Se7en
http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=seven
The animated Version of Dante's Inferno--based on the video game
Intro. to the movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Defd-Vf9eoY
The Devil's Advocate
| Some things to think about: Leopard, Lion and She-Wolf. Can you find their counterparts in this film? The dog at the entrance to the underground apartment, the tapestry behind Milton and Mary with the animals on it (lion, leopard), his colleague's wife Any Gatekeepers? The Dark Wood and Hell: Florida courtroom and New York. Pay attention to the characters' names: Marianne--"Mary", Al Pacino's charac. John Milton Water--on the roof, water--the Hudson--surrounding New York Did you notice the colors? Green walls, become yellow, and then red. They're wearing red, purple etc... |
What Dreams May Come
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120889/
603-103-MQ Dante and Popular Culture
Movie Viewing Week 14 November 29th to December 3rd, 2007
What Dreams May Come (1998)
This film includes allusions to trips to the underworld present in classical mythology, as well as to Dante’s trip through inferno. As you watch the film, take note of any moments that could have been inspired by Dante’s text or other works you may be familiar with. Remember to consider both thematic and visual similarities.
Plot Summary:
Robin Williams and Annabella Sciorra star in this visually stunning metaphysical tale of life after death. Neurologist Chris and artist Annie had the perfect life until they lost their children in an auto accident; they're just starting to recover when Chris meets an untimely death himself. He's met by a messenger named Albert (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and taken to his own personal afterlife--a freshly drawn world reminiscent of Annie's own artwork, still dripping and wet with paint. Meanwhile a depressed Annie takes her own life, compelling Chris to traverse heaven and hell to save Annie from an eternity of despair.
The multi-textured visuals seem to have been created from a lost fairy tale. Heaven recalls the landscape paintings of Thomas Cole and Renaissance architecture complete with floating cherubs, while hell is a massive shipwreck, an upside-down cathedral overgrown with thorns and a sea of groaning faces popping out of the ground (one of those faces is German director Werner Herzog). Williams is the perfect actor to play against the imaginative computer-generated imagery--he himself is a human special effect. Still, there's no denying Eugenio Zanetti's triumphant production design and the Oscar-winning special effects, which create a fully formed universe that is at once beautiful, eerie, and a unique example of movie magic. –Review by Shannon Gee The Myth of Orpheus
by James Hunter
Orpheus was the son of Calliope and either Oeagrus or Apollo. He was the greatest musician and poet of Greek myth, whose songs could charm wild beasts and coax even rocks and trees into movement. He was one of the Argonauts, and when the Argo had to pass the island of the Sirens, it was Orpheus' music which prevented the crew from being lured to destruction.
When Orpheus' wife, Eurydice, was killed by the bite of a serpent, he went down to the underworld to bring her back. His songs were so beautiful that Hades finally agreed to allow Eurydice to return to the world of the living. However, Orpheus had to meet one condition: he must not look back as he was conducting her to the surface. Just before the pair reached the upper world, Orpheus looked back, and Eurydice slipped back into the netherworld once again. Orpheus was inconsolable at this second loss of his wife. He spurned the company of women and kept apart from ordinary human activities. A group of Ciconian Maenads, female devotees of Dionysus, came upon him one day as he sat singing beneath a tree. They attacked him, throwing rocks, branches, and anything else that came to hand. However, Orpheus' music was so beautiful that it charmed even inanimate objects, and the missiles refused to strike him. Finally, the Maenads' attacked him with their own hands.
In the Divine Comedy Dante sees the shade of Orpheus along with those of numerous other "virtuous pagans" in Limbo. This story of Orpheus and Eurydice has been the subject of operas and cantatas through the history of western classical music.
