Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel of Saint Matthew

February 15, 2021 5:02 PM

And here is Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew

See also

From the February 18th, 1966 New York Times, Bosley Crowther's review

From March 14th, 2004, Roger Ebert's review

And another take: Pasolini’s Atheistic Tribute to Christianity

And here is Jacob Burns's Face to Face with Pasolini’s “The Gospel According to Matthew”

"...My will, and that of others, is powerless... Perhaps because I have always fallen from a horse: I have never fearlessly mounted the saddle (like so many powerful or wretched sinners): I have always fallen, with one foot caught in the stirrup, so that my race is not a ride, but a being dragged away, with my head banging on dust and stones. I can neither re-mount the horse of the Jews and Gentiles, nor fall forever upon the earth of God.”

The late Enrique Irazoqui talks about his role as Christ in Pasolini's 'The Gospel According to St. Matthew', who in his second life became a maven of computer chess.

See as well The gospel according to Enrique Irazoqui!

And here is the Death of Enrique Irazoqui, the Christ of Pasolini

Also of note, Who really killed Pier Paolo Pasolini?

And, finally, Pasolini's Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo has been remade by director Milo Rau: A Black Jesus and Muslim Migrants in 'The New Gospel'

The soundtrack of this movie deserves its own post but I must note that it was in watching it in 1967 that I first heard Blind Willie Johnson's Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground, a song which affected me profoundly at the time as well as up to this day.

posted by y2karl (16 comments total)

One of the great events of the 20th century.
posted by homerica at 5:21 PM on February 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

That the same creator could also make Theorem - what range!
posted by doctornemo at 5:29 PM on February 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

It's on The Vatican's List of Films. A pretty good list, I think.
posted by ovvl at 5:44 PM on February 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

Also on the Gospel according to St. Matthew soundtrack was Kyrie from Missa Luba: Les Troubadours du Roi Baudouin , a Congolese version of the Latin Mass arranged by a Father Guido Haazen, which has never been reissued -- which is a tragedy in my opinion.
posted by y2karl at 5:56 PM on February 15, 2021 [4 favorites]

That the same creator could also make Theorem - what range!
posted by y2karl at 6:08 PM on February 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

Have I told you lately what a treasure you are y2karl? Thank you for the post!
posted by nofundy at 6:24 PM on February 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

One of the great events of the 20th century.

Also the 0th!

Or is that 1st?
posted by y2karl at 6:48 PM on February 15, 2021

perhaps the Year of the Consulship of Ocella and Sulla or year 786 Ab urbe condita.

nice post.
"This interior essence can be masked through the ability of a professional actor, or it can be ‘mystified’ through the ability of the director by means of cutting and divers tricks. In The Gospel I was never able to do this. What I mean to say is that the photogram or the image on the film filters through what that man is—in his true reality, as he is in life.”
posted by clavdivs at 8:20 PM on February 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

"This video is unavailable." I'm in Europe, so tried a VPN through the States but even then no luck.
posted by St. Oops at 2:13 AM on February 16, 2021

The best admittedly technopeasant advice I can give is to search YouTube by the post title: there is more than one version in the original B/W with English subtitles at or close to the 2:17 hour length. A saint like yourself should expect some divine intervention or so I should hope.
posted by y2karl at 6:19 AM on February 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

That the same creator could also make Theorem - what range

And Salò. Which is not a crowd pleaser and oddly enough not on the Vatican's List of Great Films.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:36 AM on February 16, 2021 [8 favorites]

This post is gonna take over my life for the next couple of days. Thank you!!!
posted by Baby_Balrog at 9:41 AM on February 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

For a fun activity, you can also watch Pasolini's films and try to pick out the actors' pimples that John Waters selected for his "21 Pasolini Pimples" which is now on view in Los Angeles in a new retrospective.
posted by thenewbrunette at 10:05 AM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]

If you're geoblocked by YouTube you might care to try pasting the info hash code 8499ee622150f240c56a1394fd96f1b722db10cc into a reliable BitTorrent client.
posted by flabdablet at 3:56 PM on February 16, 2021

I see a couple three different re-issues of Misa Luba on CD at Amazon, y2karl. It's been a good while since I've listened to my parents' vinyl copy, but the copy I have sounds right to me at a glance.
posted by wotsac at 8:44 PM on February 16, 2021

Well, I am wrong again. Next time I will try to remember to check. I hope. Glad to see it is available on CD.
posted by y2karl at 10:24 PM on February 16, 2021 [1 favorite]