Carmelo Bene's Cannibalization of Dante and Shakespeare

Carmelo Bene’s theatrical performances of classics such as Shakespeare were aimed at deconstructing these well-known texts in order to dismantle the straightjacket of their eternal, unchanging quality. This procedure allowed Bene to provide new ‘readings’ of Shakespeare as well as unexpected associations with the works of other poets and playwrights. In the case of his film version of Othello (1979), Bene seems to accentuate a surprising cannibalistic undercurrent in the original, through textual, visual and oral emphases and small but significant translational changes. Bene’s performance of Othello is interestingly echoed by his rendition of Canto XXXIII of Dante’s Inferno (1981). His cannibalistic reinterpretation (in form as well as in content, which means that he singles out possible clues to cannibalism in both cases and he does so by ‘cannibalizing’ the texts) of the tales of Othello and Ugolino suggests surprising parallels between these characters and their respective destinies.