Member & Guest Cinema Night

     Considered much more than a film director, Pier Paolo Pasolini was a multi-faceted intellectual force in Italian arts, culture and politics from the 1950s to the ‘70s. As a life-long defender of society’s lower classes and their defiant champion against the abuses of political authority, Pasolini had a personal view of Jesus and his mission that was radically different from that of the Church of his time and Hollywood.

     Pasolini’s intensely human biblical epic, Il Vangelo secondo Matteo, i.e The Gospel According to Matthew (1964), is a meticulously faithful, passionate and often verbatim adaption of Matthew’s Gospel. The film portrays the life and

teachings of Jesus whose profound sincere compassion for the poor and confrontational condemnation of moral hypocrisy make him a spokesman for the director’s own worldview. 

     Drawing his screenplay from reality, the artist Pasolini employs the common people as his cast, and the primitive, timeless rugged landscapes of southern Italy as his set. Though the film may appear simple and even amateurish when compared to Hollywood religious blockbusters - King of Kings, The Greatest Story Ever Told, etc. - Pasolini’s Gospel According to Matthew cuts through the spectacle straight to the core of Christ’s radical message and humanism.