Carmen

Plot synopsis:
Place: Seville, Spain, and surrounding hills
Time: Around 1820
Act 1
A square, in Seville. On the right, a door to the tobacco factory. At the back, a bridge. On the left, a guardhouse.
A group of soldiers relax in the square, waiting for the changing of the guard and commenting on the passers-by ("Sur la place, chacun passe"). Micaëla appears, seeking José. Moralès tells her that "José is not yet on duty" and invites her to wait with them. She declines, saying she will return later. José arrives with the new guard, who is greeted and imitated by a crowd of urchins ("Avec la garde montante").
As the factory bell rings, the cigarette girls emerge and exchange banter with young men in the crowd ("La cloche a sonné"). Carmen enters and sings her provocative habanera on the untameable nature of love ("L'amour est un oiseau rebelle"). The men plead with her to choose a lover, and after some teasing she throws a flower to Don José, who thus far has been ignoring her but is now annoyed by her insolence.
As the women go back to the factory, Micaëla returns and gives José a letter and a kiss from his mother ("Parle-moi de ma mère!"). He reads that his mother wants him to return home and marry Micaëla, who retreats in shy embarrassment on learning this. Just as José declares that he is ready to heed his mother's wishes, the women stream from the factory in great agitation. Zuniga, the officer of the guard, learns that Carmen has attacked a woman with a knife. When challenged, Carmen answers with mocking defiance ("Tra la la... Coupe-moi, brûle-moi"); Zuniga orders José to tie her hands while he prepares the prison warrant. Left alone with José, Carmen beguiles him with a seguidilla, in which she sings of a night of dancing and passion with her lover—whoever that may be—in Lillas Pastia's tavern. Confused yet mesmerised, José agrees to free her hands; as she is led away she pushes her escort to the ground and runs off laughing. José is arrested for dereliction of duty.
Act 2
Lillas Pastia's Inn
Two months have passed. Carmen and her friends Frasquita and Mercédès are entertaining Zuniga and other officers ("Les tringles des sistres tintaient") in Pastia's inn. Carmen is delighted to learn of José's release from two month's detention. Outside, a chorus and procession announces the arrival of the toreador Escamillo ("Vivat, vivat le Toréro"). Invited inside, he introduces himself with the "Toreador Song" ("Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre") and sets his sights on Carmen, who brushes him aside. Lillas Pastia hustles the crowds and the soldiers away.
When only Carmen, Frasquita and Mercédès remain, the smugglers Dancaïre and Remendado arrive and reveal their plans to dispose of some recently acquired contraband ("Nous avons en tête une affaire"). Frasquita and Mercédès are keen to help them, but Carmen refuses, since she wishes to wait for José. After the smugglers leave, José arrives. Carmen treats him to a private exotic dance ("Je vais danser en votre honneur ... La la la"), but her song is joined by a distant bugle call from the barracks. When José says he must return to duty, she mocks him, and he answers by showing her the flower that she threw to him in the square ("La fleur que tu m'avais jetée"). Unconvinced, Carmen demands he show his love by leaving with her. José refuses to desert, but as he prepares to depart, Zuniga enters looking for Carmen. He and José fight, and are separated by the returning smugglers, who restrain Zuniga. Having attacked a superior officer, José now has no choice but to join Carmen and the smugglers ("Suis-nous à travers la campagne").
Act 3
A wild spot in the mountains
Carmen and José enter with the smugglers and their booty ("Écoute, écoute, compagnons"); Carmen has now become bored with José and tells him scornfully that he should go back to his mother. Frasquita and Mercédès amuse themselves by reading their fortunes from the cards; Carmen joins them and finds that the cards are foretelling her death, and José's. The women depart to suborn the customs officers who are watching the locality. José is placed on guard duty.
