WILLEM DAFOE READS JUDAS BY GABRIELE TINTI

April 4, 2025— In Milan, at the Pinacoteca di Brera, the Room XVIII is quiet. The air smells faintly of varnish, old wood, something sacred. Rubens’ Cenacolo—his version of The Last Supper—rests inside the Transparent Restoration Laboratory, caught mid-repair. Just outside the frame, Willem Dafoe stands, not as Jesus this time, but as Judas.

The four-time Oscar nominee actor read JUDAS, a poetic sequence by Gabriele Tinti. Inspired by Rubens’ painting, the performance unfolded not as a performance but as a ritual...half confession, half reckoning. Judas, shadowed in the painting, sits apart from the apostles. A dog gnaws a bone beneath him. The moment of betrayal has not yet passed, but the silence is already weighted.

Tinti's verses reach into that silence. Structured as a confessio vitae, the text animates Judas as more than a traitor: he is every man at war with his conscience, every human caught between despair and a blink of grace. In Dafoe’s voice, the poetry was spare, unwavering, almost tender. He did not dramatize it. He made space for it.

It’s hard not to recall Dafoe’s earlier portrayal of Christ in The Last Temptation, the controversial religious movie of the late 80s. But here, the roles blur. Judas and Christ are no longer opposites, they mirror each other. As Kazantzakis (Greek writer, journalist, politician, poet and philosopher) mentions, both are pulled by forces greater than will. Betrayal becomes a necessary gesture. Or at least, a human one.

The event was part of Gabriele Tinti’s ongoing work in ekphrastic writing, in which poetry is used to extend the life of a painting beyond its frame. Tinti’s collaborations have brought voice to ancient statues, forgotten canvases, and now, Rubens’ Cenacolo.

For a few minutes in Brera, poetry, painting, and performance coexisted. No spectacle. No crescendo. Just a voice, quiet, conflicted, asking to be heard.