L’INFERNO

1911

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate

HELL

Hell is Satan’s domain to most people.

In the Hebrew Bible there is a place called sheol – a place where the dead are - all the dead, good and bad alike.

Concepts of the Devil and concepts of hell are complexly interwoven. In early Hebraic texts, there are two concepts – one is sheol a place underground where all the dead (good and bad) go. Nothing much happens there although it is joyless, shadowy and lonely. During the Apocalyptic period (2nd century BC(E) when there were thoughts of the coming of the messiah and the idea of judgment and retribution, resurrection became limited to the righteous and the unrighteous would be left below. And sheol became associated with a place of punishment.

Now about this time there is a valley called Gehenna, not far from Jerusalem which was an area where Moloch was thought to have been worshipped. It is also said to be a dump for offerings made in the temple that wee not “worthy”. This place is cursed by a couple of the biblical writers like Jeremiah and Isaiah. Apostate and rebellious Jews were thought to be tortured by fire there. In different rabbinical traditions Gehenna is a place of temporal punishment for rebellious Jews and eternal punishment for Christians.

is a word tracing to Greek, ultimately from Hebrew Gêhinnôm (also Gei ben-Hinnom meaning the Valley of Hinnom. The valley, which forms the southern border of ancient Jerusalem, is first mentioned in Joshua 15:8. Originally it referred to a garbage dump in a deep narrow valley right outside the walls of Jerusalem (in modern-day Israel) where fires were kept burning to consume the refuse and keep down the stench. It is also the location where bodies of executed criminals, or individuals denied a proper burial, would be dumped. Today, "Gehenna" is often used as a synonym for Hell.

The association here may be with the idea that there were watcher or fallen angels who came and mated with the “daughters of man” and taught them things that led to sinning in many ways. The archangels threw these watcher or fallen angels into deep valleys in the desert (hence like being buried in sand) there would be an association with heat. At this point though, the Devil as we know him today doesn’t really exist, so he doesn’t “rule in hell”.

These angels (part of the “hosts” as in Lord of Hosts) seem to date from an early polytheistic period in Jewish history. As the religion collapsed into monotheism, the other gods become a kind of court around Jehovah. Jehovah becomes a single god who has both a light and dark side. As these slowly separate historically it becomes harder and harder to deal with the existence of evil. As a result, theological arguments ultimately take the leader of the fallen angels (whose name varies from Belial, Azazel, Mastema, Semyaza, Satanail, Sammael or Satan – a word which means obstructer or opponent and is used for anything from a person approaching on a road in the opposite direction to an opponent in court) and turn him slowly into what we now call the Devil.

By the time of Christ the concepts of Sheol and Gehenna start to merge in Hebraic thought and finally become the hell of Christianity.

In his Divina commedia ('Divine comedy'; set in the year 1300), Dante Alighieri employed the conceit of taking Virgil as his guide through Inferno (and then, in the second cantiche, up the mountain of Purgatorio). Virgil himself is not condemned to Hell in Dante's poem but is rather, as a virtuous pagan, confined to Limbo just at the edge of Hell. The geography of Hell is very elaborately laid out in this work, with nine concentric rings leading deeper into the Earth and deeper into the various punishments of Hell, until, at the center of the world, Dante finds Satan himself trapped in the frozen lake of Cocytus. A small tunnel leads past Satan and out to the other side of the world, at the base of the Mount of Purgatory.

John Milton's Paradise Lost (1668) opens with the fallen angels, including their leader Satan, waking up in Hell after having been defeated in the war in heaven and the action returns there at several points throughout the poem. The nature of Hell as a place of punishment, as portrayed by Dante, is not explored here; instead, Hell is the abode of the demons, and the passive prison from which they plot their revenge upon Heaven through the corruption of the human race.

L’Inferno

Dante (Durante degli Alighieri) , better known as Dante Alighieri or simply Dante, (c. June 1, 1265 – September 13/14, 1321) was an Italian Florentine poet. His greatest work, la Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy), is considered the greatest literary statement produced in Europe during the Middle Ages.

He held political office but was not very important in this area. He was embroiled in a battle between two parties – the Imperial Party (Ghibellines - agrarian estates), who supported the Holy Roman Empire, and the Church party (Guelfs – wealthy mercantiles) who were against German influence and as a result supported the Pope. The Guelfs ultimately won, but became factionalized into 2 groups – the Blacks who supported the papacy and the whites who rejected it. Dante supported the White Guelfs.

The Black Guelfs took control and Dante was fined and exiled to Rome for two years – a sentence which was extended permanently when he could not pay his fine. Although there were attempts by the White Guelfs to regain control they all failed and Dante grew weary of it all and became a “party of one” and started at that point to write the Divine Comedy.

The Divine Comedy was originally just called “Comedy” which meant it wasn’t in Latin and ostensibly scholarly. Later by Giovanni Boccaccio added the word “divine”. It was composed over a period of about 13 years from 1308 -1321. It is generally considered the major epic of Italian literature and the last major work of the Middle Ages and the first of the Renaissance.

