“After the qualification of the digitally restored Štiglic’s film The Valley of Peace (1956) for the 2016 Cannes Classics competition, the celebration of the 60th anniversary of its making, and its Cannes premiere, the same director’s film The Ninth Circle (1960) was the third work of his that was screened in Cannes (the first one had been the 1949 film On Our Own Land).” [. . .] —The Film New Europe Association, July 28, 2020
June 16, 2021 By
France Štiglic’s The Ninth Circle (1960)
March 15, 2021 By
Maurizio Guarini, live soundtrack for 1911 Inferno film (2017)
“I started this live project in 2017. The director of the Italian Institute of Culture had the idea, and asked me if I wanted to do a live soundtrack with the occasion of the International Seminar on Critical Approaches to Dante organized by the University of Toronto. I saw this incredible movie from 1911—the first Italian feature film ever. and I took up the challenge.
“This first performance, that took place at the Innis Town Hall (University of Toronto), received a great audience response, so I decided to go ahead and do more shows.” —Maurizio Guarini
February 19, 2021 By
A Divina Comedia (1991)
Released in 1991, the Portuguese drama film A Divina Comèdia was written and directed by Manoel de Oliveira.
February 18, 2021 By
A Divina Comedia, O Filme (Brazilian Movie 2020)
“Based on the work of Dante Alighieri. The Titan Studio company in partnership with the theatre team Trupe Alcateia will give life to this incredible play that for centuries is investigating the curiosity of people all around the globe. The project consists of filming with chroma keys so CGI scenarios can be built and applied onto the background allowing more freedom with the creation and keeping the originality of the play. The performances will all be theatrical and with scripts adapted to the cinematic customs and updated language, besides having a slight ‘Shakespearian’ touch in order to maintain the romanticism of the work.” [. . .] —ARTSTATION
The movie poster above features the film’s interpretation of Ciacco in Inferno 6. To learn more visit the Facebook page here.
February 2, 2021 By
Robert Schwentke, dir. R.I.P.D. (2013)
“There are many descriptions of the afterlife in fiction that can be traced back to Dante’s imaginative journeys. The wacky afterlife universe depicted in the 2013 movie R.I.P.D (Rest in Peace Department) can’t shake off the legacy.
“When a Boston police officer is killed by his renegade partner, he is immediately whizzed up to a questionable Heaven where he discovers that everyone has to answer for past crimes in the thereafter – or join R.I.P.D, Inferno’s police force. The task of the R.I.P.D is to catch ‘Deadoes’, the souls of the deceased who refuse to accept their fate and instead return to the world of the living in order to spoil it.
“The ascent to where R.I.P.D resides is a helical ride for the recently departed, a cocktail of two shots of Inferno, half a Purgatorio and one of Paradiso. Sitting under the department of ‘Eternal Affairs’, R.I.P.D is run by a chief, half Virgil, half Minos, whose role is to give the new recruit a tour of the establishment. The movie seems to suggest that if you’re not simply visiting Hell (like Dante the pilgrim), then you’re either a convict or an (infernal) law-enforcement officer, whose job is to keep the damned away from the living.
“Dante’s circles of Hell are alluded to in the prison cells of the R.I.P.D precincts and in its staff’s crammed offices. Hell is other people working in the next R.I.P.D cubicle.” –Cristian Ispir
December 11, 2020 By
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
“In [Luca Guadagnino’s] movie Call Me By Your Name (2017), during the scene where Elio’s parents are sunbathing in Italy, Elio’s father is reading a book with a marking on the spine that says La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri.” –Contributor Alex Lee
Contributed by Robert Alex Lee (Florida State University ’21)
November 24, 2020 By
Leah Yananton’s Surviving Me: The Nine Circles of Sophie (2015)
“I made Surviving Me because I found from my own experience as an undergrad, that the pressure on our college campuses for women to be hypersexual is damaging to everyone. During my college years in post 9-11 NYC, the world around me stopped making sense and the social scene was full of chaos and escapism, yet in my Medieval poetry class I was reading themes that related to present day. My peers were testing the limits of defying convention regarding sexuality and traditional relationship values, asserting that being liberated meant you were superior to consequences. However, I had the feeling that I had fallen into the River Styx and was swiftly sinking to the bottom. In order to find solid ground, I had to fight for boundaries and integrity and I brought my battle into writing the script. Dante’s Inferno was a constant companion with its focus on behavior and consequences, and Surviving Me became a reflective creative journey.” –Director’s Statement from Press Notes, Leah Yananton
The 2015 film was directed and written by Leah Yananton and released by Longtale Films. Contributor Alan R. Perry notes that the film is laced throughout with indirect references to Inferno, and the story line is accompanied by Blake’s watercolors, as is also visible in the movie poster at left.
Contributed by Alan R. Perry (Gettysburg College)
November 2, 2020 By
“Dante’s Inferno Films World Premieres Take Over Italy”
“Dante’s Hell and Inferno Dantesco Animato, both films produced and directed by Boris Acosta, will premiere at MIA (Rome film festival market) on October 17, 2020, and later on will have its world festival premiere at the Ravenna Nightmare Film Festival on October 31, Halloween Day and will continue on to November 8, 2020.
Both films are based on Inferno, Dante Alighieri’s first part of the literary masterpiece, The Divine Comedy. Not until now, has this story been told so descriptively by visual art from artists of the highest caliber and an array of celebrities and known scholars.”[. . .] –Global Film Sales, WFMZ-TV News, 2020
See also related discussion here.
October 24, 2020 By
“I Wish to Thank Donald Trump for His Inspirational Presidency”
“Thank you Donald for the wake-up call and for providing an unwanted preview of Tim Burton’s adaptation of Alice In Wonderland staged in your nine circles of hell: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery.” –J. P. Curtis, Sparta Independent, July 28, 2020
September 25, 2020 By
“The Divine Comedy of The House That Jack Built“
“After being banned from the Cannes Film Festival and finishing his Depression Trilogy, Lars von Trier returned from a five-year hiatus with The House That Jack Built. The film follows a sadistic, failed architect named Jack (Matt Dillon) who recalls his murders to the ancient Roman poet Virgil (Bruno Ganz), as the pair make their way through Hell. To Virgil’s disgust, Jack sees these incidents as misunderstood works of art.
When the film premiered at Cannes, it prompted a one-hundred-person walkout and a ten-minute standing ovation. While the festival is known for its dramatic receptions, The House That Jack Built is, indeed, a polarizing film. It’s is either the nail in the coffin for von Trier’s career or the darkest comedy of 2018. Depends on who you ask.
As Ryan Hollinger puts it in the video essay below: The House That Jack Built is what you get when you give a serial killer two and a half hours to gush about how great they are. On paper that sounds like a recipe for disaster. But on the screen, the iffy conceit materializes as a mocking character study of the kind of ego-trip that thinks it’s so charming and clever that it can get away anything.
Ultimately, The House that Jack Built is a film that turns a monster into a punchline. And if you let go of seriousness and pretension, the film reveals itself as an absurd, self-effacing, and divinely funny comedy.” –Meg Shields, Film School Rejects, July 25, 2020
Check out our original post on The House that Jack Built (2018) here.
