Both in Dante’s Italian poem and its American film update
deal with the concept a right and wrong relative to the time periods in which
they were made. But whereas Dante looked
at right and wrong from a religious-based perspective, the filmmakers look at it
from more of a secular viewpoint. More
often than not, the author and the filmmakers seem to agree, but from time to
time their beliefs could not be further from each other
In the poem, the deeper you go, the worse your sin was. Sins of treachery are punished worse than
sins of violence, which in turn are punished more severely than sins of
lust. At first Dante is overcome with
pity for the poor souls that ended up in Hell’s outer circles; souls who had
led good lives, only to incur Heavenly Vengeance for their grave mistake. As he progresses further and further into the
Inferno, Dante realizes that all these people belong here as their punishment
in death fits their crime in life.
Not so in the film.
In modern times, perceptions of what is and what is not a sin have
changed. In the film’s version of
Inferno, the deeper you go, you do not necessarily see a more severe
punishment. And it is at times when the
poem and the film have disagreements on the severity of these punishments that
we see how perceptions have changed.
Entering the third ring of the seventh circle, we meet a group of men
who have to dance to house music for all eternity as a result of their
homosexuality. And while this is a grave
punishment indeed, it pales in comparison to a desert of hot sand that rained
fire that is found in the book. That in
today’s world, homosexuality is certainly not considered as grave an offense it
was in Dante’s time. Furthermore, we
find that Hitler has ended up in the eighth circle with the astrologers rather
than with the likes of Stalin and Mussolini in the seventh circle. And while this may have been done to satisfy
the filmmaker’s political agenda of comparing Reagan to Hitler, I interpreted
it to mean that, once again, our definition of right and wrong concerning
magicians has changed, given that Hitler’s war crimes are considered much
graver than his consultation of an astrologer.
In Dante’s world, homosexuality and astrology were
considered amongst the lowest of the low, as far as sins that one could
commit. And while some people today
still consider homosexuality and even astrology grave sins, they have become
more and more accepted over time and had Dante written his poem today, I
believe he would have put these sins near the outer rims of hell or have
decided not to include them at all.
I definitely agree with your analysis that the punishments levied against the sinner in the film are far less serious than those in the poem. Part of this seems to reflect how the view of sin and the severity of deserved punishments have changed since the Middle Ages. I think that even more than that it reflects the differences between tone in the poem and the film. Dante's Inferno seems to have much more threatening and serious undertones about hell and the punishments that people will experience there. Dante, while projecting his personal and political views into the poem, also seriously attempts to describe hell and warn people of the consequences of their sins with religious intent. On the other hand, the film seems to joke about hell and use it entirely as a means to portray their (liberal) agenda. In general, the film does not even seem to believe in hell at all. The punishments of the film seems to be created more for laughs and to make fun of scandals regarding political and others famous individuals than to cause viewers to be afraid of hell and think on the sins they have committed. Although the view of sin may be less severe now than in Middle Ages, I still believe that a modern christian, as Dante was, would give a much more serious portrayal of hell and the punishments in it than the filmmakers did.
ReplyDeleteAnthony, I thought the same thing as I was watching the film. The filmmakers’ interpretation of Hell seemed much more whimsical. At first, I thought it made me feel that way because of the shadow puppet medium that they chose to present this story with, and I still think that using shadow puppets may have been a purposeful choice of medium for that very reason. As I thought about it more though, I realized it was very simply the filmmakers’ attitudes towards Hell and sin, and even God. The God that is portrayed in Dante’s poem is an all-powerful, fear-inspiring higher power that is cruel and punitive to say the least. Fleeting references to God’s presence such as the hand reaching down into Hell to retrieve Old Testament figures from Limbo almost made it seem like the director and screenwriter decided to treat God as an afterthought. This may be due to the secularization of this inherently religiously-minded story, as we briefly discussed in class. Additionally, I was really interested in how the filmmakers decided to portray Dante’s character in the story; he is a very shallow, vapid figure and while I saw some parallels with the poem in focusing on Dante’s fallibility as a human being, I felt like they took it to the next level in the film. Personally I liked how they satirized Dante’s character, because I felt that he was very pretentious as a person to decide that he would write a poem about Hell and decide who got to go where. He plays God a little bit as the author of the poem, so I enjoyed viewing his character in the film.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThough I feel that Daniel is most definitely right – certain sins are seen differently today than in Dante’s Italy, I feel that this is only the beginning as to why the filmmakers’ punishments differed compared to the poem. Because throughout the film, the sins are punished in much the same way as in the poem (aside from the exception mentioned – homosexuality). Personally, I think that this was done for convenience more than anything - as well as to stay true to the original work. The underlying tone about God and hell, as Anthony mentioned, is more indicative, in my opinion, of the filmmakers’ beliefs and objectives with making this film. By using a work so highly charged in religious imagery, the filmmakers were making a statement about religion in America. Though we know them to be secular themselves, religion obviously plays an important role in the American culture, or the whole foundation of such a work would never have been seriously received by their audience. The satirical work comments on not only the role of religion in American today, but also on the role of crime and punishment in our society. The film uses common images of American justice system – with everything from Lady Justice, to jail cells, to TSA officials – and incorporates them into hells’ justice system. I believe that this further points to the filmmakers’ commentary that America is somewhat of a “hell on earth.” This is somewhat contradictory from a secular worldview, but it mirrors the contraction found in American society today.
ReplyDelete