September 14, 2026
Dante's Inferno (1911)
Dante's Inferno was, according to my sources, (IMDb, Letterboxed, Wikipedia, & Terror Vision) the very first full length movie made in Italy.
It was, as I understand it, a huge success, and, thus, the inspiration for a whole series of lavish productions that the Italians referred to as "Super Productions". Amongst the surviving examples of these was The Last Days of Pompeii which we showed last month and inspired me to stream this particular film.
The Italian super-productions were immensely influential and made film a respectable art form in Europe. It is my understanding that this and other such lavish pre-war Italian productions actually inspired Cecil B. DeMille with regards to his massive sets and casts of thousands. Thus, I was particularly intrigued about the film.
The movie, like most pre-World War One films, does not use very many camera techniques that we would expect, instead being very much a filmed play. The difference here is that the sets are lavish, and frequently outdoors, and the cast is far larger than one could get on any stage.
There is little in the way of adaptation decay in this film, it is a straight, if abridged retelling of the Hellscape portion of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and the visual effects are quite convincing. Particularly good use is made of forced perspective techniques in several scenes. The primitive cinematography does not detract from the presentation at all.
The lack of any "hook" or other story adaptation may make the film feel "off" to modern audiences, but it is very faithful to the source material and that probably contributed to the films purported respectability.
The thing that surprised me most in this 1911 film was all the nudity.
Yeah: A lot of folks in hell don't have any clothes! Who knew? (Dante Alighieri did, he mentions it in the book). The demons do wear shorts though.
This is a reminder for streamers or educators to always pre-screen any silent films as they are pre-code. I normally do so, but Saturday I ran Dante's Inferno cold and, well...
Be advised if you want to show this historic film to students that it would have a hard "R" rating in the U.S. there is no (at least none that I saw) full frontal nudity but there are a ton of bare butts, and a few bosoms. Much use is made of skin tight costumes to maintain some level of decorum, but if "artistic nudity" is not your thing, this film likely won't be either.
Films before the great war were spicier than I'd thought.
Anyway, this was an exceedingly interesting film and is absolutely amazing in quality to be Italy's first movie. I likely will not be putting up the V.O.D. due to the nudity, but the film is definitely worth a watch for a historian or film buff, and holds up quite well today.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
03:40 PM
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