The Forbidden Christ
1951 film
The Forbidden Christ (Italian: Il Cristo proibito) is a 1951 Italian drama film directed by Curzio Malaparte.
Plot
Bruno is a veteran of the Russian campaign who returned on foot to his Montepulciano. Unlike the other veterans, his happiness at returning home is clouded by the death of his brother, a partisan shot by the Germans because of the betrayal of a fellow villager. Determined to avenge his brother, he tries to get the name of the informer told, but the villagers, tired of the violence and the blood of the war, refused to reveal it. Mastro Antonio, a modest carpenter friend of Bruno, for fear that an innocent person might be killed, makes him believe that the man he is looking for is him. At that confession Bruno takes a file and throws it at his heart. Before dying, the carpenter admits that he lied and sacrificed himself in place of the culprit. Having found the real culprit, he offers himself to Bruno's machine gun shots, but the latter, mindful of his friend's words, does not have the strength to hit the culprit, since an innocent person has already paid for him.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Forbidden Christ” is 1951 film. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Forbidden, Christ and film, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1951 film” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1199761. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1951.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Forbidden Christ”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Forbidden Christ primary sources, The Forbidden Christ archive and Forbidden research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Forbidden Christ”?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “The Forbidden Christ” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.