Book Sectionhttps://doi.org/10.25620/ci-02_21
Ronald de Rooy
A Cardboard Dante
Hell’s Metropolis Revisited
The subject of this paper is a recent comic movie version of Dante’s Comedy: a 2007 puppet and toy theatre adaptation of the Inferno directed by Sean Meredith. It is certainly not the first time that Dante and his theatre of hell appear in this kind of environment. Mickey Mouse has followed Dante’s footsteps and very recently a weird bunch of prehistoric animals went a similar path: in part three of the blockbuster Ice Age (2009), a new, lippy guide character named Buck uses several Dante quotes and the whole strange voyage can be described as a Dantesque descent into dinosaur hell. In the following pages I will argue that Meredith’s version of Dante’s Inferno is not only funny and entertaining, but that it is also surprisingly innovative if we compare it to other literature and movies which project Dante’s hell or parts of it onto the modern metropolis.
Keywords: Alighieri, Dante – Divina Commedia – Inferno; productive reception; film adaptations; parody; puppet films; Meredith, Sean – Inferno
Rights: © by the author(s). This version is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
| Title |
A Cardboard Dante
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| Subtitle |
Hell’s Metropolis Revisited
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| Author(s) |
Ronald de Rooy
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| Identifier | |
| Description |
The subject of this paper is a recent comic movie version of Dante’s Comedy: a 2007 puppet and toy theatre adaptation of the Inferno directed by Sean Meredith. It is certainly not the first time that Dante and his theatre of hell appear in this kind of environment. Mickey Mouse has followed Dante’s footsteps and very recently a weird bunch of prehistoric animals went a similar path: in part three of the blockbuster Ice Age (2009), a new, lippy guide character named Buck uses several Dante quotes and the whole strange voyage can be described as a Dantesque descent into dinosaur hell. In the following pages I will argue that Meredith’s version of Dante’s Inferno is not only funny and entertaining, but that it is also surprisingly innovative if we compare it to other literature and movies which project Dante’s hell or parts of it onto the modern metropolis.
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| Is Part Of | |
| Place |
Vienna
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| Publisher |
Turia + Kant
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| Date |
2011
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| Subject |
Alighieri, Dante – Divina Commedia – Inferno
productive reception
film adaptations
parody
puppet films
Meredith, Sean – Inferno
|
| Rights |
© by the author(s)
This version is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
|
| Bibliographic Citation |
Ronald de Rooy, ‘A Cardboard Dante: Hell’s Metropolis Revisited’, in Metamorphosing Dante: Appropriations, Manipulations, and Rewritings in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, ed. by Manuele Gragnolati, Fabio Camilletti, and Fabian Lampart, Cultural Inquiry, 2 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2011), pp. 355–65 <https://doi.org/10.25620/ci-02_21>
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| Language |
en-GB
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| page start |
355
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| page end |
365
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| Source |
Metamorphosing Dante: Appropriations, Manipulations, and Rewritings in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, ed. by Manuele Gragnolati, Fabio Camilletti, and Fabian Lampart, Cultural Inquiry, 2 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2011), pp. 355–65
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| Format |
application/pdf
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Cite as:
Ronald de Rooy, ‘A Cardboard Dante: Hell’s Metropolis Revisited’, in Metamorphosing Dante: Appropriations, Manipulations, and Rewritings in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, ed. by Manuele Gragnolati, Fabio Camilletti, and Fabian Lampart, Cultural Inquiry, 2 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2011), pp. 355–65 <https://doi.org/10.25620/ci-02_21>