Micaëla enters with a guide, seeking José and determined to rescue him from Carmen ("Je dis que rien ne m'épouvante"). On hearing a gunshot she hides in fear; it is José, who has fired at an intruder who proves to be Escamillo. José's pleasure at meeting the bullfighter turns to anger when Escamillo declares his infatuation with Carmen. The pair fight ("Je suis Escamillo, toréro de Grenade"), but are interrupted by the returning smugglers and girls ("Holà, holà José"). As Escamillo leaves he invites everyone to his next bullfight in Seville. Micaëla is discovered; at first, José will not leave with her despite Carmen's mockery, but he agrees to go when told that his mother is dying. As he departs, vowing he will return, Escamillo is heard in the distance, singing the toreador's song.
Act 4
A square in Seville. At the back, the walls of an ancient amphitheatre
Zuniga, Frasquita and Mercédès are among the crowd awaiting the arrival of the bullfighters ("Les voici ! Voici la quadrille!"). Escamillo enters with Carmen, and they express their mutual love ("Si tu m'aimes, Carmen"). As Escamillo goes into the arena, Frasquita and Mercedes warn Carmen that José is nearby, but Carmen is unafraid and willing to speak to him. Alone, she is confronted by the desperate José ("C'est toi ! C'est moi !"). While he pleads vainly for her to return to him, cheers are heard from the arena. As José makes his last entreaty, Carmen contemptuously throws down the ring he gave her and attempts to enter the arena. He then stabs her, and as Escamillo is acclaimed by the crowds, Carmen dies. José kneels and sings "Ah! Carmen! ma Carmen adorée!"; as the crowd exits the arena, José confesses to killing the woman he loved.

Tags: tragedy

Review:
Filmed in Spain by Spaniards, this is a Spanish tale based on a French novel and the French opera which it inspired.
Saura's flamenco "Carmen" is an exciting work of art.A modern ensemble of musicians and dancers is rehearsing a flamenco interpretation of the Carmen story.
He chooses a girl named Carmen to play 'his' Carmen, and life begins tragically to imitate art ...The opening credits are backed by Dore prints with Bizet playing.
Antonio is being pulled in two directions, simultaneously possessed by the duende of authentic flamenco and lured by the bewitching Carmen of 19th-century romanticism.
Antonio has Cristina as his senior dancer (the marvellous Cristina Hoyos), but as he tells her, good though she is, she is not 'the' Carmen.
The young gypsy beauty scrambles into the dance class late, her unruly dignity immediately apparent, and we see in Antonio's face that he knows.
This is 'his' Carmen.The film's artistic conceit is a subtle movement between actuality and fantasy, echoing the conflict between the truth of flamenco and the falseness of the Bizet Carmen.
Are Cristina and Carmen at each other's throats in real life, or is this Antonio's heated imagination expanding on the Tabacalera clash?
The hostility between Cristina and Carmen boils over into violence, faithfully reproducing Merimee and Bizet, and all portrayed in dance.
As Antonio arrives in the role of Don Jose to arrest the gypsy wildcat, Bizet's tragic motif begins to play.Carmen and Antonio drink a glass of manzanilla together, symbolically cementing their relationship.
She is Carmen.Antonio dances alone in the rehearsal room.
The image of a man moving beautifully in a bare box of a room is one of the film's quiet triumphs.At this crucial point in their blossoming love affair, Carmen and Antonio begin to take divergent paths.
In a Christ-like gesture, Antonio drinks a solitary glass of manzanilla, the cup of the passion which will not pass him by.The best scene of the film, straddling reality and fantasy, ordinariness and high artifice, dance and dialogue, is the poker game.
There is a powerful flamenco dance in which Antonio and the gitano confront each other and fight.
The corrida is lovingly depicted in mock-dance, with balletic veronicas and a silent faena: then there is the 'dance-off' between a jealous Antonio and an imperious Carmen, with their contrasting rhythmic signatures: and the squalor of betrayal and abuse in which the story culminates.
The presence of Paco de Lucia, legendary guitarist and the scion of a great flamenco dynasty, is in itself a certificate of the film's artistic authenticity.Verdict - a superb, unfussy modern work which captures the strong flavour of this ancient Spanish folk-art on film..
