Il Terzo Cerchio, Budapest, Hungary
“The Fall of the Damned” Lampshade by Luc Merx
“Dutch architect Luc Merx’s lampshade is an algorithmic mass of writhing nudes that recalls the classical motif of the fall of the damned. He imagines the lamp hanging above a dining table, the shock of the frozen, terrified bodies disturbing diners with age-old questions of guilt and morality, issues usually kept behind closed doors.” [. . .] –Costas Voyatzis, kostasvoyatzis, April 19, 2007
“The End of Limbo”
“The Vatican announced on Friday the results of a papal investigation of the concept of limbo. Church doctrine now states that unbaptized babies can go to heaven instead of getting stuck somewhere between heaven and hell” [. . .] –Michelle Tsai, Slate, April 23, 2007
Contributed by Zac Milner (Bowdoin, ’07)
“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)
ABC Series “Lost”
“In the most recent episode (aired March 14) one particular bit of dialogue rang particularly true to me of Dante’s ideas of Purgatory and Paradise:
Kate: Why would you want to come back?
Mikhail: You would not understand.
Kate: Try me.
Mikhail: I misspoke, what I meant to say is you are not capable of understanding.
Kate: And why am I not capable?
Mikhail: Because you are not on the list.
Kate: What list?
Mikhail: The man who brought me here, who brought all of my people here, he is a magnificent man.
Mikhail: I will try to make this as simple as I can. You are not on the list because you are flawed, because you are angry and weak and frightened.
Much like the virtuous pagans who died before Christ and those whose souls have not been purified by the purgation process cannot comprehend Paradise, it seems as if, at least in the minds of “the Others” those who are not on the list, which seems to be comprised of only those who they deem good, cannot comprehend the goodness of the island. Of course, this would make the island some odd hybrid of Purgatory (since the inhabitants do seem to relive their past mistakes and, in some way, atone for them) and Paradise, since the others view the island as their paradise. Of course the others are no angels (wow that was a bad joke)–they seem to be willing to go as far as murder to protect their paradise. Perhaps this bit of dialogue is evidence that the writers were inspired by aspects of the Divine Comedy.” –Charlie Russell-Schlesinger
Contributed by Charlie Russell-Schlesinger (Bowdoin, ’08)
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