Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to St. Matthew) poster & wallpaper

Enrique Irazoqui, Marcello Morante, Margherita Caruso

An adaptation of the life of Jesus as chronicled in the Gospel of Matthew.

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88% liked it

3,301 ratings

Critics

93% liked it

27 critics

Unrated, 2 hrs. 13 min.

Directed by: Pier Paolo Pasolini

Release Date: January 1, 1964

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DVD Release Date: July 22, 2003

Stats: 157 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (157)

  • pier007
    June 12, 2009
    pier007
    The controversial Pier Paolo Pasolini retells the life of Jesus Christ in a much more honest way than many of the "socially accepted" filmmakers who tried to do the same. Told in neorrealist key, without embellishment nor grandiloquence, and that's where the beauty and the greatn...( read more)ess of the film comes, from its natural feel and simplicity.
  • YLOWBSTARDreturns
    October 7, 2007
    YLOWBSTARDreturns
    Best film about Jesus- bar none.
  • g1pp4l
    August 27, 2008
    g1pp4l
    The best version possible of a weak tale.
  • jam233
    November 21, 2009
    jam233
    Very interesting version of the story of Jesus. Nicely acted, great score. The filmmakers tackled a lot and did a good job doing so. I did find it a bit too long though. Well produced.
  • bjaccobs
    November 3, 2009
    bjaccobs
    The best movie I've seen about Jesus Christ.
  • ElCochran90
    October 17, 2009
    ElCochran90
    "He that loveth father or mother, son or daughter... more than me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it. He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."

    IL VANGELO SECONDO MATTEO (1964)


    Director: Pier Paolo Pa...( read more)solini
    Country: Italy / France
    Genre: Biography / Drama
    Length: 137 minutes

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    On the endless path of finding the style that would recognize him as a visionary auteur, acclaimed Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini directs what is arguably the best film of his entire filmography, and one of the most marvelously inspiring. Ultimately, it is the most faithful and moving adaptations of the true story of the life of Jesus Christ. Curiously enough, it resorts to a beautiful neorealist style to enlighten the visual beauty and wonderful nature of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, the first book of the New Testament of the Holy Bible. Despite its significantly low budget, an extraordinarily developed technicality and its resulting final outcome are the principal undeniable qualities of the film, thanks to the director's vision that was still in the process of being established, finalizing with the creation of his Mythical Cycle that included the films Edipo Re (1967), Teorema (1968), Porcile (1969) and Medea (1969). The reasons and motivations behind the creation of this film remain extremely unclear. It is noticeable how Pasolini intended to portray Jesus Christ as the greatest revolutionary of all time, but being a Marxist and a homosexual director makes its audience to stop and think what motivated Pasolini to ironically direct the best version of a Gospel in motion picture history, a cinematic project that undoubtedly surpasses any blasphemous, historically inaccurate version directed by Hollywood, including the pretentious remake of King of Kings (1961), the tedious The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), and the blasphemous and confused The Last Temptation of the Christ (1988), let alone the extremely idiotic, moronic, insulting, stereotypical, exaggerated and extraordinarily awful Jesus Christ Superstar (1973). I won't even dare to mention the title of Mel Gibson's pathetic, supposedly Catholic statement.

    The film bases its script and storytelling on half of the text of Matthew, retelling the story of Christ from the moment of the conception of Joseph's wife, Mary, by the Holy Spirit, to His prophesized crucifixion. It follows the most important teachings and parables told to the multitudes and His disciples, and the most relevant events of His life, including the increase of bread and fish, the walk over water and the resulting lack of faith of Peter, the persecution organized by the Scribes and Priests, the last Supper, His arrival to Jerusalem, his constant criticism against the Pharisees and His resurrection, restoring the faith of the devastated disciples and ordering them to disseminate the Gospel to the towns of the world. The film received 3 Academy Award nominations in 1967 for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White, and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment, unfairly losing against the inferior films Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966). However, Pasolini won both the OCIC Award and the Special Jury Prize at the prestigious Venice Film Festival of 1964. He was also nominated for the Golden Lion, losing it against Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Deserto Rosso (1964).

    The sore beauty and amazement of Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo irradiates from its simplicity and its faithfulness. Thanks to its neorealist style, it becomes a wonderful journey to experience. A film that has served as an inspirational Italian sample of filmmaking was the result of the work of an auteur that fully comprehends the honesty and historical accuracy cinema as an art should contain. Is it, therefore, an unwatchable film for atheist masses? No. Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo conforms a cinematic visual feast that is, in the end of terms, a "hard-not-to-fall-in-love-with" movie. The language is not distracting, but poetical and beautiful. The editing, due to the low budget, may seem amateurish and inexperienced, but it is not. A lot of hard work is implicitly shown during the editing process, accomplishing to create scenes that the financial means did not fully allow. Such aspect is compensated with literally one of the most inspirational musical scores ever heard by human ears, ranging from eastern joyful traditional music to pieces of Johann Sebastian Bach, Sergej Prokofiev, Anton Webern and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It may be repeated in several scenes, but the treatment it receives and the joy it transmits is modernly unparalleled.

    The art direction, the costume design and the cinematography are, by their own terms, near to perfection. Some proclaim the costume design as poor and boring. It is not poor and boring, it is accurate! Hollywood stereotypical "holy" music full of chants, false dialogues and luxurious and colorful costume designs are the visual beliefs that have been blasphemously popularized in American culture. Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo possesses a sincerity that Hollywood could never have. Such characteristic can even be noticed in the overall depiction of the low-class people and citizens, who showed a rather unpleasant physical appearance and facial features. Both the physical resemblance interpretation by Pasolini concerning the characters of Joseph, Mary, Jesus Christ and the disciples is astonishingly impressive and non-stereotypical. The neorealist performances are pretty much convincing. Once again, irony is served since the best cinematic Jesus Christ performance ever offered was in charge of an agnostic person... an agnostic actor under the direction of an atheist filmmaker.

    You may attribute the credit to the revolutionary ideas spoken by Jesus Christ and His defiance of abusive human authorities and governments and compare it with Pasolini's Marxist ideals; you may attribute the credit to the influence on modern Christianity and the strength that the Catholic Church has gained around the world; you may attribute the credit to the inspiration and controversy that the Holy Bible, as a group of texts written in a period longer than 2,000 years of human history, has achieved through more than 2 millenniums; you may attribute the credit to a possible intentional pride of the director and its cast. The truth is that its effect on cinema fans has been a very evident consequence, not to mention it is Pasolini's best film. The faithfulness of the adaptation is the most glorious accomplishment of this magnum opus. As a homage to Italian neorealism, it effectively works, surpassing such task. However, it is much more than that. Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo is an unprecedented masterpiece from beginning to end that brings tears of both amazement and restored faith to worldwide masses, and a powerful religious statement that was capable of even improving the wrong visual lavishness of Cecil B. DeMille's silent classic The King of Kings (1927). The film is dedicated to the "beloved, happy, familiar" memory of John XXIII.

    100/100
  • Zhuliya
    August 24, 2009
    Zhuliya
    Not my favourite Pasolini, a bit too hagiographic than I expected, but still very worth watching.
  • RThornhill
    June 8, 2009
    RThornhill
    would like to give it a look if I could find it.
  • ahhh1989
    May 21, 2009
    ahhh1989
    By far, my favorite Pasolini film.
  • bbliumis
    January 27, 2009
    bbliumis
    overrated film.

    Horrible editing....

View All Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to St. Matthew) Reviews

Critic Reviews

April 9, 2004
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Tells the life of Christ as if a documentarian on a low budget had been following him from birth. full review

View more Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to St. Matthew) reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

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