Seen as a Catholic-Marxist statement at the time, nearly 40 years on, Pasolini's cinematic accomplishment still impresses.
Comment
03/19/08
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1965)
92 %
Reviews Counted: 25 Fresh: 23 Rotten:2 Average Rating: 8.4/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 22 mins
Synopsis: Christ's life is presented with respect for the traditional religious doctrine of the Church, but Pasolini's trademark naturalism "humanizes" his subject and makes him his own. The documentary-style camera captures Christ's meetings with the men who were to become his disciples, the... [More]
Genre: Foreign Films
Starring: Enrique Irazoque, Susanna Pasolini, Mario Socrate, Marcello Morante, Margherita Caruso
Reviews
Top Critic Top Critic
Pasolini's arresting, profoundly reverential piece tells the story of the life of Jesus in a neo-realist style, employing stark, sometimes beautiful black-and-white photography, and a cast of non-professional actors who are on the whole admirable.
05/24/03
Top Critic
Pier Paolo Pasolini benefited from the very austerity that underlies the particular and at the same time universal center of this film.
11/24/07
Pasolini uses a complex but seemingly stark and simple visual style, and he evokes wonderful performances from nonprofessionals Enrique Irazoqui, Margherita Caruso, and Marcello Morante.
10/23/07
This highly political interpretation of the passion is as scandalous in its own way as Mel Gibson's but more poetic, more contemporary in its impact, and more serious in its overall morality.
10/23/07
A quirky version of Matthew's story, one that was closer in accord with fundamentalist beliefs than Marxist tenets.
09/05/07
It's Jesus Christ's greatest hits in this Pasolini classic, a scrappy and odd adaptation of, as the title suggests, the Book of Matthew.
06/08/06
The consequence is a crescendo of excitement and involvement with the fervor and passion of Jesus and an accumulating sense of the irony and tragedy of Jesus' suffering, in historical as well as spiritual terms.
05/09/05
Top Critic
Its most enduring achievement is an ironic one, given Pasolini's Marxism: No other life-of-Christ film is so contemplative.
04/22/04
Tells the life of Christ as if a documentarian on a low budget had been following him from birth.
04/09/04
Top Critic
O ateu Pasolini foi capaz de compreender algo que o devoto Mel Gibson falhou em perceber: a morte de Cristo é apenas um pequeno ato de uma história repleta de belas mensagens.
03/20/04
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