A TV Dante
overblik
A TV Dante, produced by Britain’s Channel Four during the 1980s and aired in Britain in 1990, presents the first eight cantos of the Inferno.
Co-directed by Peter Greenaway and Tom Phillips. Phillips, a composer, artist and critic, is perhaps best known for his interest in the art of the page. His 1983 translation of the Inferno is used for the production. (The rest of the Inferno has been divided among directors Raul Ruiz, Terry Gilliam, Zbig Ribzynski and Nagisa Oshima)
The title of A TV Dante was clearly studied to put in play the high cultural register now evoked by the name ‘Dante’ and the low cultural register evoked by ‘TV.
Review
Cantos 1 - 8, co-directed by Tom Phillips and Peter Greenaway, was shown on television and later released on video in UK. Ruiz’s casting of his native Chile as the inferno visited by Dante and Virgil in Cantos 9 - 14 (uploaded here) was met with criticism and never broadcast or released on VHS in Europe. Ruiz’s series later found a life in Latin America where it was eventually shown on television where this version comes from. The remaining Cantos 15-34 were never made..