Carmelo Bene

Encyclopedia

Carmelo Pompilio Realino Antonio Bene, known as Carmelo Bene 1 September 1937 – 16 March 2002 was an Italian actor, poet, film director and screenwriter. He was an important exponent of the Italian avant-garde theatre and cinema. He died of a heart ailment in 2002.

Works

Literature

In 1979 he wrote, in collaboration with French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, the essay “Superpositions”. In 1984 his play Adelchi was published. In 1970 he wrote the screenplay A Boccaperta.

  • I Appeared to the Madonna, translated with a preface by Carole Viers-Andronico (Contra Mundum Press: 2020)

Partial filmography

  • Oedipus Rex (1967, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini) – Creonte
  • Nostra Signora dei Turchi – Our Lady of the Turks (1968, director, Venice Film Festival Special Jury Prize) – The Man / Narrator
  • Catch as Catch Can (1968) – Priest
  • Capricci (1969, director) – Poet
  • The Syndicate: A Death in the Family (1970) – Billy Desco
  • Don Giovanni (1970, director) – Don Giovanni
  • Necropolis (1970)
  • Tre nel mille (1971)
  • Salomè (1972, director) – Erode Antipa / Onorio
  • One Hamlet Less (1973, director) – Hamlet
  • Claro (1975)

Selected Bibliography in English

  • Carmelo Bene, I Appeared to the Madonna, tr. with a preface by Carole Viers-Andronico (New York: Contra Mundum Press, 2020).
  • Carmelo Bene, “I am Non-Existent: Therefore I am,” tr. by Carole Viers Andronico, Hyperion: On the Future of Aesthetics, Vol. VIII, No. 1 (spring 2014) 37–44.
  • Carmelo Bene, “Being in Abandonment: Reading as Non-Memory,” tr. by Rainer J. Hanshe, Hyperion: On the Future of Aesthetics, Vol. VIII, No. 1 (spring 2014) 45–49.
  • Carmelo Bene, “Well, yes, Gilles Deleuze!,” tr. by Rainer J. Hanshe, Hyperion: On the Future of Aesthetics, Vol. VIII, No. 1 (spring 2014) 50–57.
  • Gilles Deleuze, “One Manifesto Less,” tr. by Alan Orenstein. The Deleuze Reader, ed. by Constantin V. Boundas (New York: Columbia UP, 1993) 204–222.
  • Gilles Deleuze, “Cinema, body and brain, thought,” in Cinema 2: The Time-Image, tr. by Hugh Tomlinson & Robert Galeta (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1989) 190–191; 220.
  • Gilles Deleuze, “Manfred: an Extraordinary Renewal,” in Two Regimes of Madness, tr. by Ames Hodges & Mike Taormina (New York: Semiotext(e), 2006) 188-189.
  • Tristan Grünberg, “Outrageous Salome: Grace and Fury in Carmelo Bene’s Salomè and Ken Russell’s Salome’s Last Dance,” in Performing Salome, Revealing Stories, ed. by Clair Rowden (Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 2016) 171–189.
  • Emilio Villa, “Litany for Carmelo Bene,” tr. by Dominic Siracusa, Hyperion: On the Future of Aesthetics, Vol. VIII, No. 1 (spring 2014) 58–67.
  • Amos Vogel, “Capricci,” in Film as Subversive Art (New York: Random House, 1976).
  • Amos Vogel, “Our Lady of the Turks,” in Film as Subversive Art (New York: Random House, 1976).
  • Amos Vogel, “Don Giovanni,” in Film as Subversive Art (New York: Random House, 1976).