>I will try to get hold of recordings of these productions
The Greenaway/Phillips video is available from Films for the Humanities and
Sciences via their Web site, www.films.com (currently for US$99 plus
shipping and handling/postage and packing). I find it a useful adjunct to
_Inferno_ courses, whether in Italian or translation, and to more general
introductory courses in Italian culture; the visuals are consistently
interesting, sometimes brilliant, and the giggle quotient (always a danger
with undergraduate audiences!) is relatively low. Bob Peck and,
particularly, John Gielgud do a good job of speaking the verse (though I
wish someone had told Peck how to stress "Jacopo"). It often provokes
interesting responses from students, especially the kind who tend to balk
at reading long literary texts but find greater stimulus in visual imagery.
All you need - at least in the US! - is an initial government health
warning about the amount of on-screen nudity (rather substantial, albeit of
course textually justified), and away you go...
There's an excellent article on the video by Nancy Vickers in _Dante Now_,
ed. Theodore J. Cachey, Jr (Notre Dame & London: Notre Dame UP, 1995),
263-76.
Steven Botterill
Associate Professor of Italian Literature & Romance Philology
Graduate Adviser, Department of Italian Studies
6303 Dwinelle Hall #2620
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-2620
(510) 642-6246 (voice)
(510) 642-9884 (FAX)
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