Aahana Swrup
‘In the Hand of Dante’ sports a dual-narrative, both centering around artists with wildly different trials ahead. In the past storyline, Dante, a poet from the 14th century, takes the center stage. His journey is ripe with a desperate desire to capture a spiritual muse that will eventually drive him to write ‘Divine Comedy,’ a poem to be celebrated for centuries to come. However, the bulk of the story is overtaken by Nick Tosche, a writer in 21st-century New York, who gets hired to authenticate Dante’s newly-discovered manuscripts.
However, it’s not an ordinary job. His employer, Joe Black, is the head of a deadly mafia, and his partner on the job is Louie, a ruthless criminal known for cleaning up messes and witnesses. Naturally, their introduction into the writer’s life goes on to have a prominent influence on his destiny. Given the realistic and historical basis of multiple elements in the story, these gangsters and their connection to Nick Tosche inevitably become points of major intrigue.
Joe Black and Louie Enforce the Film’s Fictionalized Crime Narrative
For the most part, ‘In the Hand of Dante’ is a work of fiction that mines significant inspiration from the life and artwork of Dante Alighieri, the renowned Italian poet of the Middle Ages. The film equips the real-life artist as the nucleus for its narrative, exploring his artistic identity through a fictionalized version of the poet. It does something similar to the character of Nick Tosche, who is a fictionalized version of the eponymous American novelist. The real Nick Tosche is the writer behind ‘In the Hand of Dante,’ the 2002 historical fiction novel that becomes the basis for Julian Schnabel’s film. With the novel, the author wanted to write about Dante Alighieri, a poet he has admired and studied throughout his life.
As the book came to be, he recognized the intrinsic significance of the story’s first-person narrative. As a result, Tosche decided to pitch himself as a self-insert protagonist embarking on a wild adventure revolving around the fictionalized idea of Dante’s original ‘Divine Comedy’ manuscript. Yet, while he based the central character on himself, the in-universe differences between the author and his protagonist remain vast. The storylines that his literary counterpart undergoes have no basis in Tosche’s actual lived experiences. Moreover, unlike Dante Alighieri, the other components of the book’s world-building find no direct counterparts in reality or history.
Consequently, the mafia arc of Nick’s narrative remains entirely fictitious. ‘In the Hand of Dante,’ the film uses Tosche’s writing as the basis of its cinematic tale. Consequently, the on-screen versions of the criminals whom Nick associates himself with, Joe Black and Louie, similarly remain confined within the boundaries of the film and the novel’s fictionality. Neither the mafia boss nor his hired hand has any direct inspiration in reality. Instead, their characterizations and storylines solely serve the purpose of enriching and propelling Nick’s crime-driven narrative. Ultimately, much like the author’s depicted entanglement with the criminal underworld, Joe Black and Louie also remain fictionalized elements.
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