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

Normally I would feel the need to preface any review pertaining to a movie dealing with religious motives by stating that I have no religious affiliations whatsoever. This statement would not be made with the intent of starting some kind of argument about what is right or what is wrong (because who can honestly say they know for sure), but rather to explain why I might not have found some scenes as spiritually uplifting as devout believers, or why I was not shocked by scenes that some would find blasphemous. The need for such a statement is missing when dealing with "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" for two very different (and fairly shocking) reasons: 1.) The director, Pier Paolo Pasolini, was a homosexual atheist, and 2.) It is an unbelievably powerful film that succeeds because it is neither preachy, nor does it try for forced sentiment, the way most films of its kind often do.

At first thought, it might seem a little bizarre that an atheist would even attempt a film like this, unless it was perhaps intended as a parody, or as satire. But "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" is neither; it is a straightforward, honest retelling of, as the title blatantly implies, the Gospel of Matthew. The story goes that Pasolini came up with the idea after answering a call from Pope John XXIII (to whom this film is dedicated during the opening credits), who wanted to open up discussions with non-Catholic artists. While staying in a hotel room during talks with the Pope, he started reading the Bible, and became infatuated with some of the stories therein. But why Matthew? Why did Pasolini choose to focus on this Gospel, and ignore the other ones. The director had an answer for this: He felt like "John was too mystical, Mark too vulgar, and Luke too sentimental."

I will not go into the plot details because, truthfully, you either know it or you don't. It's simply the story of Jesus, from his birth, to his horrifying death by crucifixion. However, there really is very little in the way of a narrative; the movie functions more as a "highlight reel" of St. Matthew's Gospel. We are given a sequence, usually involving one of Jesus' miracles, and, upon completion, the screen fades to black while the soundtrack abruptly cuts. We then fade in to the next sequence, and so on and so forth, for almost two and a half hours.

But the main draw of the film, and the reason it succeeds so well, is not for the story, but in the way it's presented. "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" is an absolute masterpiece in presentation. For one, the film is often shot in an almost documentary-style. In some films, such a tactic can come off as more of a distraction than anything else, but here it's executed so well that it really does wonders to make you feel as if you're a part of the film. The black and white photography also adds to the film's almost gritty realism. And last but certainly not least, the bizarre soundtrack (with music ranging from works by Mozart and Bach to the Negro spiritual "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child"), which is nothing but baffling on paper, but works almost flawlessly within the picture itself. So much so that there was more than one occasion where a musical cue worked so well with what was happening onscreen that I got chills down my spine. It's rare for any film to do that to me, much less one so blatantly religious.

Finally, there is the mark of any great movie: The acting. No matter its budget, or its story, or how great the effects are, a movie can be undone simply with poor acting. In one word, the acting is extraordinary, especially considering that Pasolini rarely hired professional actors in his films. Instead, he believed that every single person was capable of being a good actor if they were given the right part; the part they were born to play. So there are certainly no big names here: Judas was played by a truck driver, Pasolini's own mother portrayed Mary as Jesus is crucified, and a Spanish college student, Enrique Irazoqui, was given the daunting task of playing Jesus. The result is refreshingly human. Pasolini's Jesus is not just the gentle, endlessly compassionate man that he's portrayed as in so many similar films of its ilk; he's often fiery in his teachings, full of anger at humanity around him, the humanity his Father created (Pasolini saw him as one of the greatest revolutionaries of all time, and was even contemplating hiring Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsberg in the role). Not once does Pasolini force his material across. In fact, there are long sequences of silence in the film, in which he relies on nothing but the reactions and mannerisms of his characters, to describe what's going on. This takes a lot of confidence on the part of the director, but his amateur cast does not let him down, instead giving the film a higher degree of credibility and authenticity normally missing from religious pictures.

For all its praise, "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" is, technically, not a perfect picture. It feels a little too overlong, and I found myself a little restless during a half-hour gap in the middle. But this is clearly just a minor gripe. Overall, this is a rare film that demands to be seen by anyone, regardless of faith or religious beliefs. It does not try to sell us on certain ideas, or attempt to get us to change our beliefs. It simply makes its case, and makes it just as well as any religious picture ever has, before or since.

Rating: **** (out of 4)