, during the
Sermon on the Mount, the camera remains tightly
framed on Jesus' face for an extended period of
time, never once showing the reactions of the
crowd he's addressing. However, during Jesus' two
trials, Pasolini switches to a hand-held camera
and films the proceedings from the vantage point
of the crowed, complete with distant sound and the
backs of other people's heads obscuring the
foreground.

Much ado has been made about the naturalism of the
film, and how Pasolini captured the true essence
of the people; and while this is true, it
overlooks the fact that this is primarily the
story of Jesus of Nazareth, and if he doesn't work
as a character, the film doesn't work. In fact,
Pasolini's greatest failing is the casting and
portrayal of Jesus himself, and his relationship
with his disciples and the crowds.

Although Pasolini sought to reject all the
traditional iconography associated with the
Gospels (his Pharisees and Roman soldiers,
however, are modeled directly from paintings by
Piero della Francesca), he fell directly into the
aggravating myth that Jesus was gaunt, sallow, and
effectively feminine. When are filmmakers going to
realize that the man spent almost thirty years
working as a carpenter? Someday, a truly
revolutionary film about Christ will cast an actor
who looks as Jesus most likely would have been:
dark hair and skin, muscular, with shoulders like
a linebacker.

Instead, "Gospel" is filled with what Pauline Kael
rather bluntly termed, "that wretched masochistic
piety that makes movies about Christ so sickly."
Pasolini selected Enrique Irazoqui, a Spanish
college student, to play the pivotal role.
Irazoqui is a thin, slightly-built man with a
narrow, pointed face and dark, squinty eyes, whom
Kael accurately described as a "loathsome prissy
young man" who she couldn't wait to be crucified.

Irazoqui plays Christ as a lithe, but severe and
joyless man who seems to have little or no human
qualities (he smiles only once during the entire
film). Pasolini sees no happiness or enthusiasm in
Christ or his followers, and Irazoqui's portrayal
makes Jesus into a dull, dewy-faced bore spouting
Biblical teachings and parables as though he's
reading them from cue cards, whether that be
listing the beatitudes or droning out the Lord's
Prayer.

Watching him teach the masses or even his own
disciples, one has to wonder, who would be
interested in listening to him, much less leaving
their homes and families to follow him? There is
so much distance between the leader and his
followers, that it is almost impossible to accept
their relationship. The disciples are uniformly
interchangeable, and Christ addresses them in
several scenes with his back turned to them as
though they didn't matter. The same is true with
the masses -- they are sad and pathetic when he
begins to speak, and they are sad and pathetic
when he finishes, as if his words had no effect
whatsoever.

"The Gospel According to St. Matthew" is a trying
film to sit through. The opening segments dealing
with Mary and Joseph and the birth of Jesus, and
the closing segments dealing with his betrayal,
trial, crucifixion, and resurrection are
well-done. However, the middle hour and a half
detailing Christ's missionary travels bog down
immeasurably. At this point, the film's starkness
and documentary style take on a monotonous, static
quality that is almost unbearable.

What "The Gospel According to St. Matthew"
unwittingly suggests is that there is no truly
effective means of cinematically rendering the
story of Christ. In doing the exact opposite of
his predecessors and still failing to make a truly
vibrant, resounding film that remains true to the
nature of Christ without being preachy or
pedantic, Pasolini proved that the grass might not
be greener on the other side.

He also proved that adhering to the Biblical texts
don't guarantee success -- what works in print
doesn't always translate to screen. Twenty-four
years later, Martin Scorsese made "The Last
Temptation of Christ" based on a work of fiction,
and got closer to the heart of Christ and his dual
nature as man and God than Pasolini ever did.

© 1997, 1998 James Kendrick

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