Art is one of the ways people communicate with one another. Every work of art brings the viewer to into a special kind of relationship, both with whoever has created or is creating the art and also with everyone else who—together with him, or before or afterwards—is subject to that
artistic impression.
—Leo Tolstoy
It would be a mistake to ascribe this creative power
to an inborn talent.
In art, the genius creator is not just a gifted being, but a person who has succeeded in arranging for their appointed end, a complex of activities, of which the work is the outcome, requiring an effort.
—Henri Matisse
Art is so varied that to reduce it to any single purpose, be it even the salvation of mankind, is an abomination before the Lord.
—Nikolai Gumilev
Conception, my boy, fundamental brain work,
is what makes all the difference in art.
—Dante Gabriel Rosetti
Art is art.
Everything else is everything else.
—Ad Reinhardt
It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance…
and I know of no substitute whatever
for the force and beauty of its process.
—Henry James
It's not what you look at that matters,
it's what you see.
—Henry David Thoreau
Diverging Perspectives 2.1
Italian Literature, World Cinema
Diverging Perspectives is an ongoing experiment in cinema and literature.
It’s all about the impossible mission to translate the art of words—colorful narration, puns and other forms of word-play—to the moving image.
* ALL FILMS are for the ENGLISH-SPEAKING public and are subtitled wherever necessary. *
DP 2.1 brings you adaptations of Italian literary classics:
- Dante’s The Inferno, arguably the greatest achievement in the history of world literature;
- Bocacchio’s Decameron, a work at the origin of the modern novel; and
- Collodi’s Pinocchio, a prose tale far more strange and ambiguous than Disney’s audience tends to realize.
The adaptations chosen for DP 2.1 create stimulating contrasts and thought-provoking parallels. They include US premieres and unexpected points of view, blockbusters and indie films, films old and new, color and black-and-white, popular, auteur, and always compelling.
As always: this is heady stuff, highly literary art—how can we transfer not just the storyline, but the sheerly verbal art, to the moving image?
Every Diverging Perspectives film screening is preceded by a personal introductory talk by a filmmaker, writer, or expert in the cinematic and literary arts. And every DP screening is followed by a guided open discussion for the whole audience.
It is a memorable educational and interactive happening that opens new worlds of great art for audiences.
