Literature/Letteratura

A 2024 American two-part documentary directed by Ric Burns, following the life and career of Dante Alighieri, and his poem Divine Comedy. Narrated by Alan Cox, with optional English subtitles (click on CC for subtitles). The ambition of the film, which combines powerful dramatic reenactments, colorful interviews with renowned scholars, exquisite archival material and scenic filming, is to bring to life and make accessible, to the widest possible audience, the transformative power and beauty of this singular work of art. The film is divided into two two-hour episodes. Interviews include Riccardo Bruscagli, Teodolinda Barolini, Lino Pertile, Elena Lombardi, Heather Webb, Catherine Adoyo, Claudio Giunta, Theodore Cachey, Manuele Gragnolati, Giuseppe Ledda, Timothy Verdon and Guy Raff. Part 1: Inferno explores the historical background of medieval Florence from 1216 to Dante's birth in 1265, and recounts the dramatic details of Dante’s childhood, education and early literary and political career, culminating in his exile in 1302. The film also examines his decision to begin The Divine Comedy in 1306 – plunging with Dante and his readers into the underworld itself where, guided by the great Roman poet, Virgil, he will meet a vast cohort of historical and mythological figures – and arriving finally at the very bottom of hell, in their encounter with Lucifer himself. Part 2: https://rumble.com/v72z6mi-dante-inferno-to-paradise-resurrection-1309-and-after-part-2.html

Part 2: Resurrection explores Dante’s experience in exile, and his completion of the last two parts of the Comedy, shortly before his death in Ravenna in 1321. Interweaving soaring scenes drawn from Purgatory and Paradise, the film goes on to explore the afterlife and literary and cultural fate of Dante’s masterpiece from the time of his death down to today.

A 1989 BBC TV Programme. Audio in English with optional English subtitles (click on CC). Desmond Hawkins explores the comer of England that featured so strongly in the life of Thomas Hardy.

A 2002 PBS Biography Documentary narrated by Keith David and Kevin Conway as the voice of Mark Twain. Samuel Clemens rose from a hardscrabble boyhood in the backwoods of Missouri to become, as Mark Twain, America’s best-known and best-loved author. Considered in his time the funniest man on earth, Twain was also an unflinching critic of human nature who used his humor to attack hypocrisy, greed and racism. He created some of the world’s most memorable characters as well as its most quoted sayings. And, in his often-misunderstood novel Huckleberry Finn, he gave the world the masterpiece that Ernest Hemingway would call the true beginning of American literature. Mark Twain tells the story of the writer’s extraordinary life—full of rollicking adventure, stupendous success and crushing defeat, hilarious comedy and almost unbearable tragedy. Part II: https://rumble.com/v2g1hz8-mark-twain-a-documentary-film-part-ii.html

La voce di Francesco Pannofino ci accompagna in un viaggio straordinario attraverso le cantiche dantesche. Un'opera che offre allo spettatore modalità innovative e altamente immersive di fruizione del mondo immaginato all'interno di uno dei capolavori della letteratura e della poesia mondiale, simbolo dell'identità linguistico-culturale del nostro Paese. Il viaggio di un uomo, ma anche il viaggio di tutti gli uomini. Il cammino attraverso le tre cantiche inizia nella selva oscura, percorrendo alcuni dei momenti più significativi del poema dantesco. Varcando la porta degli inferi, il viaggio di Dante si configura come un moto lento e inesorabile verso il centro della terra, nel regno del male, accompagnato dai versi originali dell'opera.

Il Purgatorio si manifesta in tutta la sua imponenza: una montagna rocciosa che svetta al centro dell'emisfero australe, nell'oceano. Usciti dall'Inferno, in questo regno è ammesso lo scorrere del tempo: qui si conoscono l'alba e il tramonto, il giorno e la notte, e la luce è declinata in tutte le sue tonalità. Entrato in questo scenario primordiale lo spettatore varcherà in soggettiva, con gli occhi di Dante, la soglia del Purgatorio: una porta nella roccia, custodita da un angelo armato di spada.

Da più di 700 anni, l'Inferno di Dante rappresenta nel pensiero comune occidentale e non solo l'immagine più fedele dell'Aldilà. Le pagine del Sommo Poeta, composte nel 1300, hanno influenzato profondamente l'arte e la psicanalisi, ridefinendo i concetti di peccato e redenzione. Attraverso la selezione di alcuni degli episodi più conosciuti e cruenti del poema, il documentario evidenzia il punto di contatto tra il racconto dantesco e le opere d'arte di celebri artisti. Alcuni tra i massimi esperti, inoltre, aiuteranno a capire l'importanza che l'idea di inferno dantesco ha avuto nel mondo dell'arte e nella creazione di un nuovo immaginario: un viaggio attraverso la storia dell'arte grazie ad alcune delle pagine più scioccanti della lettura mondiale, scritte dal padre della lingua italiana.

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the greatest of English poets. Lord Byron was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, later travelling extensively across Europe to places such as Italy, where he lived for seven years in Venice, Ravenna, and Pisa after he was forced to flee England due to lynching threats. During his stay in Italy, he frequently visited his friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in life Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire and died leading a campaign during that war, for which Greeks revere him as a folk hero. He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted after the First and Second Sieges of Missolonghi. Dubbed "mad, bad and dangerous to know" by one of his many lovers, Lord Byron was a prototype celebrity whose legend has not diminished with the passage of time. Omnibus looks at the man behind the myth and his legacy. Omnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast mainly on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. The programme was the successor to the long-running arts-based series 'Monitor'. It ran from 1967 until 2003.

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet FRSE FSAScot (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish historian, novelist, poet, and playwright. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels Ivanhoe (1819), Rob Roy (1817), Waverley (1814), Old Mortality (1816), The Heart of Mid-Lothian (1818), and The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), along with the narrative poems Marmion (1808) and The Lady of the Lake (1810). He had a major impact on European and American literature. Ivanhoe, the classic tale of chivalry, love and political intrigue, turned Sir Walter Scott into the first international best-selling author. This film documents the heroic and tragic life of Scott who, some say, invented a nation.