No 137 The 1st Gospel – Matthew

The best-known film of the St Matthew Passion is that by the Italian director, Pier Paolo Pasolini. Made in 1964, the film features first and foremost the music of Bach, of whom Pasolini was a lifelong fan, but also music by Prokofiev and Mozart as well as gospel music and choral music from the Congo. Here, Bach becomes part of a musical Internationale. The film was shot with exclusively amateur actors in the southern Italian town of Matera and closely followed the biblical text. The aim of the undogmatic, left-wing atheist Pasolini is to bring the universal message of the New Testament to farmers and fishers, emphasising its realistic, human essence. Theologian Reinhard Mawick, chief editor of zeitzeichen, talks with us about this film classic.