A TV Dante

Peter Greenaway's 1989 experimental film based on Dante's Inferno.

Infobox Film
name = A TV Dante


director = Peter Greenaway
producer = Peter Greenaway
Tom Phillips
starring = Sir John Gielgud
Bob Peck
Joanne Whalley-Kilmer
distributor = Digital Classics DVD
released (download) = Worldwide:
March 14, 2008
2008
runtime = 80 mins.
language = English
imdb_id = 0098428
website = http://www.digitalclassics.co.uk

A TV DANTECANTOS 1 - 8 By Peter Greenaway and Tom Phillips

In 1991, Peter Greenaway won the Prix Italia for Cantos I-VIII of A TV Dante, his ambitious project to produce a video version Dante’s Inferno. This literary masterpiece has proved an irresistible challenge to artists from Botticelli via William Blake to Rauschenberg – now it meets state-of-the-art technology.

Greenaway was first inspired by artist Tom Phillips’ illustrated translation of the work and conceived the idea of creating a series of eleven-minute videos illustrating each of the thirty-four Cantos. He collaborated with Phillips on the first eight programmes, using all the resources available to the electronic media, and the press was unanimous in welcoming their bold new approach to the art of television when they were transmitted on Channel Four in 1990: “That rare and beautiful thing, an attempt to do something new with the medium.” (The Observer)

Background

Peter Greenaway gained international recognition for his screenplay and direction of The Draughtsman's Contract. He has long been established as one of Britain's most innovative film makers, with features such as A Zed and Two Noughts and The Belly of an Architect and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. His film, Drowning by Numbers, won the prize for Best Artistic Contribution at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival. Prospero's Books, released in the UK in 1991, won wide critical acclaim. It was his association with the late Sir John Gielgud in the making of A TV Dante which led to Sir John starring in this film, Greenaway's version of The Tempest.

It was the artist Tom Phillips’ published translation of the work, which he illustrated with 139 of his own images, that inspired Peter Greenaway to embark on a collaboration with him to create an ambitious video equivalent of his work, using all the resources currently available to the electronic media – the first comprehensive treatment of the text in moving images. The first eight cantos, produced by Greenaway and Phillips, are not conventionally dramatised, rather they are illuminated with layered and juxtaposed imagery that comments, counterpoints and elucidates. Visual footnotes, which explain the many references, symbols and allusions in Dante’s work and are delivered by appropriate authorities, are an integral part of the videos and sometimes perform the function of commentary as well as that of illustration. Narration of the text (in Phillips’ translation) is delivered by Sir John Gielgud as Virgil, Bob Peck as Dante and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer as Beatrice. Greenaway’s and Phillips’ concept has been described as creating “a thinking person’s pop video”. The multi-layered images conjure up a contemporary vision of Dante’s Hell – a vast bureaucracy, conceived in the light of two world wars and today’s newspaper headlines. They achieve a startling and unique contemporary relevance as well as exploring Dante’s text.

Tom Phillips is a painter of international reputation, whose work is represented in most European museums and widely in the USA. He is a member of the Royal Academy but is perhaps best known for his work in the field of the artist’s book through such pioneering examples of visual poetry as A Humument. He has had some success also as a composer (his opera Irma has been frequently produced and twice recorded) and is a highly regarded writer on art. His massive illustrated version of Dante’s Inferno was the subject of critical acclaim.

Awards

Prix Italia Special Prize

Winner, Festival International du Nouveau Cinema et de la Video

Finalist Award, New York International Film & TV Festival

Press

“Entirely gripping, literally without a dull moment or a wasted scrap of the screen, it was enough to upset the orthodoxy that the only way to present poetry on television is to read it out and show the word.” The Listener

“...a thinking person’s pop video which mixes news footage, talking heads and fictional drama in a mind-blowing torrent of images and sound.” The Times

“This sampler is a dazzling and inventive piece of video image-making...Phillips and Greenaway gave us the most eye-stitching use of television we've had for days.” The Guardian

“Computer graphics and the video maker’s box of tricks realised Dante’s imagery in a way which was neither too far-fetched nor simple-minded... Roll on the next 33 cantos, please.” Daily Telegraph

“Nothing quite like it has been seen on television before. The extraordinary, multi-layered images on the screen are not so much state-of-the-art video but the state after that.” The Times Saturday Review

“That rare and beautiful thing, an attempt to do something new with the medium.” The Observer

“...a freshness and excitement which will make TV professionals sit up... a slice of TV history in the making” Daily Mail

“No television programme has gone out of its way to exercise the eyes quite so much as A TV Dante.” The Independent

External links

*" [http://www.digitalclassicsdvd.co.uk/product/115/ A TV Dante] " at Digital Classics – Official Download Release. Vote to see it on DVD.
*allmovie|id=1:158595|title=A TV Dante
*imdb title|id=0098428|title=A TV Dante