Introduction

Abstract

As a slightly bewildered Harry Block descends to hell in a slow-moving corporate elevator (see figure I.1) in Woody Allen’s 1998 Deconstructing Harry, an official voice-over explains the layout of the underworld’s nine floors: “Floor six: right-wing extremists, serial killers, lawyers who appear on television. Floor seven: the media. Sorry, that floor is all filled up. Floor eight: escaped war criminals, t.v. evangelists, and the NRA.” The audience is hardly surprised in this film about a neurotic and self absorbed writer driven largely by his libido when, as Harry (Allen) steps out of the elevator, the camera pans over a surrealistic space characterized not by torture and suffering but by lascivious postures, full frontal nudity, and the playing out of puerile male fantasies. Less predictable is the Miltonic moment that follows. While sharing a tequila toast with Satan (Billy Crystal), Harry suggests that the presence in hell of such amenities as air conditioning, wet bars, and beautiful, sexually available women transforms the fiery under-world into an appealing place: “Better to rule down here than serve in heaven, right? That’s Milton, I think” (see figure I.2). The Miltonic (mis)quote might seem a throwaway line made in passing; but it is central to the point of Allen’s film and useful as a key to understanding Milton’s persistent but largely unrecognized place in popular culture.1