Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
“Or as the poet Dante put it, ‘In the middle of the journey of my life, I found myself in a dark wood, for I had lost the right path.’ Eventually I would find the right path, but in the most unlikely place.” –Robin Williams as Hunter “Patch” Adams, Patch Adams (1998)
See IMDb for more about the film by Tom Shadyac.
“Back in August, Hot Topic and Funko revealed the Beetlejuice with Dante’s Inferno Room Pop Town figure. You probably recall that Dante’s Inferno Room was a strip club full of demonic women in the film, so this is one of Funko’s saucier Pops. Though they toned it down a bit by removing the “GIRLS” and “Live Nudes” signage. On that note, Beetlejuice was a PG rated film – Tim Burton and company clearly pushed it to the limit.
“If you want to get your hands on the Beetlejuice with Dante’s Inferno Room Pop Town figure, you’ll be able to grab it right here at Hot Topic (exclusive) starting tonight, October 10th / 11th between 11:30pm – 12am ET (8:30pm – 9pm PT). If it sells out, you’ll be able to find it here on eBay.” –Sean Fallon, Comicbook.com, October 10, 2019
“Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan involves a complex weaving of many borrowed elements, the most important of which is the Star Trek television series, as well as Moby-Dick, and A Tale of Two Cities. The intertextual mix is suggested in a shot early in the film when we are first introduced to Khan by scanning his bookshelf. In addition to a sign from his ship, the Botany Bay (named after a historic port in Australia through which many convicts entered the country), there are Dante’s Inferno, King Lear, The King James Bible, Moby-Dick, and two copies of Paradise Lost. Each book suggests aspects of Khan’s character. Though other references remain implicit, the Moby-Dick references are explicitly explored throughout the movie.” — Posted by ebreilly on Critical Commons
“BioWare animator Tal Peleg released a new animated (NSFW) short film based on Visceral Games’ 2010 action title ‘Dante’s Inferno’ on Sunday.
“The game was loosely based on Dante Alighieri’s long narrative poem The Divine Comedy. But, it reimagines the poet as a Templar knight who goes on a bloody journey through the nine circles of Hell to rescue Beatrice from Lucifer.
“Peleg created his first ‘Dante’s Inferno’ fan fiction short four years ago. As a lover of both fantasy/medieval art and action-RPGs, he said in a recent behind-the-scenes blog post the game couldn’t have come out at a better time.” […] –Stefanie Fogel, Variety, November 20, 2018
“Tap-dancer, choreographer, and video artist, Ghislaine Avan has been working since 2006 to achieve a choreographic and transmedia work inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy.
“The diptych includes a choreographic ensemble of 10 pieces entitled Seuil (Threshold), and a film entitled Le LA du Monde, the result of filming, since 2006, people around the world, from all backgrounds, nationalities and in all languages, reading an excerpt from Dante’s poem.”
Of the project’s goals, the artist lists the following:
View the English trailer for “Le LA du Monde” on YouTube.
Contributed by Ghislaine Avanghi
“Hell, Dante tells us, has nine circles, each one reserved for souls guilty of particular sins. The greedy, for example, go to the Third Circle, while heretics are flung down into the Fourth. If you’ve lived a lustful life, full of debauchery and fornication, you will find yourself in the second circle, writhing and naked with millions of other lustful souls who — wait, how exactly is that a punishment? According to Dante, the worst Circles of Hell are reserved for fraudsters and traitors, suggesting that he’d had an unfortunate disagreement with his publisher over royalties. But the great Italian fell short in his demonic visions, because there is another Circle of Hell: the Tenth. It is a place of infinite suffering and utter despair, echoing with the wailing of the damned. It is a movie theatre called Cinepolis Junior.” […] –Tom Eaton, Rand Daily Mail, March 14, 2017
“Set in a small village in Maine, Circle features teen orgies, adultery, boy toys, date rape drugs, self-inflicted maiming and a suicide that might be murder.
“All this plays out against the unsubtle backdrop of high school teacher Laura Stone (Kelly Preston) teaching a course in Dante, whose Divine Comedy never foreshadows anything too pleasant.
“In fact, the title of the best-selling Jodi Picoult novel from which the film was adapted suggests Dante didn’t go far enough for the modern world – that where Dante created only nine circles of eternal purgatory, these days we need a 10th.
“Seems that since Dante outlined Hell in the early 14th century, we’ve somehow stepped up our game and developed another level of wickedness.” […] –David Hinckley, NY Daily News, June 27, 2008
“Director Lars von Trier has shared a new piece of art for his controversial The House That Jack Built that echoes Eugène Delacroix’s ‘The Barque Of Dante’ (1822), which is loosely based on fictional events taken from canto eight of Dante’s Inferno.
“’A leaden, smoky mist and the blazing City of the Dead form the backdrop against which the poet Dante endures a fearful crossing of the River Styx,’ wiki explains. ‘He is steadied by the learned poet of antiquity Virgil as they plough through waters heaving with tormented souls.’
“In the film, Matt Dillon (Wayward Pines) stars as a serial killer who views each of his murders as a work of art.” — Brad Miska, “The House That Jack Built Art Recreates Dante’s Inferno,” Bloody Disgusting, May 16, 2018
Throughout the film, Jack confesses his exploits in a retrospective narrative to a character named “Verge,” a nod to Virgil, voiced by Bruno Ganz and pictured in the role of Virgil in the image above.
In John Landis’ 1981 cult classic An American Werewolf In London, at 65:30 you can see a bust of Dante Alighieri in the Doctor’s study.
You can watch the full movie on Amazon Prime, Youtube, Google Play, Vudu, and on iTunes.
“The Czech-Cambodian Devět kruhů pekla (Nine Circles of Hell) is a poignant love story set amidst the hell of the Pol Pot regime. As the Khmer Rouge carves a path of death throughout the land, a Czech doctor Milan Knazko falls in love with a Cambodian woman Oum Savanny. Their relationship, though sorely strained by the war’s horrors, produces a child. The doctor is separated from his family once Pol Pot assumes control. Devět kruhů pekla was financed in part by the Ministry of Culture of the Kampuchean People’s Republic.” — Synopsis from film-enstreaming.com
The film was screen at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.
