In my opinion, there hasn't been a decent historical biopic about Jesus of Nazareth since Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1964 epic, The Gospel According to St Matthew.
https://film.avclub.com/one-of-the-best-movies-ever-made-about-jesus-was-direct-1798266521
Passolini was a gay Italian atheist with Marxist political beliefs. In spite of this, or perhaps more accurately because of it, he made what critics today widely hail as the greatest movie yet produced concerning the life of Jesus and arguably the best of the religious film subculture. Although Pasolini remained a firm non-believer, his film was dedicated to "the dear, happy, familiar memory of Pope John XXIII", the Pontiff who convened the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, and is still accounted by the Vatican as its favoured dramatization of the gospels.
This drama has a raw, authentic realism in its depiction of an impassioned young man inveighing against the rich and powerful, as he speaks out for the socially excluded and deformed, and walks towards his inevitable death. It is reverential and faithful to the biblical text without being even slightly gushy in its piousness.
In contrast, most recent iterations of the story have tended to be hagiographic and rather cheesy affairs - you could almost imagine halos and hands coming out of the sky - that look like they were budgeted by Evangelical pastors, with the exception of the brutal horror-fest that was Mel Gibson's Passion (which just robbed the story of its emotive power in a different way) or, failing that, they lapse into the semi-comical.
Will we ever see another moving and thought-provoking masterpiece of a 'Jesus movie'? Or are we consigned to an eternal hell of acted-out-sermons, horror-flicks and modernist renditions?
https://film.avclub.com/one-of-the-best-movies-ever-made-about-jesus-was-direct-1798266521
One of the most beautiful, passionate films about the life of Jesus Christ was directed by an atheist, Marxist gay man. Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Gospel According To St. Matthew doesn’t so much attempt to deify Christ as return him to the sort of figure he is throughout the Gospels, someone who would have very much enjoyed breaking bread with Pasolini, the sort of person the modern church might push away. Throughout the Gospels, Christ simply enjoys the company of people, being around them and talking to them and eating with them. It’s fitting, then, that a Marxist would most emphasize that side of Jesus’ character. Here is a man who was not above the people, but came out of them. Those who killed him were those who held the power, and his resurrection was a triumph not just for Christ himself, but for all he represented.
Passolini was a gay Italian atheist with Marxist political beliefs. In spite of this, or perhaps more accurately because of it, he made what critics today widely hail as the greatest movie yet produced concerning the life of Jesus and arguably the best of the religious film subculture. Although Pasolini remained a firm non-believer, his film was dedicated to "the dear, happy, familiar memory of Pope John XXIII", the Pontiff who convened the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, and is still accounted by the Vatican as its favoured dramatization of the gospels.
This drama has a raw, authentic realism in its depiction of an impassioned young man inveighing against the rich and powerful, as he speaks out for the socially excluded and deformed, and walks towards his inevitable death. It is reverential and faithful to the biblical text without being even slightly gushy in its piousness.
In contrast, most recent iterations of the story have tended to be hagiographic and rather cheesy affairs - you could almost imagine halos and hands coming out of the sky - that look like they were budgeted by Evangelical pastors, with the exception of the brutal horror-fest that was Mel Gibson's Passion (which just robbed the story of its emotive power in a different way) or, failing that, they lapse into the semi-comical.
Will we ever see another moving and thought-provoking masterpiece of a 'Jesus movie'? Or are we consigned to an eternal hell of acted-out-sermons, horror-flicks and modernist renditions?
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