| L'Inferno | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by |
|
| Based on | TheDivine Comedy byDante Alighieri |
| Starring | Salvatore Papa Arturo Pirovano Giuseppe de Liguoro Augusto Milla |
| Cinematography | Emilio Roncarolo |
| Music by | Raffaele Caravaglios |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Helios |
Release date |
|
Running time | 73 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Silent |
| Budget | >ITL€100,000[2] |
L'Inferno (transl. The Hell) is a1911Italiansilent film, loosely adapted fromInferno, the first canticle ofDante Alighieri'sDivine Comedy.L'Inferno took over three years to make, and was the first full-length Italianfeature film.[2] It is also one of the first films to be shown in its entirety.[3]
Dante is barred from entering the hill of salvation by three beasts that block his path (Avarice,Pride, andLust). Beatrice descends from above and asks the poetVirgil to guide Dante through the Nine Circles ofHell. Virgil leads Dante to a cave where they find the riverAcheron, over whichCharon ferries the souls of the dead into Hell. They also see the three-headedCerberus andGeryon, a flying serpent with a man's face. They seethe 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 includeHomer,Horace,Ovid,Lucanus,Cleopatra,Dido, the traitor Caiphus,Count Ugolino, Peter of Vigna,Francesca Da Rimini and her lover Paulo,Brutus andCassius,Mohammed, andHelen 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 orGod-fearing.
L'Inferno's depictions of Hell closely followed those in the engravings ofGustave Doré for an edition of theDivine Comedy, which were familiar to an international audience,[2][4] and employed severalspecial effects.[5]
As Dante'sDivine Comedy placesMuhammad in hell, the film also has a momentary unflatteringdepiction of Muhammad in its Hell sequence (his chest explodes, exposing his entrails).[6]
Nancy Mitford recorded seeing the film in Italy in 1922, referring to it asDante. She records that it lasted from 9 until 12:15 including twointermissions. She details many of the deaths and tortures from the film. Her description of the film in her letter home is quoted during the biographyNancy Mitford by Harold Acton.[7]
The scenes from Hell from the film were reused in an American 1936exploitation film,Hell-O-Vision and the 1944race filmGo Down, Death!.[8][9] SomeAmerican state film censor boards required removal of the hell sequences fromL'Inferno used inGo Down, Death!, such as one where a woman's bare breast is momentarily seen.[9]
L'Inferno was first screened inNaples in theTeatro Mercadante on March 10, 1911.[2] An international success, it grossed more than$2 million in theUnited States, where its length gave theater owners an excuse for raising ticket prices.[5]
For many years,L'Inferno was largely unseen and only available in lower quality, incomplete copies.
