Abstract/Summary

The goal of this thesis by published works is to initiate a recovery of the oral and written memory linked to the Italian theatre actor, author, and film director Carmelo Bene (1937-2002). As Bene remains little known outside of Italy, my published and unpublished research so far has also aimed at fostering an interdisciplinary academic interest in his activity internationally. My research approach on Bene’s work is directed at examining three complementary elements. I have compiled the first critical bibliography devoted to Bene by cataloguing his writings and the publications on his activity that have appeared in Italy and abroad. Organized under several headings, my bibliographical work aimed at listing all available studies for every work realized by Bene. This would ideally constitute a tool for scholars of Bene and facilitate studies of his art. Upon his death, Bene’s archive (which included an invaluable collection of tens of handwritten documents with notes on projects and works) was dismembered and no inventory was ever made available to scholars. Thanks to consultations of Bene’s outstanding surviving material, I have attempted to reconstruct the unity of this fund and have thematically organized and described more than fifty documents, including some that eventually went missing. The study of Bene’s handwritten notes has enabled me to gain in-depth knowledge on some of his works and I discuss the findings in my chapter on Lorenzaccio (1986). As several features of his activity remained little known and limited information was available on some of his works, I have interviewed three of Bene’s former collaborators: Mario Masini, the cameraman of his movies, Tiziano Fario, the set designer of his last works, and Noël Simsolo, a film critic who played a major role in the diffusion of his cinema in France. The conversations made it possible to gather unknown details on several aspects of his art and provided unique insights into his filmmaking, often without the use of any script or rehearsals in theatre.