January 16, 2018
L’Inferno
Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan, Giuseppe De Liguoro, Italy, 1911, 68 min
L’Inferno is a 1911 Italian silent film, loosely adapted from Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy. L’Inferno took over three years to make, and was the first full-length Italian feature film ever made. (The Story of the Kelly Gang, released in Australia in 1906, is the first full-length film).
L’Inferno was first screened in Naples in the Teatro Mercadante on March 10, 1911. An international success, it took in more than $2 million in the United States, where its length gave theater owners an excuse for raising ticket prices. For this reason, L’Inferno was arguably the first true blockbuster in all of cinema. Today it is regarded by many scholars as the finest film adaptation of any of Dante’s works to date.
Animated .gif by ‘Silents, Please!‘