THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW    1964. Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. 137 minutes. In Italian with English subtitles

Considered to be one of the most sublime films in the history of cinema, Pasolini takes the rather stuffy subject of Jesus Christ and transforms his subject matter into a stunningly lyrical film. Mel Gibson took the same material and made a visceral blood-soaked tragedy out it, and Scorsese also made his rather perverse depiction... but both of them are pathetic attempts at cinema, and neither of them hold a candle to Pasolini's overwhelming achievement.

In this film, Christ is an outcast peasant, which at the time (and still today) served as a sort of slap in the face to the riches of the Pope and the Vatican. Before this point, Pasolini's had been depicting in his films the gutter realism of Italian life after WWII, but with this one he shifts into a visionary mode that would define the future direction of his cinema. Pasolini decided to use non-professionals for the actors of this film. He chose them out of small villages in Calabria where the film was shot. If you like blunt, obvious, Hollywood-like acting, then this is NOT the place to go... instead the actors seem drained of all emotion and spirit... here all fake sentimentality is stripped away and left behind. Pasolini even drags his own mother in to play Mary, weeping at the feet of Christ. And let's be clear: this eerie scene reflects the real weeping that she will later endure when her own son, Pasolini, is executed horribly by right-wing thugs in 1975. The musical soundtrack that Pasolini chooses is amazing... ranging from Bach to Webern to an African mass to the gospel blues spiritual "Motherless Child".

Amazingly, in keeping with his idea of Jesus Christ as the greatest revolutionary of all time, Pasolini had considered casting the beat-writer Jack Kerouac for the lead role. Instead he chose a Spanish student of literature, Enrique Irazoqui....not because of his acting abilities (he had none), but because of his essence. The result is extraordinary.

This will be a vivid high-definition screening of this visual masterpiece.