A defiantly earthy anti-epic, Pasolini's Gospel is a period piece in costume only, placing its rather scruffy, contemporary-looking Christ in the steep southern Italian hills of Calabria.
Comment
08/21/09
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1965)
93
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:27
Fresh:25
Rotten:2
Average Rating:8.4/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 22 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
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... [More]
Starring: Enrique Irazoque, Susanna Pasolini, Mario Socrate, Marcello Morante
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
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Reviews for The Gospel According to St. Matthew
Beautifully retells a spiritual story without resorting to the overbearing piousness that makes most American Bible films such well-intentioned slogs.
04/19/09
Click to read the article
03/26/09
Top CriticSeen as a Catholic-Marxist statement at the time, nearly 40 years on, Pasolini's cinematic accomplishment still impresses.
03/19/08
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
Top CriticThis 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
Top CriticA quirky version of Matthew's story, one that was closer in accord with fundamentalist beliefs than Marxist tenets.
09/05/07
No review available.
10/22/06
Certainly Pasolini's most satisfying movie.
06/24/06
No review available.
06/10/06
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
No review available.
08/04/05
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 CriticNo review available.
07/15/04
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 CriticNo review available.
04/08/04
No review available.
03/27/04
Striking juxtaposition of the poetic and prosaic.
03/22/04
Latest News for The Gospel According to St. Matthew
November 30, 2006:
Critical Consensus: "Nativity" Is Too Safe; "Turistas" Not Worth Trip
This week at the movies, we've got a new take on the first Noel ("The Nativity Story," starring Keisha Castle-Hughes), endangered Americans in Brazil... More...
February 01, 2006:
SUNDANCE: "Son of Man" Review
Be it Pasolini's "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" or your church's nativity pageant, the malleability of locale is one of the key factors in the widespread appeal... More...
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