See Roberto Benigni’s website Tutto Dante for more information and photos.
Contributed by Dorothea Herreiner
John Curran, “The Painted Veil” (2006)
The 2006 movie, The Painted Veil, based on a novel by Somerset Maugham ultimately derives from the author’s fascination with Pia, a character in Dante’s Purgatorio. This discussion of the movie quotes from Maugham’s preface to the novel:
“The idea for the novel began when Maugham was studying Italian under the tuition of the daughter of his landlady in Tuscany before World War I (he had by then decided to abandon a career in medicine for the life of a writer). While working through Dante’s Purgatorio, he came upon this line, spoken by the adulterous wife Pia: Siena mi fe’; disfecemi Maremma. (Siena made me, Maremma unmade me.) Ersilia (for so the tutor was named) explained that Pia was a noblewoman of Siena whose husband, suspecting her of adultery and afraid on account of her family to put her death, took her down to his castle in the Maremma valley, the noxious vapors of which he was confident would kill her off. But she took so long to die that he grew impatient and had her tossed out a window. As Maugham explains in his preface to the novel: ‘I do not know where Ersilia learnt all this. The note in my own Dante was less circumstantial, but the story for some reason caught my imagination. I turned it over in my mind and for many years from time to time would brood over it for two or three days. I used to repeat to myself the line: Siena mi fe’; disfecemi Maremma. But it was one among many subjects that occupied my fancy and for long periods, I forgot it. Of course I saw it as a modern story, but I could not think of a setting in the world of today in which such events might plausibly happen. It was not till I made a long journey in China that I found this.'” –Edward T. Oakes, First Things, January 10, 2007
Contributed by Patrick Molloy
Tom Shadyac, “Liar Liar” (1997)
“The lawyer, played by Jim Carrey is having a terrible day and when he meets the witness he will be questioning in court later that afternoon, the guy asks, ‘how ya doin?’ and Fletcher Reed (played by Carrey) responds, ‘I’ve slipped into the 7th circle of hell how does it look like im doing!!!'” –Yoni Shemesh
Contributed by Yoni Shemesh (Bowdoin, ’09)
“Dante’s Inferno” (Sean Meredith, Paul Zaloom, Sandow Birk, 2007)
“DANTE’S INFERNO has been kicking around the cultural playground for over 700 years. But it has never before been interpreted with exquisitely hand-drawn paper puppets, brought to life using purely hand-made special effects. Until now. Rediscover this literary classic, retold in a kind of apocalyptic graphic novel meets Victoria-era toy theater. Dante’s Hell is brought to lurid 3-dimensional, high-definition life in a darkly comedic travelogue of the underworld–set against an all-too-familiar urban backdrop of used car lots, gated communities, strip malls, and the U.S. Capitol, and populated with a contemporary cast of reprobates, including famous (and infamous) politicians, presidents, popes, pimps, and the Prince of Darkness himself.” —Dante Film
“THE last time that the artist Sandow Birk found himself concerned about responses from Muslims was in 2006. He was developing a film using puppets, inspired by his illustrations for a three-volume English-language version of Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy,’ when riots broke out over the Danish newspaper cartoons representing Muhammad.
The outcry prompted Mr. Birk’s film team to reconsider its own representation of the prophet. ‘We had Muhammad in our film because he was in Dante’s poem,’ he said. ‘Dante put him in ‘Inferno’ as someone who supposedly created schisms.’ He argued at the time for respecting Dante’s treatment of Muhammad, as artists like Gustave Doré had done before him.
But the film’s producers were spooked, and Muhammad disappeared from the film. ‘I thought it was wrong to act out of fear,’ Mr. Birk said from his studio here.
‘But I was upset for another reason too,’ he admitted. His film collaborators didn’t know at the time, but quietly — privately — he had already embarked on another potentially controversial project: an effort to make by hand what he called a ‘personal Koran.’ [. . .] –Jori Finkel, The New York Times, August 28, 2009
See Also: the “Dante’s Inferno” Trailer
See Also: Sandow Birk’s Illustrations of the “Divine Comedy” (2006)
Contributed by Zac Milner (Bowdoin, ’07)
McFarlane, McElroy, Dippe’, “Spawn” (1997)
“The movie adaptation of Todd McFarlane’s mega-cult comic! Al Simmons is a hitman who works for the government. One day, someone sets him up and he gets killed. Of course, he goes to Hell, where Malebolgia – the Devil himself – offers him a deal. Al will come back to life with a certain amount of “energy”, but when it runs out, he will return to Hell as a Hellspawn, and help in the war against Heaven. Al accepts the offer, because of the love for his wife Wanda, but when he arrives to Earth he sees that the Devil has cheated him… His face is horribly distorted, his body covered with a living suit, and the worst of all; he finds Wanda married with his best friend. Shattered, the Spawn starts wandering in New York’s alleys.” [. . .] –Chris Makrozahopoulos, IMDb
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