Dante's Inferno

Plot synopsis:
The exhumation of Lizzie Siddal's desiccated body is seen, followed by a shot of Rossetti dancing among the flames of a bonfire of paintings by Reynolds and Gainsborough. A voice-over informs us that Rossetti is a founder of a revolutionary group of artists called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The figure of the young Lizzie dressed as Joan of Arc appears above the flames.
Lizzie is seen modelling for Millais' Ophelia and for a painting of Joan by Rossetti. The voice-over states that she eats little and often throws it up. She and Rossetti spend several years together while he paints and draws her, but she spurns his sexual advances, even slashing him with a needle when he presses himself on her. Rossetti turns to the more accommodating Fanny Cornforth.
Lizzie is introduced to laudanum by Emma Brown to alleviate her stomach pain. She is advised by Christina Rossetti that Dante Gabriel needs a patron. Christina's voice-over speaks her poem In an Artist's Studio, about Lizzie. She tells Lizzie she looks ill. Rossetti and Christina visit William Holman Hunt, who is painting The Light of the World. Hunt asks Rossetti to look after his girlfriend Annie Miller while he is away in the Holy Land painting The Scapegoat, but Rossetti has an affair with her and Hunt spurns her on his return. John Ruskin visits Rossetti's studio and shows an interest in Lizzie's art.
Rossetti meets Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris in Oxford and encounters the beautiful Jane Burden. They paint the Oxford Union murals. Jane marries Morris and Rossetti marries Lizzie. Lizzie becomes increasingly hysterical due to her laudanum use and Rossetti's philandering. She dies from an overdose. Rossetti buries his unpublished poems with her.
Some years later, Charles Augustus Howell persuades him to dig the poems up, but Rossetti is haunted by the image of the dead Lizzie and becomes addicted to chloral. Fanny Cornforth rescues him from a suicide attempt, but Rossetti is now increasingly obsessed with Morris' wife Jane. He sleeps with her when Morris is away in Iceland, but she remains distant. Isolated, with only the loyal Fanny to care for him, Rossetti sinks further into addiction.

Tags: allegory, psychedelic

Review:
Mainly a curiosity. One of a number of 'high brow' pictures made at the time, a simplistic morality tale is used to frame parts of hell as described by Dante and illustrated by Gustav Dore.Mainly of interest for the production design of hell, which seems like a giant factory. The semi-nude bodies of the sinners caused censorship problems at the time.I saw the New York Museum of Modern Art print, which seems to be missing at least twenty percent, supposedly mostly scenes of hell.. Very Good. Dante's Inferno (1924) *** 1/2 (out of 4) A meanspirted, heartless father begins reading Dante's Inferno and is soon visited by a demon who shows him what hell is like. Will the father be scared into changing his ways? The father aspect of this is clearly lifted from A Christmas Carol but it works fairly neatly but the real aspect are all the scenes in Hell, which I guess the filmmakers used to make sure people knew they didn't want to go there. It's very easy to see why this thing was so controversial back in the day and it still could have the power to creep people out. Hell is broken down into various rooms and the torture depends on the reason you were sent there. Most memorable are the murderers who are thrown on top of one another with razors so that they will be cut each time they move. The demon that haunts those who commit suicide is another memorable aspect. The print I watched was in horrid shape and didn't have a soundtrack so with the proper elements I'd probably give this a full four stars. I think this was the fifth version of the book.. Scrooge's Inferno. It may not be possible to bring the Inferno to the screen:  too much depends on Dante's poetry, not to mention familiarity with all of the classical and contemporary references that mean so much to the poet's journey.  But the people who made this film didn't even try; instead, they gave us a version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, with a little diluted Sinclair Lewis thrown in, relocated in 1920's America. Yes we do get some scenes from the Inferno, but all the drama of the original has been drained from them:  the lustful appear to be merely lounging around in a reddish scene, instead of being caught up in a whirlwind, while the suicides are now thorny bushes with heads, which simply look ridiculous.But the question remains:  could we do better with modern special effects? The danger is that the effects could be too good--Bertran de Born swinging his head like a lantern, Mohammed and the other schismatics split nearly in half, suicides turned into brambles, thieves turned into lizards--leaving the impression that the Inferno is just a series of freak shows, and giving too little importance to the transformation of Dante as he journeys through Hell. Good luck to anyone who tries.. Lackluster Story Aided by Visuals. A selfish businessman has been consumed with the sins that will throw him to hell. He allows his tenants in his ramshackle tenement houses suffer in unsafe living conditions with no remorse. When a demon shows him what hell is like and offers him a chance to save his soul, the businessman is faced with a choice, but old habits die hard.Although Dante's Inferno has some great visuals, the story lacks, and therefore makes this curiosity quite disappointing. This was one of the most exciting names on the list for Cinevent 41, and I was underwhelmed by it. The red tinting and the writhing bodies are powerful at first sight, but the narration dwells too much on the details of each level of hell. Maybe this is uninteresting to modern audiences who have been saturated with so many different varieties of what hell might be like that we're numb to the older renditions. Whatever the reason, it is not effective.It is worthwhile to note that the black characters are played by white men in black-face. This choice is more startling today than it must have been when the film was originally released, but it serves as a reminder of the change in the times.This film intertwines the imagery from Dante's famous story and a modern morality tale that plays off of the depictions of hell. Cecil B. DeMille perfected this combination in The Ten Commandments a year earlier. In comparison, Dante's Inferno falls flat.