Filming Nothingness

Invisibility, Ineffability, and the Inviolable Absence of God in Carmelo Bene’s Hamlet

Authors

  • Francesco Chillemi

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4000/mimesis.1085

Abstract

The paper aims to expound on the philosophical significance of Carmelo Bene’s oeuvre. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, when the international debate in Europe was dominated by French post-structuralism and Derridean deconstructive criticism, Beneian artistic praxis eluded – I contend – the so-called “metaphysics of presence.” First of all, I detect similarities and differences between the theoretical grounding of Bene’s works and Jacques Derrida’s and Giorgio Agamben’s respective philosophical inquiries into the essence of language. Subsequently, I analyze the distinctive stylistic techniques of the television film Amleto da Shakespeare a Laforgue (Hamlet from Shakespeare to Laforgue, 1974). A close attention is paid to the (dis)functions of linguistic and cinematic codes (such as verbal, body, and audiovisual language) and how they interfere with the construction of meaningful, consistent interpretations. Finally, I investigate the phenomenon of ineffability by drawing a parallel between mystical experiences and Beneian performances.

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Author Biography

Francesco Chillemi

Ha conseguito un Ph.D. presso la Rutgers University, USA (2014), dove ha insegnato corsi graduate e undergraduate sul teatro, sul cinema e sulla letteratura italiana. Nel 2013 gli è stato conferito il Dissertation Teaching Award – Humanities, un premio annuale assegnato al dottorando che presenta il miglior progetto per un corso di livello avanzato inerente ai temi della propria dissertazione. I suoi campi di ricerca sono la semiotica del cinema, il teatro sperimentale, la letteratura italiana moderna e contemporanea e la filosofia continentale. Ha pubblicato saggi peer-reviewed vertenti su queste discipline e ha partecipato a conferenze internazionali presso diverse università (Harvard University, Indiana University, The Catholic University of America) e associazioni accademiche (The International Film Symposium on Contemporary Italian Cinema, AAIS, NeMLA).

Published

2015-12-13

How to Cite

Chillemi, F. (2015). Filming Nothingness: Invisibility, Ineffability, and the Inviolable Absence of God in Carmelo Bene’s Hamlet. Mimesis Journal, 4(2), 33–48. https://doi.org/10.4000/mimesis.1085

Issue

Section

Essays