| Dante's Inferno | |
|---|---|
 Judith Paris as Lizzie Siddal and Oliver Reed as Rossetti. | |
| Genre | Costume drama |
| Written by | Austin Frazer |
| Directed by | Ken Russell |
| Starring | Oliver Reed Judith Paris [Wikidata] Andrew Faulds Iza Teller Christopher Logue |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of episodes | 1 |
| Production | |
| Producer | Ken Russell |
| Running time | 90 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC1 |
| Release | 22 December 1967 (1967-12-22) |
Dante's Inferno: The Private Life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Poet and Painter is a 1967 British 35 mmdocudrama film directed byKen Russell and first screened onBBC1 on 22 December 1967 as part ofOmnibus. It quickly became a staple in cinemas in retrospectives of Russell's work.
Usingnonlinear narrative technique, it tells of the relationship between the 19th-century artist and poetDante Gabriel Rossetti (Oliver Reed) and his model,Elizabeth Siddal.[1]
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 thePre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The figure of the young Lizzie dressed asJoan 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 accommodatingFanny Cornforth.
Lizzie is introduced tolaudanum by Emma Brown to alleviate her stomach pain. She is advised byChristina Rossetti that Dante Gabriel needs a patron. Christina's voice-over speaks her poemIn an Artist's Studio, about Lizzie. She tells Lizzie she looks ill. Rossetti and Christina visitWilliam Holman Hunt, who is paintingThe Light of the World. Hunt asks Rossetti to look after his girlfriendAnnie Miller while he is away in theHoly Land paintingThe 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 meetsEdward Burne-Jones andWilliam Morris inOxford and encounters the beautifulJane Burden. They paint theOxford 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 anoverdose. 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 tochloral. 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 inIceland but she remains distant. Isolated, with only the loyal Fanny to care for him, Rossetti sinks further into addiction.
Russell had made an earlier film for television about thePre-Raphaelites calledOld Battersea House (1961), the success of which had drawn attention to the then-unfashionable art. Russell's original intention was to make a film showing the lives and works of the three main Pre-Raphaelite painters – Rossetti,Millais andHolman Hunt — but the arrival of a script into Russell's office at the BBC by Austin Frazer, solely about Rossetti, prompted Russell's change of plan. He thought that a story about a man who exhumes his dead wife and then is haunted by the deed was highly dramatic and marketable.[2] Russell cast many of his friends and used amateur actors, including the pop artistDerek Boshier as Millais and the poetChristopher Logue as Swinburne."[2] Much of the location shooting was done in theLake District.
Dante's Inferno's visual style is taken mostly from the Pre-Raphaelite paintings themselves, many of which, such as Millais'Ophelia are filmed in the actual locations where the paintings were created. Russell also uses imagery inspired bysilent comedy andexpressionist horror films.
Dante's Inferno has been described as "bit of a mess" despite moments of "inspired lunacy". Russell's biographer Joseph Lanza takes the view that its moody black-and-white photography makes the locations in the English Lake District seem likeDracula'sTransylvania.[2] Joseph A. Gomez argues that its chaotic appearance hides a sophisticated structure,
Perhaps on first viewing, the film may appear wildly episodic, strangely disorienting, self-indulgent, and extreme to the point of serious distortion. Yet with repeated viewings and research into Rossetti's life, the viewer soon realizes that Russell, like Hamlet, is but mad north-northwest. When the wind is southerly, he, too. knows a hawk from a handsaw...Russell concentrates on what he sees as the central conflict of Rossetti's life – the discrepancy between his ideals of truth, chivalry, and beauty which form the basis of his exalted vision of womanhood and what simply might be called his highly sexed nature. This emphasis, in turn, reveals Rossetti's neurotic characteristics of repetitive, obsessional thoughts and feelings and further assists to justify the film's structure since the content, to some degree, dictates the form.[3]
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