"Matera is the real Jerusalem." On the drive in, it doesn't feel like Jerusalem, it feels as bland as any other modern Italian town. But Paride Leporace, director of the Lucana Film Commission, isn't talking about the buy-by-the-slice pizza cafés and neon-fronted banks. He's talking about the old town, where houses carved into the soft rock itself have been continuously inhabited for more than two millennia.
These make up the Sassi, the stones, caves dug into the hillside Matera sits on, where one-room grottos clamber over each other like crabs in a bucket. It is as if God took to the plateau with a trowel and then put Escher in charge of town-planning. You don't see the Sassi from the ring-road,
and you can't know the claustrophobia of the place until you find yourself on the cobbled alleys. Here, the streets are paved with doorsteps that serve as roofs to the homes below. The result is a town that looks both authentically poor and generically ancient, a divine gift to film-makers wanting a stand-in for Biblical Jerusalem.
This is what Pasolini saw when he cast Matera as the Holy City in The Gospel According to St Matthew (1964). Only this "still feudal area of southern Italy," he said, was "analogous to Ancient Palestine". Forty years on, Mel Gibson saw the same when he filmed The Passion of the Christ (2004) here. "I went crazy," he said, "because it was so perfect." Now the town has just wrapped the Ben Hur remake starring Morgan Freeman. Given that the 1959 original was shot not here but in Lazio, I ask Paride why directors chose Matera. "The faces ... the faces of the people are the faces of Jesus Christ's time."
The faces may be the same but the people have become a little more used to modern amenities. "All the people selected for walk-on parts wore skirts," relates Luca Lancieri, Paride's colleague, "and at this time of year, the cold air is really not comfortable." The animals and piles of sand that the Ben Hur team brought into the town were also blamed for making it difficult to get the shopping home. Says Luca: "There are many people here who don't see film as a good thing. They don't know how lucky they are." I fancy they don't.
Not long ago, "the Sassi was a mass of people smoking weed," according to Luigi, owner of restaurant Cucina 78. "Before 1993 [the year the Sassi became a Unesco world heritage site] it was full of drunkards, druggies, and brigands." For him, the credit lies mainly with Unesco; "the movies," he says, "only became important later on." This is quite different from the picture Paride paints. He estimates that the Ben Hur remake will bring in 6-8m – hardly small beer for a provincial town in a region that has suffered badly from the economic crisis.
Nor is Matera without its rivals for the title of New Jerusalem. Ouarzazate, in Morocco, is the warm stone citadel of The Last Temptation of Christ, Kingdom of Heaven and Babel. Almeria, on the southern tip of Andalusia, is a sprawling, Moorish fortress that among its recent credits boasts Clavius, described as an "unofficial sequel" to The Passion.
But Jerusalem is not Matera's only alter ego. It has also represented the heroic Italy of the 1860 Risorgimento (Rossellini's Garibaldi), a sin-ridden 1970s backwater (Don't Torture a Duckling), Mussolini's 1930s (Roaring Years), and the post-Fascist reconstruction (Anno Uno).
And its shape-shifting for the screen has itself formed the background of a film. Giuseppe Tornatore, director of Cinema Paradiso, chose it to shoot The Star Maker, in which a fraudster offers rural Sicilians a chance to make it in the movies (for a fee). Tornatore filled his film with references to other movies made here, the most instructive of which is his nod to Garibaldi.
Having seen not just the young and beautiful, but even shepherds and outcasts, apply to be extras, we finally get to Uncle Leonardo. This old veteran is carried in on a chair, high above everyone, still in the red shirt of Garibaldi's volunteer army. The townsfolk clamour: "Do a screen-test for Uncle Leonardo! He's 112! This way we'll remember him. He was one of Garibaldi's Thousand Men. Come on, film him!"
For Tornatore, this is far more than a joke. He criticises the substitution of film for memory and the mythologising of the past in cinema. About Matera he says, if it's good enough to be Rossellini's Sicily, it's good enough to be mine, but remember, Garibaldi's Thousand invaded Sicily, not Basilicata.
In The Star Maker, film has a terrible effect on the people of Matera. Joe – the itinerant film-maker and conman – is beaten half to death. The girl who attaches herself to him – Beata, a nun who left the convent that has since become a convent – goes mad. Film has ruined her, Joe has ruined her, she has ruined herself. Tornatore's theme is clear: the bright lights can destroy you, but in front of them – in front of the camera that can disarm bandits and undress girls – comes truth.
And what is the truth about Matera, what is its identity? She is a dramatic old beauty. If you combine that with her druggy past and chameleonic façade, she could well be an actress fallen on hard times but ready to make an outstanding comeback. It's something that has to be seen to be believed.
By setting The Star Maker there, Tornatore was not just making a point about film, he was asking us to see past it. "Look," I can imagine him saying, "look at this place, these stones."
Field Guide
Where to stay: I was a guest at the five-star Santavenere Hotel in Maratea (+ 39 (0)973-876910). Here, impeccable service is the order of the day, and the most difficult decision is where to relax: the excellent spa (relaunched this year), the hotel's private beach, or by the lemon-tree lined pool.
How to get there: To Santavenere, fly into Naples, and the hotel is two hours either by train or car. The hotel offers private transfers if the thought of navigating Neapolitan highways does not appeal. Matera is 2 ½ hours from Santavenere by car. The drive, past snow-capped mountains, peach-trees and lakes, is a joy. The hotel offers helicopter transfers (20 minutes door-to-door) in summer.
Where to eat: The hotel has an excellent restaurant but there are plenty of honest trattorie in the port, perfect for primi and fresh fish. In Matera, search out Cucina 78 – local cuisine (at local prices), cooked to an exceptionally high standard.
What to read: Christ Stopped at Eboli – Carlo Levi
What to watch: The Star Maker - Tornatore
What to pack: A beach towel and a camera – you don't need much else.
Uncommon Knowledge
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