L'Inferno

L'Inferno
L'Inferno
Directed by	Francesco Bertolini; Adolfo Padovan; Giuseppe De Liguoro;
Based on	The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
Starring	Salvatore Papa; Arturo Pirovano; Giuseppe de Liguoro; Augusto Milla
Cinematography	Emilio Roncarolo
Music by	Raffaele Caravaglios
Production; company	Milano Films
Distributed by	Helios
Release date	10 March 1911;
Running time	73 minutes
Country	Italy
Language	Silent
Budget	>ITL€100,000

L'Inferno

L'Inferno (transl. The Hell) is a 1911 Italian silent film, loosely adapted from Inferno, the first canticle of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. L'Inferno took over three years to make, and was the first full-length Italian feature film.^[2]

Plot

Dante is barred from entering the hill of salvation by three beasts that block his path (Avarice, Pride, and Lust). Beatrice descends from above and asks the poet Virgil to guide Dante through the Nine Circles of Hell. Virgil leads Dante to a cave where they find the river Acheron, over which Charon ferries the souls of the dead into Hell. They also see the three-headed Cerberus and Geryon, a flying serpent with a man's face. They see the Devil eating human beings whole, harpies eating the corpses of suicides, an evil man forced to carry his own severed head for eternity, people half-buried in flaming lava, etc.

There follows a series of encounters in which the two meet up with a number of formerly famous historical figures whose souls were in Limbo or Hell, and they listen to some of their tales told in flashback. These characters include Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucanus, Cleopatra, Dido, the traitor Caiphus, Count Ugolino, Peter of Vigna, Francesca Da Rimini and her lover Paulo, Brutus and Cassius, Mohammed, and Helen of Troy. The film's main attraction is the fantastic set designs depicting the horrors of Hell, with excessive violence and gore, designed to frighten the audience into becoming pious or God-fearing.

Cast

Salvatore Papa as Dante Alighieri
Arturo Pirovano as Virgilio
Giuseppe de Liguoro as Il conte Ugolino
Augusto Milla as Lucifer
Attilio Motta
Emilise Beretta as Beatrice

Production

L'Inferno's depictions of Hell closely followed those in the engravings of Gustave Doré for an edition of the Divine Comedy, which were familiar to an international audience,^[2]^[3] and employed several special effects.^[4]

As Dante's Divine Comedy places Muhammad in hell, the film also has a momentary unflattering depiction of Muhammad in its Hell sequence (his chest explodes, exposing his entrails).^[5]

Nancy Mitford recorded seeing the film in Italy in 1922, referring to it as Dante. She records that it lasted from 9 until 12:15 including two intermissions. She details many of the deaths and tortures from the film. Her description of the film in her letter home is quoted during the biography Nancy Mitford by Harold Acton.^[6]

The scenes from Hell from the film were reused in an American 1936 exploitation film, Hell-O-Vision and the 1944 race film Go Down, Death!.^[7]^[8] Some American state film censor boards required removal of the hell sequences from L'Inferno used in Go Down, Death!, such as one where a woman's bare breast is momentarily seen.^[8]

Release

L'Inferno was first screened in Naples in the Teatro Mercadante on March 10, 1911.^[2] An international success, it grossed more than $2 million in the United States, where its length gave theater owners an excuse for raising ticket prices.^[4]

Home video

For many years, L'Inferno was largely unseen and only available in lower quality, incomplete copies.

In 2004, a newly restored version of the film, combining British and American prints from the BFI National Archive and the Library of Congress, was released on UK DVD by the Snapper Music label. It was scored by father and son Edgar and Jerome Froese, of the German electronic band Tangerine Dream. The film has English intertitles and subtitles in German, French, Spanish, and Italian.
In 2011, L'Inferno's centenary, a brand new and more complete digital restoration by Italy's Cineteca di Bologna was released on their own DVD label. This version has original Italian intertitles, optional English subtitles, and a choice of an electro-acoustic score by Edison Studio or a composition for piano by Marco Dalpane. It also has many extras, including some restored early Italian shorts and a bilingual paperback book.
In December 2023, Terror Vision Records & Video announced a release of the film on Blu-ray, featuring a new 4K restoration, three new scores created specifically for the release (by American singer-songwriter HALEY, American organist and composer Michael Kiker and Belgian pianist, composer and musical professor Laurent Pigeolet, respectively) and a commentary track by film historian James L. Neibaur.^[9] The release also includes a red tint version of the film by Redwood Creek, English intertitles and a booklet with an essay by Ben Model.

