France – Page 6

“Encore Dante” (2016 – ), A modern day adaptation of Dante’s Inferno

January 18, 2017 By Professor Arielle Saiber

“In her youth, the author labored as an au pair for a Parisian family. Like most life-altering experiences, the work was brief but intense. Now, after decades of therapy, the author descends again to the depths of hell to describe for readers what awaits there.”

Anticipated schedule for posting chapters of Encore Dante:

Prologue: Posted
Chapter 1: Week of February 6, 2017
Chapter 2: Week of February 20, 2017
Chapter 3: Week of March 6, 2017
Chapter 4: Week of March 20, 2017
Chapter 5: Week of April 3, 2017
Chapter 6: Week of April 17, 2017
Chapter 7: Week of May 1, 2017
Chapter 8: Week of May 15, 2017
Chapter 9: Week of May 29, 2017
Chapter 10: Week of June 12, 2017
Epilogue: Week of June 26, 2017

As Above, So Below (2014)

May 14, 2015 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

The thriller film As Above, So Below features a journey to the catacombs below Paris – and a Dantesque passage.

The wall above the entry to this passage reads, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”

Contributed by Erik Anderson, Hargrave Military Academy ’15

Le Cabaret de L’Enfer: Turn-of-the-Century Paris Nightclub Modeled After Hell

July 9, 2014 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

“As a general rule, theme bars are embarrassing affairs. You have your corny waitstaff, your overly literal decor and a sense of forced performance that’s… annoying. Once in a blue moon though, there has been a theme bar so fucking cool you would sell your soul to get in. Tragically, you would have to strike some kind of deal with the devil to go to Le Cabaret de L’Enfer, since the Paris red light district nightclub opened around the turn of the last century and closed sometime during the middle of it. Very little information exists on L’Enfer, but the detail in the decor is absolutely gorgeous—almost Boschian detail of twisting human, animal and skeletal forms—couldn’t you just die?” –Posted by Amber Frost on Dangerous Minds

Lost River (2014)

May 22, 2014 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

“Lost River has been heavily influenced aesthetically by the work of Nicolas Winding Refn, Gosling’s favoured collaborator and director of Drive and Only God Forgives. It looks like something out of a style magazine with its heavy green and red tints.

“But for all the brilliance of the work of its cinematographer Benoit Debie (who shot Irreversible), the fact that the action is set in Detroit, the American city once famous for its cars but now celebrated for its abandoned buildings, seems at odds with Gosling’s criticism of America and its willingness to abandon its past and its people. It occasionally feels as though he is glamorising their misery.

“Recurring burning buildings, and even the occasional burning bicycle, establish Detroit as a place of purgatory and it’s on some lower level of Dante’s Inferno that Gosling has found his characters, the type usually found in the films of Dario Argento, Gaspar Noe and Nic Roeg.” –Kaleem Aftab, “Lost River, Cannes film review: ‘Dazzling enough to delight Ryan Gosling fans’,” The Independent, May 20, 2014

The still featured above recalls the iconic entrance to Le Cabaret de L’Enfer, the hell-themed turn-of-the-century Parisian nightclub featured on Dante Today here.

Preserving Mont Saint-Michel

May 22, 2014 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

“In some ways, the trip to the top offers a modern version of the medieval journey through life—a kind of Divine Comedy. The way up is demanding: One must pass through the tourist hell of the town below and make one’s way up the increasingly steep ascent to the abbey, where many must pause to catch their breath after one or other of a seemingly infinite set of stairs. As one ascends, the crowd thins, discouraged by the demanding climb, the lack of shops and cafés, or simply held in thrall by the distractions below. Suddenly, as one approaches the top, the views open up—the horizon widens; one can see the immense and gorgeous bay; the sand and water glisten in the sun. There is quiet other than the occasional cries of seabirds.” –Alexander Stille, “The Massive and Controversial Attempt to Preserve One of the World’s Most Iconic Islands,” Smithsonian Magazine, May 20, 2014

“Encore Dante” (2016 – ), A modern day adaptation of Dante’s Inferno

As Above, So Below (2014)

Le Cabaret de L’Enfer: Turn-of-the-Century Paris Nightclub Modeled After Hell

Lost River (2014)

Preserving Mont Saint-Michel

Recent Dante Citings

Categories

Submit a Sighting

How to Cite