“The 73-year-old director’s serene meditation on Europe’s landscape after battle has an unusually obvious triptych structure, with each panel (or act) named for one of Dante’s three ‘kingdoms.’ The central, hour-long ‘Purgatory’ of a writers’ conference in Sarajevo bridges the opening 10-minute ‘Hell’ and a concluding 10-minute ‘Heaven.'” [. . .] –J. Hoberman, The Village Voice, November 24-30, 2004
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Rappaccini’s Daughter” (1844)
The daughter of the protagonist (an Italian scientist) is thought to be modeled after Dante’s Beatrice.
Dezso Magyar directed a film based on the short story (1980).
Contributed by Kate Moon (Bowdoin, ’09)
“Clerks” (Kevin Smith, 1994)
“The screenplay is loosely based on The Divine Comedy. The character Dante Hicks gets his name from Dante Alighieri, the author and fictional protagonist of The Divine Comedy. The chapter titles are also somewhat of a reference to the literature in that in The Divine Comedy, each level of hell is given a title. It can be said that Quick Stop is ‘Dante’s hell’.” –Sam Donovan
Contributed by Sam Donovan (Bowdoin, ’07)
“Dumb & Dumber” (Peter Farrelly, 1994)
Henry Otto, Dante’s Inferno (1924)
Henry Otto directed Dante’s Inferno (1924), a silent film interpretation of the poem.
“The tactics of a vicious slumlord and greedy businessman finally drive a distraught man to commit suicide. The businessman is tried for murder and executed, and is afterward taken by demons to the Hell where he will spend the rest of eternity.” —IMDb
Contributed by Dennis Looney