Carmen is one of the best films I've ever seen.
It's hard to say whose performance is best: Antonio Gades, Cristina Hoyos and Laura del Sol are superb.They dance their souls out.
This is an amazing film, both for the incredibly energy evoked from the frenetic flamenco dancing, and from the unique way that the filmmakers interweave the story of the stage production with the lives of the characters preparing for it.
You don't need to love opera or flamenco(I don't)to be captured, enraptured, enthralled by this film.
You don't need to love opera or flamenco(I don't)to be captured, enraptured, enthralled by this film.
It is accomplished here as well as in any.If you love Carmen, you'll love this version.If you love flamenco, you'll love this version.The plot of the classic opera is played out in the actual rehearsal of the opera by a flamenco troupe.
The direction wonderful.If you like dancing, you'll love this version.There is tragedy.
Saura/Gades' " Carmen" is the most sensual of all adaptations and truly Spanish.
Passionate, dramatic, riveting as Flamenco itself, the film is simply amazing.
The original music is written and performed by one of the greatest classical guitarists, leading proponent of the Modern Flamenco style, Paco de Lucia who plays a musician with the same name.
Legendary Flamenco dancer and choreographer Antonio Gades co/wrote the script and choreographed this fabulous version of the celebrated Georges Bizet/Prosper Mérimée novella/opera.
He plays a main character Antonio, the famous dancer/choreographer who works on retelling the story of Carmen in the Flamenco style that combines dances with singing and rhythmic hand clapping and has a highly charged level of dynamics that appeals enormously to the viewers.Brilliant and graceful Cristina Hoyos whose technical excellence matches the elegant artistry of her dancing shines in the supporting role.
Hoyos had been the first dancer in Gades' company for twenty years (1968-1988) and she was the protagonist of three films that Carlos Saura made of Gades' three great shows: "Bodas de Sangre" (1978), "Carmen" (1983) and "El Amor Brujo" (1985).
Gorgeous Laura del Sol is a young dancer named Carmen in whom Antony sees from the first sight another Carmen, who was immortalized by two Frenchmen, the writer Prosper Mérimée in his most famous novella written in 1846 that had inspired George Bizet's world famous Opéra-Comique version from 1875.As in the opera and in the novella, Carmen in Saura's film is desirable and deadly, the ultimate femme fatale who has to be free above anything else.
There some 50 movie adaptations of the story and the opera to the screen, and as different as they are, they all have in common the only possible tragic end.
Saura/Gades' film is unique as the most sensual of all and truly Spanish.
In Carmen, Saura once again seeks to establish a dynamic rapport between reality and fiction, between the actual passions of the personalities in a dance company preparing the choreography for the dance portions of the opera Carmen and the scripted passions from the story of the fictional Carmen, the famous fatal mix of a free spirit (read disregard for fidelity) and her ability to drive men mad with desire.
Saura used this same vehicle fiction/reality in an earlier black-and-white film, Bodes de Sangre (Blood Wedding).
But, whereas the tensions between the dancers rehearsing Blood Wedding showed to advantage how they evolved into the fictional characters of the story to be performed through directing their emotions into their roles, in Carmen, the parallel between the petty, libidinal urges of the dancers of the troop during rehearsals and the spirit forging to do with the mythic Carmen never comes even close to being believable.
However, it hardly matters, the melodrama Saura tries to impose upon his Carmen, because the Flamenco dancing and guitar music of the rehearsals_ which are 95% of the film _by some of the best known Flamenco dancers and musicians, more than repays the price of entry.
This is one of the best films we watched in my high school Spanish class.
Watching these amazing dancers moving to the music of Bizet is well worth checking out..
On the face of it, Carlos Saura's 1983 Carmen is simply yet another version - to join dozens of others - of Bizet's world-famous opera, using flamenco music and dance, and a modern story-line, alongside elements of the opera.
