Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Silent Hill 2

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“[There] is a video-game that came out in 2001 called Silent Hill 2.  The game is part of a series, but the second game is usually best remembered.  The town called Silent Hill is not officially called “Hell” but it functions the same way.  The protagonist, James Sunderland, doesn’t have a guide like Dante does, but he does meet a variety of people along the way, each one afflicted by their own guilt.  The town has a way of bringing guilt into physical manifestation, taking the form of various hideous-looking monsters.  The allusion to hell occurs when James goes BELOW the town, taking elevators and stairwells deeper, deeper, and deeper than should even be conceivably possible.”   –Samuel Gray

Contributed by Samuel Gray, University of Mary Washington, ’18

The Nine Circles of Xbox Live Hell

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“Commenter Firescorpio takes us on a (somewhat misspelled) journey through the nine circles of Xbox Live hell, a path that transforms an innocent online gamer into a foaming, frothing, enjoyment-destroying fuckwit in today’s infographic-tastic edition of Speak-Up on Kotaku.”    –Mike Fahey, Kotaku, January 16, 2012

Rachel Rossin, “n=7/The Wake in Heat of Collapse”

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n=7

“SIGNAL is pleased to present Rachel Rossin’s ‘n=7 / The Wake in Heat of Collapse,’ a virtual reality simulation that employs the structure of side-scrolling gameplay to create an immersive, Oculus Rift-based experience.

“Descending into a 3-dimensional Dantesque underworld, the viewer navigates a landscape of hacked architectural and video game imagery, algorithmic collages generated from famous paintings (e.g. Guernica and Klimt’s The Kiss), corporate signage, browser logos and clippings from scenic destinations. These radiant environments provide participants with a window to sights unseen, and culminate with the experience of witnessing a crumbling staircase made of Susan Sontag’s ‘Against Interpretation.'”    —Signal’s website

Click here to read about Rossin’s exhibit in The New York Times.

Fede Alvarez, Dante’s Inferno Movie

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Fede AlvarezFede Alvarez, Uruguayan director of Evil Dead, will be directing a live-action movie adaptation of Electronic Arts’ 2010 video game, Dante’s Inferno, for Universal Pictures.

Alvarez himself confirmed the rumors in an interview with Collider.com, in which he says:

“It sounds like that might be the next film.  We’re super excited about everything on that movie.  It’s with Universal.  Jay Basu’s the writer, he did great work on the script, we worked together on the story.  We’ve got a great script already and we’re about to start casting the film.  So it’s pretty close, pretty exciting.  Basically we’re making a film based on the biggest mythology about hell ever; the biggest poem about hell.  So it’s really something that is super exciting, and it’s not the hell you’ve seen before.  It’s completely different form whatever you think.  It’s one of those films that if you expect to see lava and caves, you’re not going to get that, it’s a completely new realm and new universe.  Horror fans will dig it, because for me it was a good transition to go from Evil Dead to go and do something that is more a big adventure, but set in hell, so of course it’s pretty hardcore just because it’s hell itself.  So it’s pretty cool.  It’s a cool movie.” — Interview with Haleigh Foutch, “Fede Alvarez Talks From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series, Working with Robert Rodriguez, Evil Dead 2, Machina, Dante’s Inferno, and More,” Collider (May 6, 2014)

See also: Dante Today’s post about the EA video game.

Contributed by Sarah Montross

To Hell and Back: EA’s Guerrilla Marketing Campaign for Dante’s Inferno

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dantes-inferno“The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Take, for example, the marketing of Electronic Arts’s blockbuster new video game, Dante’s Inferno. Last year, the company set about trying to educate the public not only about the game but about a 14th-century literary classic and the very nature of human morality. What ensued was one of the most complex campaigns in video-game history, one that got EA burned for fakery and sexism, and then—thanks to a bold change of direction—lauded for intellect and creativity. It’s also a case study in surprising frugality, with a $200,000 guerrilla budget that yielded 47 million impressions of coverage. Today, AdFreak walks you through the nine circles of hell with the man who led the innovative and controversial marketing campaign for Dante’s Inferno. So, put on your asbestos gloves and get ready to descend into damnation, after the jump.” […]    –David Griner, AdWeek, February 24, 2010

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Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

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