Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10632 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-09-23
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Black & White, PAL
• Original language: Italian
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 127 minutes

Special Features
16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
DVD 5
Italian
Region 0
Dolby Digital Italian
Dolby Digital
Star And Director Filmographies
Scene Selection
Wally Hammond Film Notes
English

Synopsis
Christ's life is presented with respect for the traditional religious doctrine of the church, but Pasolini's trademark naturalism "humanizes" his subject and makes Him his own. The documentary-style camera captures Christ's meetings with the men who were to become his disciples, the Last Supper, and the betrayal by Judas. Note the rich music of Bach, Mozart, Prokofiev and Webern and Odetta's passionate singing. Academy Award Nominations: 3, including Best (Adapted) Score.

Customer Reviews

An extraordinary and challenging film, with subtitles.
Cinematographically this is a quite extraordinary, deeply religious and visually challenging film. The choice of locations, inventive use of music, and above all the casting (the faces are extraordinary) makes this a film which we will watch time and time again. Pasolini has always been controversial - he brings to the subject matter subtle, interesting and powerful viewpoints.

Perhaps the film would be viewed by more non-Italian speakers if it was advised that the video has English sub-titles.

a literal, riveting telling
Filmed in Southern Italy in rocky hillside villages and along the coast, Pasolini's "Gospel" has the feel of a silent film, with its long close-ups of its cast of non-professional actors, which include Susanna Pasolini, the filmmaker's mother, and how the camera loves these rough, beautiful and distinctive faces…it is like a moving tapestry of Renaissance paintings, and a visual artist's dream film.
Enrique Irazoqui's Jesus, with his lofty forehead, thick eyebrows that meet over his nose, and coal black eyes, is stern and compelling, and recites the Gospel with strength and mettle.

Released forty years ago, the quality of this black and white film is gritty, which adds to the harsh depiction of the life and the landscape. Though much less ambitious, it reminds me a little of Tarkovsky's "Andrei Rublev", and it has the same pacing (especially in the first hour) and gravity. The soundtrack also shows signs of age, and includes Bach, Mozart, Prokofiev, Webern, some American spirituals ("Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" during the Manger scene), Kol Nidrei during the Last Supper scene, and Missa Luba. There is also a biting wind, whooshing and whistling though much of the film.
This is a literal, marvelous interpretation of St. Matthew's Gospel, which is sometimes simple and sometimes quite savage (the Massacre of the Innocents is chaotic); a must see for anyone interested in Christianity, and students of film and the graphic arts.

One of the finest master-pieces of cinema of all times
I would frezze-frame my video to watch individual images,so beautiful is the photography of the film. The use of non-actors in a heterodox version of the story is overwhelming along with the dinamics of the film-making. Take as an example the Virgin Mary is a 12 year-old girl with beautiful big dark eyes, or Christ itself is a short-haired, thick eye-browed boy with the most intense look of J. Christ in cinema. The music is astonishingly heterodox: e.g. Missa Gongolensis sung in latin by tribal drummer musicians of african Congo, American blues, etc. Its the only story of JC in film where the human side takes over the religious side without going astray from the original text of the Bible. Its an astonishing film. A master-piece. J. Capelo Lisbon