The Gospel According to St. Matthew Movie Review

The Gospel According to St. Matthew [Il vangelo secondo Matteo] (1964)

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Written by: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Directed by: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Starring: Enrique Irazoqui, Margherita Caruso, Susanna Pasolini
Rated: NR [G]
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Plot
The life of Jesus Christ according to the Gospel of Matthew, from the Nativity through the Resurrection.

Verdict
This is almost too faithful of an adaptation. Adaptations must be modified to fit the medium, and this puts the text to screen, but little more. There's no context. This doesn't translate from page to screen. If you aren't familiar with the Bible, this is going to lose you. While some of the shots are breathtaking, I don't know why this doesn't try to make this more accessible unless that was never the point. It is impressive from a film history aspect, but that's a narrow audience.
It depends.

Review
In the neorealist tradition, the film uses a cast of non-professional actors and is filmed entirely on-location throughout Southern Italy. The dialogue is taken directly from the Gospel of Matthew. I watched the Legend Films colorized version that is forty minutes shorter than the original black and white version.

This movie seems perfunctory. It tells a story through images without the aid of dialog, though you really need to know the source material. This doesn't try to link the narrative or develop characters. This puts the words of the Bible on screen as they appear in the book. If you didn't know the Bible you'd be completely lost. I wish this did more than just adapt the text verbatim by attempting to link scenes and provide a connection. The source skips large swaths of Jesus's life and this does too. Providing context would help.

Enrique Irazoqui plays Jesus

I like that Jesus and the rest of the characters look like normal people. It's clear Jesus is a renowned speaker, but this doesn't even show crowd reactions or the large crowds he draws. Many of Jesus's speeches are filmed as head-on shots. It's not very cinematic. When we do get a well-framed shot there's too little context, though the shots do give the production values a boost. It looks legitimate, and the production really sets this apart.

It's a direct translation that captures the facts but a story is comprised of those small moments between characters. When the disciples see Jesus walking on water there's no sense of fear. While there are numerous cutaways to their faces, there's no emotion, only an inconclusive reaction. When Judas betrays Jesus, I wasn't sure I had even seen the character before. The significance of the event is nearly lost.

Without knowing who Jesus is, you'd have no sense of what's going on or why this guy is important. We're not given a reason as to why his followers are drawn to him. Too much exposition is a bad thing, but this goes the other way with too little. While numerous reviews claim the direct translation and simplicity help, you must adapt a property to the medium. This is a great companion to the book of the Bible, but you can't separate them.