Starting from his Immaculate Conception, the life of Jesus is retraced according to the Gospel of St. Matthew. When Jesus begins to travel through Palestine with his disciples to spread the word of God, the Romans conspire to have him silenced, leading to his arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection.
EN
“Vangelo is contemplative and reverential, but it is a film about humans, not God. Jesus appears authentically human, unconcerned with his divine nature. The miraculous aspects of his story are downplayed, in favor of a more humanistic approach. Although miracles are shown – the loaves and the fishes, Christ walking on water, the final Resurrection – they seem more like an afterthought than central elements of Christ’s story. By rendering biblical characters as Italian peasants, Pasolini demystifies them, providing a more realistic view of biblical events than the Hollywood epics. Yet some of the film’s elements, notably its music (as well as its costumes, modeled on Byzantine and Renaissance paintings), somewhat counteract Pasolini’s attempts to render a more natural, contemporary view of biblical events, infusing Vangelo with a sense of reverence, majesty, and grandiosity, and also of universality.”
Mark Brill1
- 1Mark Brill, “The Consecration of the Marginalized: Pasolini's Use of J. S. Bach in Accattone (1961) and Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo (1964),” Bach 50, Nr. 2 (2019): 220-253.
NL
“Het uitsterven van de dialecten onder invloed van de eenvormige stemmen van de massamedia wordt misschien aangekondigd in de eindeloze stoet stille gezichten uit Il vangelo secondo Matteo die hun hoofd draaien om naar Jezus te luisteren: als zij ‘hedendaags’ Italiaans zouden spreken, zou hun schoonheid vernield worden. In het midden van de jaren zestig probeert Pasolini’s cinema de laatste sporen van een uitstervende cultuur te bewaren, zelfs wanneer de bourgeoisie zich bemoeizuchtig opdringt met haar eindeloze vragen en haar honger naar spektakel, zoals aan het eind van La ricotta.”
Nina Power1
- 1Nina Power, “De subversieve Pasolini: La ricotta en Il vangelo secondo Matteo, een gesprek tussen Nina Power en Geoffrey Nowell-Smith,” Sabzian, 31 mei 2017.
