Examination And Film Comparisons Of Dante's Inferno

Examination and Film Comparisons of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno

Referred to as a comedy by Dante Alighieri himself and named by later ages for recognition of both its subject matter and achievements, The Divine Comedy, Dante’s epic poem is one of the incontestable great works of world literature. It includes a wide range of distinct literary elements; it celebrates the central doctrines of medieval Christianity with great enthusiasm while still remaining sympathetic to the human heart. It is one of the most deeply serious works in world literature, it’s main concern is the relation of the creator to his creatures and the ultimate destiny of the human soul; and yet it has room for not just grim irony but scenes of generous good humor and
This 2007 version is a comedy film performed with hand-drawn paper puppets on a toy theatre stage. The film was adapted from the book “Dante’s Inferno” by Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders (Chronicle Books, 2004), which is a modern update of the canticle Inferno from Dante Alighieri’s epic poem The Divine Comedy. The film accurately chronicles Dante’s journeys through the underworld, guided by Virgil. The film first premiered January 20, 2007 at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah (Dante Film). The film, having been created and presented in a distinctive fashion, did an exceptional job in recapturing Dante’s
The film is directly based on Electronic Art’s Dante’s Inferno video game, which was released in 2010. The movie is separated into several parts, for each chapter there is a title to the journey. Each chapter is animated with noticeably different styles; these vary in degree of difference and depict Dante with differing features, such as hair length, bodily proportions and armor (IMDb Dante’s Inferno). Having seen this version, myself, this appears to be the most accurate depiction of Dante’s original poem. This version shares the most similarities with Dante’s original, specifically in terms of structure and the characters that appear. In Dante’s original work he lists the nine circles of Hell numerically in accordance to severity of the sin committed, he descends deeper through each circle until reaching the lowest circle of Hell where Lucifer resides. In the 2010 animated film version Dante travels a similar path, however, instead of numbering the circles of Hell, each chapter represents a circle of Hell and is titled after the sin that corresponds to that circle, for example Dante’s first circle represents Limbo so in the animated film version the title is “Limbo”. Structurally the two are quite similar, Dante travels a similar path and encounters many of the same characters, yet there are