Hardly any European city has played Jerusalem as often as Matera. And once it was the setting for a car chase in an Aston Martin.
That Matera keeps serving as a backdrop has a simple reason: the Sassi look ancient without anything having to be built. Cables, aerials and cars are quickly out of frame; the rest is stone.
The biblical subjects
Pier Paolo Pasolini shot The Gospel According to St Matthew here in the 1960s and thereby established the city’s reputation as a film set. Four decades later Mel Gibson used the same lanes for The Passion of the Christ. The remake of Ben-Hur was also partly made here.
And then James Bond
For No Time to Die the city became the setting of a chase – steps, lanes and the square in front of the cathedral included. For Matera that was a turning point in how it was seen from outside: away from the biblical background, towards the present.
What that does to the city
Films made Matera known long before tourism set in. But they also shaped an image that has little to do with everyday life here – the Sassi as a timeless place rather than a district that was cleared seventy years ago.
Finding locations yourself
Walk through the Sasso Caveoso with your eyes open and you will recognise a great deal. There are also guided tours that concentrate on film locations.
Read on
- The history of Matera – the background to the images
- The Sassi di Matera – the set itself
