Both songs, which are sometimes referred to collectively as "Heaven's Light"/"Hellfire" (for example on the soundtrack, in which it is track 7), describe two opposing views towards the same woman.
The camera pans upwards to the famous rose window, and flies through it and over Paris, revealing that all the lights in the city are going out as people are turning in for the night.
He accuses her of turning him to sin and denies his own culpability as red-hooded figures rise from the floor, chanting "mea culpa" ("my fault").
The producers of Disney's adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame stated that they felt that the "Hellfire" scene was important in portraying Frollo as he was in Victor Hugo's 1831 original novel.
[5] The elements of fire, smoke, and shadows in the sequence required significant support from the Feature Animation visual effects department.
[6] Wise also indicated that he and visual effects artistic supervisor Chris Jenkins wanted to make sure the "fire-spirit" shots of Esmeralda in the sequence would not endanger the film's possibilities of earning a "G" rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.
[8] Jim Miles of Laughingplace.com analyses "Hellfire" by saying that the song marks the turning point when "Frollo's hate for the gypsies has taken on a new dimension", and is "no longer about ending vice and sin [but] about fulfilling his own desires".
The scarf he takes from Esmeralda "symboli[zes] the physical manifestation of his desire for [her]", and the resulting internal struggle is illustrated in the song.
His life's work involves making the city of Paris "pure and righteous", and no matter how much he wants to be too, he sees a "flame...burning within him" and so turns to God (Asking Mary to intercede for him, notable that in his lust he prays to the Holy Virgin) to "help him overcome those feelings".
"[9] Sean Griffin in his work Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Disney Company from the Inside Out says that Frollo's hate for Esmeralda seems to stem from his hatred of his own feelings.
He says that although Frollo's lust for Esmeralda is strictly heterosexual, his odd behavior "mirrors conclusions from studies about homophobia...unconscious conflicts about one's own sexuality or gender identity."
The climax of this is when "he leads a prayer in Latin that calls upon God, Mary, the archangel Michael, the apostles, the saints, and...the Father, for the forgiveness of sin in thought, word, and deed."
The song was universally acclaimed, and it is considered to be one of the highlights of the soundtrack to The Hunchback of Notre Dame which in turn received generally mixed to positive reviews.
In a review of the film's soundtrack, Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks.com stated that "the darkest depths of The Hunchback of Notre Dame exist in 'Hellfire', one of the most stunning visual and aural combinations in animation history."
He argues that if Disney had fully embraced the dark nature of the source material by building the soundtrack upon numbers like "Hellfire" and "Sanctuary!
He says the "spattering of comedy pieces", which include three "silly songs", are "a significant detriment to the gains of the aforementioned themes and performances", and ultimately cause both the film and soundtrack to be a "mixed bag."
"[4] Later on in his review, Clemmensen notes the Latin mass which leads into "[Tony] Jay's hauntingly deep performance of Frollo's torment," and adds that it "produc[es] a song so overwhelmingly compelling in an evil sense that it alone was worth the cost of admission (and the album).
[10] Jack Smith of the BBC describes the tone (set by the opening number) as "an unholy marriage of the Tridentine Mass and Les Mis."
"[13] Animator Floyd Norman recalled the pitching session for the musical, in which Menken and Schwartz were "on hand to perform the songs that would grace the production."
[14] The "Hellfire" subplot, "involving the villain's need to desire to fornicate and/or murder the heroine because of his guilt-ridden lustings for her," which was described as "a cross between Schindler's List and Sweeney Todd" by Scott Mendelson of HollywoodNews.com, was also referred to by him as one of the Disney events such as Mufasa being killed on-screen in The Lion King, that surprisingly were given "G-ratings from the MPAA back in the 1990s," which Mendelson uses as context when discussing Tangled's PG rating.