TH
# 57 • APRIL 5 , 2015
fore first and foremost a man
of his time, first among equals
aka his countrymen, framed by
the genuine and timeless realism of the Matera stones and
of common faces of the locals,
improvised actors chosen as
interpreters. The sacredness
and greatness are thus emphasized by the fact that the
suffering and the choices of
Jesus (starting by the sacrifice,
that is the basis of Catholicism)
are seen in their full, even contradictory, humanity.
Even Roberto Rossellini’s “Il
Messia” (The Messiah), a more
To make more evident the ba- recent movie (1975), has the
sic sacredness, we can men- humanity of Christ at its center,
tion the references to pain- as shown by the centrality of
tings of religious inspiration, the moth