Our Lady of the Turks

Semiotext(e) and The Fourth Floor present:
Our Lady of the Turks, a film by Carmelo Bene
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Thursday, April 3, 2008, 8:30 p.m.
The Fourth Floor
443 S. San Pedro St.
Suite 402
Los Angeles, CA 90013
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Carmelo Bene is one of the greatest constructors of crystal-images ... He must be the director closest to Artaud ... He believes that cinema can bring about a more profound theatricalization than theater itself." — Gilles Deleuze

Following a decade of prominence in Italian experimental theater, legendary director, actor and writer Carmelo Bene turned to film for a brief five years. Our Lady of the Turks, adapted from Benes own 1965 novel, is the first of five films to be made over this period. Centered around the cathedral at Otranto, the film follows Bene as protagonist in his repeated efforts to meet Saint Margherita. Operating as a critical exploration of the text, the film returns the story to a primordial dramatic and intellectual state of chaos. Having thus dispensed with traditional notions of beginning and ending, Benes films are free to perpetuate a constant state of becoming. Oscillating wildly between euphoria, catharsis and frustration, Benes "actorial machines" function as embodiments of their tendencies rather than cohesive characters. Gloriously excessive, Bene's films serve as "music for the eyes," bombarding the viewer with what he termed the "surgical indiscipline of montage.

Semiotext(e)