Something uncommonly holy takes place near the beginning of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew, when a young, resolute Mary (Margherita Caruso), shot in the style of a portrait, receives the visiting Magi—all while we hear a rendition of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” performed by American Civil Rights singer Odetta. There is a purity to the moment that gives it a transcendental aura (one which characterizes much of the film), thanks to its black-and-white cinematography; the stark caves and caverns of its Italian locations; the unadorned, Bresson-like performances; and the fact that all of the dialogue is drawn from the New Testament book of Matthew. That this sort of holiness is managed by a filmmaker who identified as an atheist and was, just a year earlier, sentenced to four months in prison for his short film La Ricotta because it allegedly disparaged the Catholic church, is a testament to common grace—if not plainly a miracle. At any rate, Pasolini clearly didn’t mean this as an apology for La Ricotta, as St. Matthew’s framing of the ministry of Jesus (Enrique Irazoqui) as a class uprising against affluent religious leaders is directly in line with the filmmaker’s Marxist principles (which share more in common with the Bible than many would like to admit).
(10/3/2025)
