Endnote 14 – Jesus in the Movies

Contrast Pasolini’s adaptation with that of The Gospel According to Matthew (1995), the first installment in The Visual Bible, directed by Reghardt Van den Bergh. Van den Bergh is, if anything, even truer to the text of Matthew than Pasolini—the narrator interrupts with a “he said” or a “she asked” every time someone speaks—but Van den Bergh’s interpretation emphasizes joy and smiles, not anger. Thus he tries to make the Sermon on the Mount more watchable by turning Jesus into a sort of stand-up comic who dumps water on his disciple’s heads between sayings.