References

^ Welle, John P. "Early Cinema, Dante's Inferno of 1911, and the Origins of the Italian Film Culture." Dante, Cinema, and Television. Ed. Amilcare A Iannucci. University of Toronto Press, 2004. 36. Book.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Welle, John P. (2004). "Early Cinima, Dante's Inferno of 1911, and the Origins of Italian Film Culture". In Iannucci, Amilcare A. (ed.). Dante, Cinema, and Television. University of Toronto Press. pp. 36, 38–40. ISBN 0-8020-8827-9.
^ Bondanella, Peter (2009). A History of Italian Cinema. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-441-16069-0.
^ ^a ^b Braida, Antonella (2007). "Dante's Inferno in the 1900s: From Drama to Film". In Braida, Antonella; Calé, Luisa (eds.). Dante on View: The Reception of Dante in the Visual and Performing Arts. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 47–49. ISBN 978-0-7546-5896-2.
^ Plate, S. Brent (2006). Blasphemy: Art that Offends. Black Dog. p. 39. ISBN 978-1-9047-7253-8.
^ Acton, Harold (2010). Nancy Mitford. Gibson Square. ISBN 978-1-906142-57-5.
^ Looney, Dennis (2004). "Spencer Williams and Dante: An African-American Filmmaker at the Gates of Hell". In Iannucci, Amilcare A. (ed.). Dante, Cinema, and Television. University of Toronto Press. pp. 135–36. ISBN 0-8020-8601-2.
^ ^a ^b Weisenfeld, Judith (2007). Hollywood Be Thy Name: African American Religion in American Film, 1929-1949. University of California Press. pp. 115–19, 127–28. ISBN 978-0-520-22774-3.
^ "Dante's Inferno Now Available on Terror Vision Blu-ray With Reverend Entertainment Bonus Material". Reverend Entertainment. February 20, 2024.

External links

L'Inferno on YouTube
L'Inferno at AllMovie
L'Inferno at IMDb
L'Inferno at Rotten Tomatoes
L'Inferno at the TCM Movie Database
http://www.silentera.com/video/infernoHV.html

[1] Welle, John P. "Early Cinema, Dante's Inferno of 1911, and the Origins of the Italian Film Culture." Dante, Cinema, and Television. Ed. Amilcare A Iannucci. University of Toronto Press, 2004. 36. Book.

[Welle-2] Welle, John P. (2004). "Early Cinima, Dante's Inferno of 1911, and the Origins of Italian Film Culture". In Iannucci, Amilcare A. (ed.). Dante, Cinema, and Television. University of Toronto Press. pp. 36, 38–40. ISBN 0-8020-8827-9.

[3] Bondanella, Peter (2009). A History of Italian Cinema. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-441-16069-0.

[Braida-4] Braida, Antonella (2007). "Dante's Inferno in the 1900s: From Drama to Film". In Braida, Antonella; Calé, Luisa (eds.). Dante on View: The Reception of Dante in the Visual and Performing Arts. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 47–49. ISBN 978-0-7546-5896-2.

[5] Plate, S. Brent (2006). Blasphemy: Art that Offends. Black Dog. p. 39. ISBN 978-1-9047-7253-8.

[Nancy_Mitford-6] Acton, Harold (2010). Nancy Mitford. Gibson Square. ISBN 978-1-906142-57-5.

[7] Looney, Dennis (2004). "Spencer Williams and Dante: An African-American Filmmaker at the Gates of Hell". In Iannucci, Amilcare A. (ed.). Dante, Cinema, and Television. University of Toronto Press. pp. 135–36. ISBN 0-8020-8601-2.

[Weisenfeld-8] Weisenfeld, Judith (2007). Hollywood Be Thy Name: African American Religion in American Film, 1929-1949. University of California Press. pp. 115–19, 127–28. ISBN 978-0-520-22774-3.

[9] "Dante's Inferno Now Available on Terror Vision Blu-ray With Reverend Entertainment Bonus Material". Reverend Entertainment. February 20, 2024.

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v t e Dante Alighieri
Works in Latin	De vulgari eloquentia De Monarchia Eclogues Epistle to Cangrande (disputed)
Works in Italian	La Vita Nuova Le Rime Convivio
Divine Comedy	Inferno Purgatorio Paradiso Cultural references
Books, articles, concepts	Contrapasso Dante Encyclopedia Enciclopedia Dantesca
People in Dante's life	Alighiero di Bellincione (father) Jacopo Alighieri (son) Guido Cavalcanti Brunetto Latini Beatrice Portinari Ferreto de' Ferreti
Papal commentaries	Cando lucis aeternae
Dante in popular culture	Dante crater Dante asteroid 83 Beatrix Dante Alighieri Academy Scuola Italiana Dante Alighieri Dante Park, New York Dante Park, Montreal Monument to Dante The Barque of Dante (1822 painting) Dante in Hell (1835 painting) Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta Appraised by Dante and Virgil (1835 painting) Dante and Virgil (1850 painting) The Barque of Dante (1858 painting) Dante's Dream (1871 painting) Dante and Beatrice (1883 painting) Beatrice (1919 film) Dante Alighieri (1921 sculpture) Dante Symphony Italian battleship Dante Alighieri Devil May Cry Dante's Inferno (video game)
Related	Tomb of Dante Dante Society of America