Arquivo

Pasolini produced one of his greatest masterpieces in narrating the life of Christ as from the writings of his disciple Matthew, on a hybrid key between documentary and fiction. The Gospel According to St. Matthew was widely acknowledged by both the public and the critics, including Catholics, in spite of a Marxist connotation, and was awarded eleven prizes in 1964 (five of these at the Venice Festival). The film is true to the texts by Matthew and follows through each stage of the life of Christ, from birth to resurrection. Pasolini’s Christ, however, is a revolutionary Christ, more human than divine, with strains of tenderness and who reacts with anger to the hypocrisy and to the falsity of man. The music is another fundamental component of the plot and is rarely interrupted, as when Christ utters his final words: “Thou shalt hear with thine ears, but not understand: thou shalt see with thine eyes, but not comprehend, for the heart of the people is grown insensitive and has hardened the ears and closed the eyes so as not to see with the eyes, nor hear with the ears” - a sum of all the political, aesthetic, and humanitarian proposal of the Italian director.