El infierno

A striking piece of history, this 1911 adaptation of Dante's The Divine Comedy was the first full length feature made in Italy.

Taking visual inspiration from Gustav Doré's iconic illustrations, Giuseppe de Liguoro worked for more than three years with 150 people and what was then the biggest film budget ever to complete his masterpiece.

Newly restored from a variety of sources, it's still an amazing visual experience as the poet Virgil leads Dante on a journey through Purgatory and Hell.

L'Inferno's pantheon of demons and sinners are imaginatively conjured up on ambitious sets using a variety of then-pioneering cinematic tricks such as forced perspective to allow a gigantic Pluto to rage at the dwarfed interlopers, overlays for when they arrive at the city of Dis and see furies scaling the battlements and an ingenious combination of miniatures and live action to create remarkable encounters with three chained giants and a final confrontation with Lucifer himself.

In between these set pieces, Dante and his guide meet a rogues gallery of history's great sinners and the ironically apposite corners of Hell reserved just for them.

The only real pitchfork in the backside of this otherwise commendable project is the decision to harness the visuals to a soundtrack culled from Tangerine Dream's concept album based on the same literary source.

It's not the German electronic outfit's best work and comes with the additional burden of vocals which tend to detract from the Gothic mood created by the visuals alone.

Still, you can always turn down the sound and play something more sympathetic, say, Bartok's Concerto For Orchestra, because this is one screen gem that deserves to be enjoyed several times over.

When did this film first make its appearance in America? The notes in the DVD say that the film was not widely released until after the First World War, but I've found the following quote in "The Warner Bros. Story" by Clive Hirschhorn, telling what the Warner brothers did after Edison's infamous Trust had "persuaded" them to sell their film exchange business, which would have been in 1911 or 1912, "It was only a matter of months, however, before Sam Warner returned from a trip to New York having bought the rights for a five-reeler called Dante's Inferno based on the famous poem. Sam's idea was to take the film on the road, together with a narrator, who, while the movie unspooled, would read extracts from the original poem. The idea worked. The film opened in Hartford, Connecticut, and, according to Jack Warner, you could hear the cash registers ringing all the way to Ohio. The tour netted them $1,500 which Sam and Jack blew on a crap game in New York." The 2004 DVD release actually follows in Sam's footsteps by having some of the words sung, with music by Tangerine Dream. The music creates a dreamlike atmosphere which helps to overcome the creaky aspects of the film. I feel that an over-the-top, heavily dramatic orchestral soundtrack wouldn't work, as the creakiness would undermine the music. The credits at the start and end of the film were in keeping with those I've seen on other silent movie DVD's, except that they put some fuzzy stills behind them, so I found myself wondering if the entire movie was going to be that indistinct. The film turned out to be in pretty good condition overall, but it did vary a bit, as you'd expect in a film this old. This very important movie is easily worthwhile for any fan of silent film, and it is interesting enough to show to others as well, with the modern soundtrack providing a cushion of familiarity for those who aren't used to silent film. Highly recommended!

A strange beast this one; apparently the first ever Italian feature film, based on Dante (with some unacknowledged visual indebtedness to Gustav Dore) L'inferno has lately resurfaced on DVD complete with a new soundtrack, and by Tangerine Dream no less. A great film, full of early fantastical touches, L'inferno still makes for reasonably enthralling viewing, especially as the shooting style of the time - slow moving tableaux, with no close ups - is eminently suited to Dante's epic narrative based around a grand tour of horror. Some of the many special effects are reminiscent of Melies' imagination (if far less studio bound than the work of the French master), as Dante and his guide, the poet Virgil, progress through the various circles of Hell, viewing increasingly horrendous torments on display. Silent film buffs will find a chance to acquire this version, a composite, taken from a couple of archives hard to miss. But the downside is the condition of the print: understandably a bit ragged given its age, surely it could still have been digitally restored and cleaned up more than this? The film is also presented conservatively in black and white, where most silent films, especially those of this importance, would have had a degree of tinting at the time, a process which would have considerably enhanced this work. There is also the music, which is sometimes a distraction, sometimes just a pleasant undercurrent, but which never rises to the required heights of inspiration. One is reminded of the old Giorgio Moroeder version of Lang's Metropolis which, with all faults, at least offered a viable and somewhat invigorated version of a great classic. By comparison the less thoughtfully done L'inferno to some extent represents a lost opportunity, but one still worth seeing, as it is probably the only version that will be available for some time. And one can always turn the sound down.

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.

Still worth a watch for its rich imaginary visuals. Of course - it is a silent movie and shot in black and white but if you are into movies and especially the horror and fantasy genre you should watch L'Inferno at least once in your life. A few years produced before WWI this one is in my opinion essential like Fritz Lang's Metropolis and The Nibelungs, The Golem (Paul Wegener and Henrik Galeen), Nosferatu by Fritz Murnau and last but not least The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene).