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IMDbPro

Dante's Inferno

Original title: L'Inferno
  • 19111911
  • 1h 11m
IMDb RATING
7.0/10
2.9K
YOUR RATING
Dante's Inferno (1911)
  • Adventure
  • Drama
  • Fantasy
Loosely adapted from Dante's Divine Comedy and inspired by the illustrations of Gustav Doré the original silent film has been restored and has a new score by Tangerine Dream.Loosely adapted from Dante's Divine Comedy and inspired by the illustrations of Gustav Doré the original silent film has been restored and has a new score by Tangerine Dream.Loosely adapted from Dante's Divine Comedy and inspired by the illustrations of Gustav Doré the original silent film has been restored and has a new score by Tangerine Dream.
IMDb RATING
7.0/10
2.9K
YOUR RATING
  • Directors
    • Francesco Bertolini
    • Adolfo Padovan
    • Giuseppe de Liguoro(collaboration)
  • Writer
    • Dante Alighieri(poem "La Divina Commedia")
  • Stars
    • Salvatore Papa
    • Arturo Pirovano
    • Giuseppe de Liguoro
Top credits
  • Directors
    • Francesco Bertolini
    • Adolfo Padovan
    • Giuseppe de Liguoro(collaboration)
  • Writer
    • Dante Alighieri(poem "La Divina Commedia")
  • Stars
    • Salvatore Papa
    • Arturo Pirovano
    • Giuseppe de Liguoro
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 36User reviews
    • 13Critic reviews
  • See production, box office & company info
  • See more at IMDbPro
  • Photos31

    Giuseppe de Liguoro in Dante's Inferno (1911)
    Giuseppe de Liguoro, Salvatore Papa, and Arturo Pirovano in Dante's Inferno (1911)
    Giuseppe de Liguoro and Pier Delle Vigne in Dante's Inferno (1911)
    Augusto Milla in Dante's Inferno (1911)
    Salvatore Papa, Arturo Pirovano, and Augusto Milla in Dante's Inferno (1911)
    Arturo Pirovano in Dante's Inferno (1911)
    Dante's Inferno (1911)
    Dante's Inferno (1911)
    Dante's Inferno (1911)
    Salvatore Papa and Arturo Pirovano in Dante's Inferno (1911)
    Dante's Inferno (1911)
    Salvatore Papa and Arturo Pirovano in Dante's Inferno (1911)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Salvatore Papa
    • Dante Alighierias Dante Alighieri
    Arturo Pirovano
    • Virgilioas Virgilio
    Giuseppe de Liguoro
    • Farinata degli Ubertias Farinata degli Uberti…
    Pier Delle Vigne
    • Il conte Ugolinoas Il conte Ugolino
    Augusto Milla
    Augusto Milla
    • Luciferas Lucifer
    Attilio Motta
    Emilise Beretta
    • Directors
      • Francesco Bertolini
      • Adolfo Padovan
      • Giuseppe de Liguoro(collaboration)
    • Writer
      • Dante Alighieri(poem "La Divina Commedia")
    • All cast & crew
    • See more cast details at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      This is the first feature film to be shown in its entirety, in one screening, in the USA. Prior to this it was thought audiences wouldn't be prepared to sit for over an hour to watch a feature - films such as Les Misérables (1909) and The Life of Moses (1909) were shown in episodic parts over the course of a month or two.
    • Goofs
      The penultimate scene: as Virgil leads Dante through the subterranean passage, he suffers an uncharacteristic moment of clumsiness (he trips, stumbles, and has to pull his own toga out from under his foot).
    • Connections
      Edited into Hell-A-Vision (1936)

    User reviews36

    Review
    Top review
    6/10
    Epic Adaptation
    This was a gigantic production for the time. Its use of sets and hour-plus runtime would help influence the movie-making industries on both sides of the Atlantic to produce longer and more epic films. Additionally, the film-making here isn't bad for 1911 standards, but besides the sets and narrative, it's still basic even for then. The superimposition and stop-substitution trick effects had been in films since nearly the beginning of the medium. And, the tableau style this film adopts, where lengthy title cards describe proceeding action was already becoming outdated. "L'Inferno" contains barely any scene dissection (there's two insert shots I recall, and the one that isn't of Lucifer is of awkward continuity); scenes are one continuous, usually unmoving long-shot view. For comparison, this film was released the same year as D.W. Griffith's "The Lonedale Operator"; the difference in the use, or lack thereof, of the camera, editing and intertitles between the two films is striking. Griffith wasn't the only one to have used varied camera positions, dissected scenes and used crosscutting and continuity editing to make his narratives more cinematic, either.

    This is one of the earliest feature-length films to last at least an hour and seems to be the earliest that has survived to this day and been available on video in near complete form. (According to "Dante on View", by Antonella Braida and Luisa Calè, a couple scenes are in the wrong order and another few may be missing.) Even more impressive, however, are the sets by Francesco Bertolini and Sandro Properzi. Production values were already important to the success of the short films in Italy, as evidenced by "Nero" (1909), one of the few earlier Italian films generally accessible today, but they shy in comparison to those on display here. Milano took over production of adapting the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy from another company in 1909 and didn't complete it until 1911. Supposedly, the film cost more than 100,000 lire ("Dante, Cinema & Television"). For comparison, "Cabiria" (1914) supposedly cost 1 million lire (multiple sources) and "Quo Vadis?" (1912/13) cost 48,000 lire (Vernon Jarratt, "Italian Cinema")—all large sums for their time, reportedly. Like "Cabiria" and "Quo Vadis?", "L'Inferno" was also quite successful; in the US, ticket prices went for as high as $2.50 ("Dante on View"), and the film was the first to pave an American market for feature-length films through roadshow bookings and states rights distribution--a system, which for a time, coexisted with the Nickelodeon programs.

    This film, of course, is dated. Yet, compared to other early literary/theatrical features, this one holds up rather well. With the help of the sets, the bare plot of Dante's work remains involving and, at least, visually interesting, despite the static camera. The three flashback scenes are also well placed.
    helpful•10
    0
    • Cineanalyst
    • Aug 28, 2009

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • July 1911 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • Italy
    • Languages
      • Italian
      • English
    • Also known as
      • El infierno
    • Filming locations
      • Bovisa, Milano, Lombardia, Italy
    • Production companies
      • Milano Film
      • SAFFI-Comerio
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 11 minutes
    • Sound mix
      • Silent
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.33 : 1

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