Skip to main content

His Comedy

Paul Bush

1994 00:08:00 United KingdomEnglish4:335mm film
Tags:
Animation

Description

A journey into the centre of Hell; Dante's The Divine Comedy, illustrated by Gustav Dore's wood engravings and animated by scratching directly into the surface of the film. 

The poet Dante is taken by Virgil through the gates of the city of desolation and into the centre of Hell. What he sees is not simply an apocalyptic vision of the punishment that awaits sinners after death, but also the very real horrors committed by human hands on earth. The film is based on Gustav Dore's nineteenth century woodblock engravings illustrating Dante's The Divine Comedy, and the images are produced by engraving directly into the surface of colour filmstock.

"An unusually somber animated short about Dante's descent into hell, where he suffers nightmarish visions of punishment and apocalyptic folly. Inspired by Dore's engravings, the animation, which often borders on the abstract, is eloquent, elegant and technically superb."

--Geoff Andrews

"As the poet Dante is conducted by Virgil through the city of desolation into Hell, so Paul Bush intersperses these safe, well-known engravings with shots of unexpected, horrific flashes of Man's inhumanity to God: a do-it-ourselves catalogue of pestilence. Only in the final vision of stars seen as part of a human eye are we allowed the respite of salvation. His Comedy is a brief stab in the dark to illuminate a wholly original talent."

--Tom Hutchinson

This title is only available on Paul Bush: Working Directly.

About Paul Bush

 

Paul Bush was born in London in 1956. He studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths College and began making films in 1978, after joining the London Filmmakers Co-op. From 1981 to 1993 he taught filmmaking, establishing a 16mm film workshop in South London and supervising a wide variety of courses and the production of numerous student films. Between 1995 and 2001 he taught on the visual arts course at Goldsmiths and recently he has lectured about his work at the Media Academy Cologne, St. Lukas Brussels, Hogeschool Ghent, CalArts in the U.S., and the RCA, the National Film School, and Duncan of Jordanstone in the U.K. Most of his films have been commissioned for broadcast, but he has also made films for arts organizations and the commercial sector.

Bush's Fine Arts background remains an influence on his work, which crosses the boundaries between fiction, documentary, and animation. His films have been shown in festivals, exhibitions, and on television all over the world. Forgetting (1990) won the gold plaque for short drama at Chicago Film Festival. His Comedy (1994) has been awarded prizes at Melbourne, Bombay, and Cinanima Festivals; The Rumour of True Things (1996) won at the Bonn Videonale; The Albatross (1998) at Zagreb, Hiroshima, Cinanima and Bombay; and Furniture Poetry (1999) at Transmediale, Berlin. He makes commercials for Picasso Pictures for clients including Panasonic and Philips, and he was recently ranked second on Creation's top 50 list of directors of animation.