The Poem

The poem basically deals with Dante’s trip through the after world. Initially he is guided by Virgil, the poet who composed the Aeneid, on his tour through the Inferno, After he is guided by Beatrice Portinari, a girl he first saw when he was nine. In the manner of courtly love, he loved “pure and chaste from afar” greeting her on the street but never getting to know her. There is an intersting mix of "pagan" characters in the Inferno many of whom are drawn from Greek and Roman mythology. Watch for them.

<>Structure

The poem consists of three main parts or Canticas - “Inferno” (Hell), “Purgatorio” (Purgatory) and “Paradiso” (Paradise), of which “Inferno” (Hell) is the most famous. Each is 33 cantos in length although “Inferno” has a one canto introductory to the entire work making it 34 cantos in length. It is written in three line “tercets” of eleven syllables and has a complex rhyme scheme ABA BCB CDC DED and so on.

The numerology of the poem is complex with the cantos being 1+33, 33, 33 = 100

The rhyme scheme in threes is thought to refer to the trinity, and the peculiarity if the rhyme going back to a previous tercet may imply one has to go backward to go forward.

The Structure of the After Life

(circles of hell, 9 terraces of Purgatory and 9 spheres of Paradise)

The various people found in different levels are people, often of Dante’s time who are placed in specific places in Hell. These include in the sixth circle of Hell (heretics), Farinata degli Uberti, a Ghibelline; and Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, a Guelph who was the father of Dante's friend, fellow poet Guido Cavalcanti. (Cantos X and XI)

In the EIGHTH Circle those who are guilty of deliberate knowing evil are found these include those involved with simony – selling indulgences etc. Here are found Those who committed simony are placed head-first in holes in the rock, with flames burning on the soles of their feet. One of them, Pope Nicholas III, denounces as simonists two of his successors, Pope Boniface VIII (whom the White guelfs opposed) and Pope Clement V. (Canto XIX)

Clement V is often remembered for his nepotism, avarice, weakness and cunning, and often vilified as a willing collaborator in the designs of France against the Pope, who ushered in a century of schism: in the Divine Comedy, Dante is shown the place which awaits Clement V in the eighth circle of Hell. He is recorded as the first pope to be crowned with a papal tiara. Is the Pope at the time of the seizing of the TEMPLARS.

In the 9th Circle, 4th zone (called Judecca) aer found traitors to their lords and benefactors. At the center is Satan, who has three faces, one red, one black, and one a pale yellow, each having a mouth that chews on a prominent traitor. Satan himself is represented as a giant, terrifying beast, weeping tears from his six eyes, which mix with the traitors' blood sickeningly. He is waist deep in ice, and beats his six wings as if trying to escape, but the icy wind that emanates only further ensures his imprisonment (as well as that of the others in the ring). The sinners in the mouths of Satan are Brutus and Cassius in the left and right mouths, respectively, who were involved in the assassination of Julius Caesar (an act which, to Dante, represented the destruction of a unified Italy), and Judas Iscariot (the namesake of this zone) in the central, most vicious mouth, who betrayed Jesus. Judas is being administered the most horrifying torture of the three traitors, his head in the mouth of Lucifer, and his back being forever skinned by the claws of Lucifer. (Canto XXXIV) What is seen here is a perverted trinity. Satan is impotent, ignorant, and evil while God can be attributed as the opposite: all powerful, all knowing, and good.

The two poets escape by climbing the ragged fur of Lucifer, passing through the center of the earth, emerging in the other hemisphere just before dawn on Easter Sunday beneath a sky studded with stars.

Directed by three almost unknown directors

The images are based n the drawings of Gustav Doré

The film’s special effects are reminiscent of Méliès (Trip to the Moon)

AFTER THE FILM

The film is still made at a time when many of the film techniques are not yet present. What film techniques seem lacking here?

Close-ups, camera movement, color tinting. the camera remains station in terms of its distance to the subjects and its lack of tilting or panning.

What do the film makers manipulate in order to give structure and meaning to the film? Proxemics is a word that described the distances between people in cultural settings. The arrangement of people in the frame can allow the viewer to interpret relationships based on the distances between the participants.

OOne can also imply that the distance between teh subject and the camera is a kind of proxemics. The film is rather static in this regard and need to do something to keep it interesteing. What does it do?

composition: Dante and Virgil almost always together

directionality

Virgil and Dante are always above the people who are being tortured in Hell.

male/female Very few females in teh film. All those suffering are males. Punishment is for abuse of power (in general) men, not women had power.

Clothing vs. nudity

People )souls) in Hell who are being tortured are naked. May be indication that "material aspect" is gone. If the body is dead and gone, how do you inflict physical suffering?

Black vs. White clothing

Beatrice, Dante and the "ancient" poets wear white togas (dead)
Dante is in dark colors (living)
How do the film makers deal with a story with no plot? There are no trajecories for any of the characters.

There is some use of flashbacks to indicate the back story for some of the people in Hell.

Imagery

Hell becomes more icy as we go further down. Hell is cold because of its absence from God.