Premieres Monday, March 18 and Tuesday, March 19, 2024 at 9 p.m. on KPBS TV / PBS App + Encores Thursdays, March 21 and 28 at 8 p.m. on KPBS 2
DANTE: INFERNO TO PARADISE highlights Dante’s incomparable achievement and brings his story to life for a worldwide English-speaking audience. Exploring his 14,233-line poem – in which crucial issues of politics, power, corruption, sin, violence, virtue, beauty, love, humility and compassion mingle and converge – the film addresses universal human questions relevant to our own time: questions of morality and truth, life and death, the love of family and children, the love of country, the belief in something larger than oneself, and the love of God.
Conceived by Italian scholar Riccardo Bruscagli and Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Ric Burns, the film undertakes a gripping odyssey into the depths of Dante’s turbulent life, the faction-torn times he lived in, and the great poem he left behind. Along the way, it juxtaposes stunning live cinematography from across Italy; a dazzling array of paintings, drawings, manuscripts, maps, and frescos, many filmed on location and in the original in Florence, the Vatican and elsewhere; and riveting interviews with scholars, writers, poets, politicians, clergymen, and historians who have made the study of Dante the centerpiece of their life’s work.
Woven throughout, forming the film’s narrative and emotional core, are dramatic re-enactments filmed for the production in locations across Italy from Florence to Carrara and Ravenna and beyond. The scenes are drawn from “The Divine Comedy” and the “Vita Nova,” the masterwork of Dante’s early career.
Filmmaker Quotes:
“Why should we care about Dante Alighieri?” Bruscagli asks in the film. “Because Dante addresses the core of our humanity. Dante had the ambition of embracing everything – of embracing the sense of us being humans on this planet. What you immediately understand reading ‘The Divine Comedy’ is that Okay, that was the life of Dante Alighieri, 700 years ago.” But the message is: Your life matters. Take care of it; take care of it – your life matters.”
Reflecting on Dante and his great poem, Burns remarks: “Dante wrote at a moment not unlike our own of tremendous upheaval, crisis, doubt and change – a world beset from without and within with greed, corruption, factionalism and violence – in which every aspect of the moral, political, social, religious and economic order seemed to be breaking apart. Seeking to change his readers and save the world, he created a poem that embraced every aspect of the learning of his time – addressing universal questions relevant to this day. What is justice? What is love? How can we 2 live a moral life? How can we heal ourselves and the world? Committed to a breathtakingly egalitarian vision that placed women on an equal footing with men and determined to communicate to the widest possible audience – men and women, young and old, high born and low, literate, and unlearned – he wrote in a form of vernacular Florentine that became the Italian language itself. Our intention in creating the film has been to follow Dante’s lead, wherever possible, at every turn, using the lingua franca of our own global times – film, visual media, and the English language.”
EPISODE GUIDE:
Part 1: “The Inferno” Premieres Monday, March 18 at 9 p.m. on KPBS TV + Encore Thursday, March 21 at 8 p.m. on KPBS 2 - Dive into the dramatic details of Dante's early years and his decision to begin The Divine Comedy in 1306. Join Dante and the great Roman poet Virgil as they delve into the depths of the underworld and encounter Lucifer himself.
Part 2: “Resurrection” Premieres Tuesday, March 19 at 9 p.m. on KPBS TV + Encore Thursday, March 28 at 8 p.m. on KPBS 2 - Experience Dante's life in exile and the last two parts of The Divine Comedy shortly before his passing in 1321. With interweaving scenes drawn from Purgatory and Paradise, explore the fate of Dante's masterpiece from his death to today.
Watch On Your Schedule:
DANTE: INFERNO TO PARADISE will be available to stream with the PBS App. Watch the best of PBS anytime, anywhere on the free PBS App. Stream your favorite PBS shows on-demand and livestream shows from your local station, all from your favorite device.
