Inside his 12-story West Village palazzo, the legendary artist discusses his new film "In the Hand of Dante," fighting for creative control, and bridging art and life. Julian Schnabel, director of "In The Hand Of Dante" at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, September 2025. Former SPIN writer Nick Tosches in Saint-Malo, France in May, 1997. Like Dante, Nick Tosches was an undaunted character whose tongue-twisting prose was an iconoclastic mash-up of realism and intricate, erudite lyricism. “Maybe my goal is to show that there’s no separation between life and art… that art impacts your life and that your participation in it isn’t passive.