''L'Inferno'' is a

1911 A notable ongoing event was the Comparison of the Amundsen and Scott Expeditions, race for the South Pole. Events January * January 1 – A decade after federation, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory ...

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.

Plot

Dante is barred from entering the hill of salvation by three beasts that block his path (

Avarice Greed (or avarice) is an uncontrolled longing for increase in the acquisition or use of material gain (be it food, money, land, or animate/inanimate possessions); or social value, such as status, or power. Greed has been identified as undes ...

, Pride, and Lust). Beatrice descends from above and asks the poet Virgil to guide Dante through the Nine Circles of

Hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...

. Virgil leads Dante to a cave where they find the river Acheron, over which

Charon In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon (; grc, Χάρων) is a psychopomp, the ferryman of Hades, the Greek underworld. He carries the souls of those who have been given funeral rites across the rivers Acheron and Styx, which separate the wo ...

ferries the souls of the dead into Hell. They also see the three-headed Cerberus and

Geryon In Greek mythology, Geryon ( or ;"Geryon"
''

the Devil eating human beings whole,

harpies In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, a harpy (plural harpies, , ; lat, harpȳia) is a half-human and half-bird personification of storm winds. They feature in Homeric poems. Descriptions They were generally depicted as birds with the head ...

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 denied by both Heaven and Hell, and they listen to some of their tales told in flashback. These characters include Homer,

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...

, Ovid, Lucanus,

Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Philopator ( grc-gre, Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ}, "Cleopatra the father-beloved"; 69 BC10 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and its last active ruler.She was also a ...

, Dido, the traitor Caiphus,

Count Ugolino Ugolino della Gherardesca (March 1289), Count of Donoratico, was an Italian nobility, nobleman, politician and naval commander. He was frequently accused of treason and features prominently in Dante's ''Divine Comedy''. Biography In the 13th cen ...

, Peter of Vigna,

Francesca Da Rimini Francesca da Rimini or Francesca da Polenta (died between 1283 and 1286) was a medieval noblewoman of Ravenna, who was murdered by her husband, Giovanni Malatesta, upon his discovery of her affair with his brother, Paolo Malatesta. She was a co ...

and her lover Paulo, Brutus and Cassius,

Mohammed Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monoth ...

, and

Helen of Troy Helen of Troy, Helen, Helena, (Ancient Greek: Ἑλένη ''Helénē'', ) also known as beautiful Helen, Helen of Argos, or Helen of Sparta, was a figure in Greek mythology said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world. She was believe ...

. 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

Production

''L'Infernos 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, and employed several

special effect Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual wor ...

s. As Dante's ''Divine Comedy'' places Muhammad in hell, the film also has a momentary unflattering

depiction of Muhammad The permissibility of depictions of Muhammad in Islam has been a contentious issue. Oral and written descriptions of Muhammad are readily accepted by all traditions of Islam, but there is disagreement about visual depictions. The Quran does not ...

in its Hell sequence (his chest explodes, exposing his entrails). 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. The scenes from Hell from the film were reused in an American 1936 exploitation film, '' Hell-O-Vision'' and the 1944

race film The race film or race movie was a genre of film produced in the United States between about 1915 and the early 1950s, consisting of films produced for black audiences, and featuring black casts. Approximately five hundred race films were produce ...

Go Down, Death! ''Go Down, Death!'' is a 1944 race film directed by and starring Spencer Williams. The film's title derives from a poem by the African-American writer James Weldon Johnson.

''. 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.

Release

''L'Inferno'' was first screened in Naples in the

Teatro Mercadante The Teatro del Fondo is a theatre in Naples, now known as the Teatro Mercadante. It is located on Piazza del Municipio #1, with the front facing the west side of Castel Nuovo and near the Molo (Dock) Siglio. Together with the Teatro San Carlo, it w ...

on March 10, 1911. 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.

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 Edgar is a commonly used English given name, from an Anglo-Saxon name ''Eadgar'' (composed of '' ead'' "rich, prosperous" and ''gar'' "spear"). Like most Anglo-Saxon names, it fell out of use by the later medieval period; it was, however, rev ...

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'Infernos 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 Edison Studio is a collective of composers and an electroacoustic music ensemble. It was founded in Rome in 1993 by the composers Mauro Cardi, Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi e Alessandro Cipriani. Since more than 20 years Edison Stud ...

or a composition for piano by Marco Dalpane. It also has many extras, including some restored early Italian shorts and a bilingual paperback book.

References

External links

* * * * * * http://www.silentera.com/video/infernoHV.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Inferno, L' 1911 drama films 1910s fantasy films 1911 films 1911 horror films Articles containing video clips Censored films Films based on Inferno (Dante) Films directed by Giuseppe de Liguoro Films set in hell The Devil in film Italian black-and-white films Italian supernatural horror films Italian silent feature films Italian fantasy films Italian drama films Religious controversies in film Silent drama films Silent horror films