In the Hand of Dante, writer-director Julian Schnabel‘s ambitious adaptation of the Nick Tosches novel that moves between the 14th and 21st centuries, received a 9 1/2-minute ovation after its world premiere Wednesday night at the Venice Film Festival.
Oscar Isaac stars in the pic alongside Al Pacino, John Malkovich, Martin Scorsese, Jason Momoa, Louis Cancelmi, Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler and Franco Nero. Isaac, Momoa, Cancelmi and Nero were among the cast who attended tonight’s premiere at the Sala Grande.
Isaac and Schnabel exchanged hugs after the lights went up on the pic, which is playing in Venice’s Out of Competition lineup.
The novel and the film follow the story of the original manuscript for The Divine Comedy. Time and space collide in parallel lives spanning 700 years when author Nick Tosches (Isaac) is drawn into a violent quest to confirm the origins of a manuscript believed to be Dante’s The Divine Comedy written in the poet’s own hand. After the sudden death of his daughter, Nick is summoned from self-imposed exile by a mafia don for his expertise on the Italian writer. With the help of an unpredictable assassin named Louie (Butler, who also plays the Pope), the pair embark on a dark and murderous journey to steal and authenticate the priceless work.
Moving between the 21st and 14th centuries, In the Hand of Dante weaves together the lives of Nick and Dante, the latter of which is also played by Isaac.
In his review, Deadline’s Pete Hammond called the film a “big swing.”
“Schnabel’s scenario bites off possibly more than it can chew, taking us back and forth [between centuries] but not quite making all the connections plausible before it all goes high opera and becomes a bloodbath for many of these characters. Still … you have to give him props, and the Dante sequences attempt to do the difficult: make the act of creativity vivid and alive in a movie. Period piece? Crime thriller? Specialty film? Take your choice.”
Earlier in the day during the film’s press conference, Schnabel, also an accomplished painter, referred to it as a “tragic comedy.” He added, “I didn’t know that’s what I was doing, but I think life is like that. It’s funny, it’s tragic, it’s quite mad.”
As of the story, he said, “All art brings you into its present when you see it. Winston Churchill said you shouldn’t read a book when you’re too young. Probably all the Italian people in this audience read The Divine Comedy in school. But I think that if you read it at another moment in your life, and you see what he was talking about, it’s extremely contemporary. If you see a Caravaggio painting today, it brings you into its present. And that’s what art can do. It can transgress death. And the whole point is that there is no past and there is no future. There’s only the eternal present. And I’ve always thought about the simultaneity of time, whether it has to do with my paintings or it has to do with filmmaking, the only thing that exists is the work of art.”
Schnabel also received Venice’s Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award tonight in a ceremony ahead of the screening. The prize is dedicated to a personality who has made a particularly original contribution to the contemporary film industry.
The artist-filmmaker has previously been part of the official selection in Venice with 1996’s Basquiat, 2000’s Before Night Falls (Grand Jury Prize/Best Actor), 2010’s Miral and 2018’s At Eternity’s Gate (Best Actor).
In the Hand of Dante producers include Jon Kilik, Francesco Melzi d’eril for MeMo Films and Olmo Schnabel for TWIN Productions. WME Independent has international sales and co-reps domestic with CAA Media Finance.
This article was published by Patrick Hipes on 2025-09-03 18:40:00
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