It has been twenty years since Carmelo Bene passed away, leaving behind an extensive body of work across various fields that continues to inspire new explorations. While two decades may seem brief to some, to others, it feels like an eternity, primarily since Bene’s death occurred before the advent of the Internet and the rise of streaming platforms.
The twentieth anniversary of his passing presents a significant opportunity to explore a frequently overlooked aspect of his legacy: his films. Although recognized by scholars and fans, this aspect often gets overshadowed by his other achievements. While Bene’s groundbreaking contributions to theater have profoundly influenced Italian theatrical culture, his exceptional ability to push cinema into new realms remains largely unrecognized.
In this piece, we will highlight three significant features of his films.
Anti-psychologism
In cinema, we can connect psychologism to an excessive focus on character interactions and their narratives. This emphasis is shaped by literature, particularly in mainstream and artistic films that adhere to genre conventions, often spotlighting relational conflicts, postmodern themes, or social critiques. While these elements—and their psychological significance—are not inherently problematic, it is essential to recognize that interpreting cinema solely through a psychological lens can lead to a flawed perspective. Carmelo Bene acknowledged this limitation and introduced the concept of “situation” to portray characters as entities in constant transformation.
However, by understanding that the cinematic medium cannot directly replicate techniques like the Joycean interior monologue, Bene developed a language in which his “destruction of characters” is expressed through non-verbal elements. In this Italian artist’s imagery, strategies such as blending genres, avoiding dialogue, and randomly and mechanically repeating patterns are employed to incorporate anti-psychologism. While words appear in his films, they do not clarify anything; rather, they always suggest something different. This implication often creates a comic effect that transcends mere fashionable humor or textual wit; it reveals an accidental absurdity and ultimately a sublime quality in playing a role, as exemplified in the pursuit of the perfect pose for death in Capricci and the endless series of disguises in Don Giovanni.
In essence, Bene’s anti-psychologism questions the foundational principles of cinematic acting. It goes beyond the grotesque pantomime displayed by characters in Marco Ferreri’s films and the alienating monotony seen in the performances of actors and actresses in Michelangelo Antonioni’s works.
Outer Sounds
In an interview with a prominent Italian weekly, Carmelo Bene praises the films of Daniele Ciprì and Franco Maresco, particularly emphasizing their unconventional use of sound (“Il suono che non è sonoro”). This remark also highlights the importance of sound in Bene’s own cinematic pursuits. It reflects his viewpoint, which, due to his extensive exploration of vocality and the conceptualization of speech sound in his work, might otherwise be too intricate and subtle for a comprehensive discussion in just a few lines.
By focusing solely on Bene’s films and avoiding the analysis of images as acoustic impulses, one could argue that his work showcases sound’s expressive potential through its disconnection from original contexts—primarily its anticipated familiarity and the resulting sonorities. This creates ambiguities, as illustrated in the festival scene from Nostra Signora dei Turchi, where the distinction between the sounds of fireworks and bomb explosions becomes unclear.
Apart from Ciprì and Maresco, only a limited number of contemporary Italian filmmakers have engaged with sound in a manner that evokes Bene’s brilliance in designing acoustic displacements. One noteworthy exception is, arguably, Luca Ferri, whose early works endeavor to create disorienting effects through the automation of voices.
Against Visibility
Constructive and deconstructive processes shape Carmelo Bene’s films. In this regard, one can consider their beginnings and endings, whose non-narrative functions resonate more with musical operas than with traditional directing or editing conventions. Consequently, each sequence can stand alone, presenting a cinema where every movement—whether narrative, audiovisual, or logical—aims to capture multiple phenomena simultaneously.
This perspective distinctly emphasizes a disconnect between vision and perception, reflecting Bene’s famous statement: “Those who see do not see what they see.” For example, one could argue that his films often distort various elements in their spatial and temporal arrangements, failing to represent actions as they are naturally observed. Nonetheless, in Bene’s poetics, this act of “un-staging” aims to encourage audiences to ponder the profound relationships that intertwine vision, invisibility, and the unseen aspects within a shot.
Even without focusing on Bene’s viewpoint on filmmaking—comparable to a short circuit where creation and destruction converge—we can gain insights from his ideas, summarized as follows: framing should not be perceived as an end; rather, it signifies the onset of a process wherein techniques such as obscuring images behind others or manipulating the material become practical solutions for the ongoing reevaluation and redefinition of cinema.
This is a revised version of an article originally written in Italian and published in Alias, the weekly magazine of Il manifesto.
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