To tie in with its Blessed photo! Carmelo Bene seen by Claudio Abate exhibition
the Palazzo delle Esposizioni presents
Carmelo Bene on Stage
encounters and screenings
A tribute to Carmelo Bene, wending its way through the thoughts and memories of scholars and authoritative figures and eye-witnesses, towards a cycle of screenings and theatre and movie masterpieces. The works have been chosen on the basis of their relevance to Claudio Abate's photographs that capture the specific moments in which Carmelo Bene acquired the full power of his stage moves. The retrospective is completed by Carmelo Bene's own thoughts, gleaned from documentaries and from a rare series of "lectures" which he recorded for the RAI.
5 December, 6.00 pm
A Round Table on Carmelo Bene
with Jean-Paul Manganaro, Piergiorgio Giacchè and Gioia Costa
"Art is life, as an event that can never be repeated, that only lives once. That's why a work of art is dead material, it's a corpse voided of the event. The fate of a work of art doesn't lie in the work itself, it's art at work, it's the artist's production transcending the work." (only if you can make an effort, otherwise don't bother). An open conversation on Carmelo Bene, his past work which never passes, and the possible or impossible eventuality of an artistic legacy.
11 December, 6.30 pm
Alessandra Mammì talks to Claudio Abate
Alessandra Mammì, a journalist and art historian, interviews Claudio Abate on his militancy in the theatre and hid experience alongside Carmelo Bene, on his work on artists, on the pathways of his experimentation and on his generous posture as a witness.
11 December, 9.00 pm
Our Lady of the Turks
directed by Carmelo Bene, 1968, 125 min
Introduced by Lydia Mancinelli
An imaginary autobiography, this film won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and triggered a public outcry. It is a short-circuit of images, words and music that denies all form of communication: "I don't want my films to communicate anything at all... I believe the time has now come... to revive a word that's cast into damnation these days: sentiment."
12 December, 9.00 pm
Capricci
directed by Carmelo Bene, 1969, 95 min
Presented at the Cannes Film Festival and hailed with enthusiasm by French critics, this is "a delirious film, deliberately unpleasant... without pretence, naked, raw, wretched", a declaration of war on the vulgarity of the image.
13 December, 9.00 pm
Salomè
directed by Carmelo Bene, 1972, 80 min
Salomè is a forceful depiction of the possibility that the cinematographic vision may have run its course. With its editing verging on the subliminal and its use of refracting adhesive material, this film, which so appealed to De Chiric, his defender along with Turcato, Arbasino and Flaiano during the disorders that it stirred up at the Venice Film Festival, is a wager "on the colour light".
14 December, 6.30 pm
4 Momenti su tutto il nulla
1st moment - Language, 2nd moment - Knowledge and Awareness
directed by Carmelo Bene, 2001-2004, 62 min
Bene produced four episodes for the RAI, in which he clarified the intellectual sources and artistic alliances that lie beneath the complexity of his theatrical machinery: a reflection on his work alternated with shots of his work for film and television, a case of "theory coming after practice".
14 December, 9.00 pm
Carmelo Bene. A Portrait
directed by Monica Maurer and Dietrich Schubert, 1971, 30 min
Introduced by Monica Maurer
A stringent portrait on the brink of the 1970s, produced by the future assistant director of the film Salomè. Filmed by "candid camera" in accordance with the actor's own wishes, this documentary bears extraordinary witness to special moments in his career and public life.
followed by
An Hour Before Hamlet + Pinocchio
directed by Paolo Brunatto, 1965, 17 min
One of the key figures in Italian underground cinema films a handful of fragments of Pinocchio and Charles Marowitz's version of Hamlet, working on the concept of "simultaneousness" which Carmelo Bene, citing Artaud, also affected at about this time.
15 December, 6.30 pm
4 Momenti su tutto il nulla
3rd moment - Eros, 4th moment - Art
directed by Carmelo Bene, 2001-2004, 46 min
Bene produced four episodes for the RAI, in which he clarified the intellectual sources and artistic alliances that lie beneath the complexity of his theatrical machinery: a reflection on his work alternated with shots of his work for film and television, a case of "theory coming after practice".
15 December, 9.00 pm
Bene! Four Different Ways of Dying in Verse. Blok-Mayakovsky-Yesenin-Pasternak
directed by Carmelo Bene, 1974, 97 min
"There are no large or small screens, there are only large or small brains". Bene experiments with all of the possibilities offered by the medium of video, emancipating television from the cinema. Four Russian poets, including the extremely popular Mayakovsky: pure lyricism enflamed, set to music by Vittorio Gelmetti.
16 December, 6.30 pm
Bis
directed by Paolo Brunatto, 1966, 20 min
Filmed during rehearsals for the peformance of Il Rosa e il Nero, this is a visual testimony of the exceptional climate of cultural creativity and cooperation that involved not only Bene but also Sylvano Bussotti, Aldo Braibanti, Vittorio Gelmetti and Maria Monti.
followed by
James Joyce's Ulysses according to Carmelo Bene
1988, 17 min
"I experienced my second birth, my true birth, the birth of the spirit, in the pages of Joyce. Everything else is vanity, appearance, mere passing noise".
followed by
Carmelo in Music
directed by Sandro Bolchi, 1980, 15 min
Bolchi questions Bene on the musicality of speech, transcending the intended meanings typical of theatrical prose. "I never translate a Shakespeare play unless I've first discovered its compatibility in song... breath within breath..., things of which prose actors", aside from Gassman as a young man, "are totally unaware".
16 December, 9.00 pm
Othello or The Deficiency of Women by William Shakespeare, according to Carmelo Bene
directed by Carmelo Bene, 2002, 76 min
Introduced by Roberta Carlotto
It was not until 2001 and 2002 that Bene decided to complete the editing of the Othello that he had made for television and then abandoned in 1979, returning to the origin of his poetic subversion: colour, light, editing, music and voice become linguistic devices which he uses to enhance an image that recovers its full value as a purely aesthetic event on this occasion.
Our special gratitude goes to Rai Teche and to the Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia-Cineteca Nazionale for their kind cooperation
Info
Palazzo delle Esposizioni - Sala Cinema
Admission via steps in via Milano 9a, Rome
ADMISSION FREE WHILE PLACES LAST
Reservations may be made by membership card holders only