Mel Gibson has been hitting the headlines again, mostly for allegedly hitting his partner and child in a hissy fit and generally losing his rag. Is this a Hollywood publicity stunt to attract attention when his films are doing badly? Can this be the very same religious family man who had communion delivered to his hotel room every day when he was in Matera?
We came across Matera while following in the footsteps of John Julius Norwich in search of the Normans in southern Italy. My first guide book, which I lost, hadn’t made much of Matera but the second was more forthcoming, informing me that Mel Gibson had shot the film The Passion of the Christ there and it was the site of a multitude of early Christian rock-hewn churches.
The town carved out of rocks along the Gravina Valley is almost entirely troglodyte. It was certainly one of the earliest occupied sites of man in Southern Europe. We had no idea how to get into the centre so followed the signs for Locanda di San Martino along an ever-narrowing little cobbled road.
Eventually we parked and wen
t further on foot and found the lovely little hotel created out of Sassi (stone caves). It has all the luxuries (including spa) plus very helpful staff and great breakfast. Your car is taken and parked somewhere in the new town for an extra fee.
After wandering aimlessly but appreciatively the first afternoon, we took the hotel staff’s advice and hired an English-speaking guide for a few hours the following day. This was well worth it as the guide, Nadia, was extremely informative.
We also realised how easy it was to get about. Every level is accessed by stone cut stairs and although it seems quite daunting to have to go up and down, the main square led down into the bottom of the valley opposite a restaurant called Nadi conveniently located a hundred yards from our hotel.
The whole of the old town was more or less empty except for a few restaurants and souvenir shops and a couple of old ladies of 80 who have refused to move out and still live with only basic electricity, no toilets and a local well.
The old town had flourished under its various conquerors Greeks (later Orthodox Christians), Lombards and Normans (Roman Christians) and lost little in the struggles between the Emperors of the West and those of the East.
The tiny roc
k churches have the most beautiful wall paintings of great antiquity and because of the difficulty of moving up and down levels, there are little churches everywhere. Matera lived, like many semi-medieval villages, a quiet peasant life until the inter-war period when the population exploded.
Although some people were able to add frontages to their houses to live a more sanitary life, others still had their horses tethered at the back of the cave (so that they couldn’t be stolen), the chickens slept under the beds and the rabbits were put in a cage by the front door at night.
The elder children often slept in the back of the cave with the animals or in a separate cave with the animals while the babies were suspended in cots above the parents’ bed to keep them away from the rats. Ten children was the norm and there was an 80 per cent childhood death rate among them. The dead were often buried on top of the houses below, which wasn’t conducive to good health when the rains ran the decaying remains and their consequent germs down into the houses underneath.
Fathers got up at 2.30 a.m. to go off to work in the fields. The nobility’s land disputes over the centuries resulted in the fields where the Materans worked being a two-hour walk from the village. Nobody got get back until 8pm. Most times, however, the mothers worked too.
Children under seven were n
ot allowed to work, so had to be left in the house to look after the babies. Sometimes, the babies had no one to look after them and were drugged with opium to keep them asleep all day so they didn’t cry for food.
Mistakes were made and children died. With over-population, came water shortages and too much human waste polluted the streams, gathered mosquitoes and spread malaria.
They were no longer living like human beings, like Christians, but like animals. Christ hadn’t got this far. He had stopped at Eboli.
Christ Stopped at Eboli was the tale which alerted the Italian authorities to the plight of Matera, Eboli, Aliano and similar towns in the poor South in the post-war period.
It was written by an
anti-fascist Jewish artist Carlo Levi who was banished to this Italian ‘Siberia’ from 1935-36. He was at liberty but closely watched so that escape along tiny mountain tracks was impossible. He chronicled all he saw and hid all his papers.
His frequent letters to his sister were censored. His sister was allowed one visit and she brought some much needed quinine. She was profoundly shocked by the incredible poverty – the sort we expect to see only in the slums of Calcutta or war-torn Ethiopia.
Levi was released but continued to be a thorn in the side of the government and fled Italy for a while. After the publication of his revealing book in 1945, the dreadful poverty of the South was declared ‘La Vergogna d’Italia’ – the shame of Italy. In 1954, the Government cleared Matera of inhabitants and re-housed everyone in the new town.
Matera is now a Unesco World Heritage Site and attracts tourists and film-makers. At least five famous films have been made there –The Gospel According to St Matthew, King David and The Passion of the Christ among them.
For some reason the incredibly soporific film Christ Stopped at Eboli wasn’t filmed there and didn’t do justice to the tragedy of the place or to the fine observations of Carlo Levi. In fact, Levi was imprisoned in another village entirely – Aliano, which in his book he called Gagliano.
The suffering (Passion) of Christ, as graphically portrayed in the Gibson film, is representative of Christian suffering over the centuries but the citizens of Matera had too many crosses to bear, unlike Mel Gibson who seems to fly in to the wrong sort of passion.
Mel Gibson should go back to confessing and taking communion everyday and give passionate and soulful thanks for his blessed life!
Tourist guide
Nadia Garlatti, Via Passarelli 47, 75100 Matera; email: nadiagarlatti@tiscali.it
Further Reading
Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi
The Other Conquest by John Julius Norwich
Websites
www.locandadisanmartino.it — the hotel is also a spa with a lovely pool – quite magic. The site is worth visiting for the wonderful photos.
www.panoramio.com — Specify which town, e.g. Matera, Aliano, Grassano and you will get the Google Earth views with detailed photos.
Photo Credits
“Mel Gibson on the set of The Passion of the Christ”
All other photos © J Mclean: “Old Houses in Matera”, “Peasant Kitchen, Matera”,”Children’s Graves”, “Typical Houses”, “Rock Church Paintings”, “Stone Stairs”
The author refers to the film “Christ Stopped at Eboli” as incredibly soporific. Far from that, the slow pace of the movie represents how time flows for the characters…how slow time goes by for an intellectual imprisoned in this remote area, and for the impoverished inhabitants oppressed by the fascist regime and chronically ignored by the richer northern Italy, whose destiny seems to be starvation and disease.
There’s more to films than Hollywood’s special effects and meaningless dialogues.