Following in the footsteps of many a Hollywood musical, Saura sets his story in the period of rehearsal before a new production, except in this case there is no successful opening night as the climax of the movie, but a tragic death echoing the opera.
The music and dancing are dramatic, passionate and exciting, especially for those of us who love flamenco; and the weaving together of the modern characters and plot with those of the opera is effective, if somewhat contrived.
Spanish food, drink, language, literature, music, dance and much else are unique and immediately identifiable.
Bizet, who never set foot in Spain, based his 1875 opera on a story by Prosper Merimée, also a Frenchman; and no matter how Spanish his music sounds, it is merely imitation.
So for Saura to base a film on Carmen has a significance not shared  by the other two films in his "flamenco trilogy" - Blood Wedding and Love the Magician - where the originals are quintessentially Spanish.It is tempting therefore to regard the film as a kind of reclamation for Spain of Bizet's pseudo-Spanish Carmen.
And certainly in the adaptation for guitar of some of Bizet's music, and in the translation to flamenco dance of some of the action of the opera, such a reclamation or reconciliation has taken place.
But I for one wish that Saura had gone further; had deconstructed the original stereotypes; and had shown that by the late 20th century José had grown up, and could  refrain from knifing Carmen, no matter how Spanish he might feel and how free-spirited she might be.
While rehearing Carmen of Bizet, the middle-aged choreographer Antonio (Antonio Gades) brings the sexy Carmen (Laura del Sol) to perform the lead role.
When Carmen has an affair with another dancer, Antonio is consumed by his jealousy like D.
José in the original opera, entwining fiction with reality."Carmen" is another great movie of Carlos Saura's trilogy dedicated to the Flamenco dance.
The dramatic love story is developed with the lives of the artists entwined with the characters they are rehearsing, and many times is not absolutely clear whether what is happening is reality (with the dancers) or fiction (of the play).
Paco de Lucia is another attraction of this original version of the famous Bizet's opera, which is based on the novel of Prosper Mérimée.
wonderful, passionate film.
Even Carmen-haters will agree that this is a version that overcomes the boredom bred of familiarity and infuses new life into this overproduced work.The setting is a flamenco school in Spain, and the search is on for the star of a production of a flamenco Carmen.
The complications arise from there, from some unhappiness on the part of the best dancer in the troupe who feels she should be the star and not the newcomer, and from the storyline of the opera.The director of the film is the real-life director of one of the most famous dance schools in Spain, and the dancers, except for the character of Carmen, are members of the school.The dancing is exciting and dangerous, the story, though very familiar, attains fresh vigor in the new setting, and is altogether one of the best films of the eighties..
The amazing grace and power of flamenco has never been on more vigorous display than in Carlos Saura Carmen, the second of the Spanish director's flamenco trilogy that includes: Blood Wedding (1981), Carmen (1983), and El Amor Brujo (1986).
Although the epitaph for movie musicals has now been written, there was never one more alive than this soaring dance interpretation of Bizet's opera based on the novella by Prosper Merimee.
Winner of the BAFTA award for Best Foreign-language film and nominated for an Oscar in the same category, in Carmen, Saura attempts to expand the limited vision of the French opera into a deeper and more artistic example of Spain's national identity.
Supported by performances by Spain's great guitarist Paco de Lucia and familiar songs by Bizet such as Toreador's March, La Habanera, and the lovely Intermezzo, the film bursts with energy and sensuality.Shot in Gades' dance studio in Madrid, the film is marked by riveting performances by Antonio Gades, former director of the National Ballet of Spain, Cristina Hoyos, an acclaimed flamenco dancer, and singer and dancer Laura del Sol in her first leading role.
Carmen opens with the director of the dance company (Gades) rehearsing for a dance production of the opera.
According to Gades, he wants a girl with "a wild and strange beauty, her lips full and well shaped, opening onto small teeth, whiter than the whitest pearls, her long, black, shiny hair with blue glints similar to a raven's feathers, and eyes with a voluptuous but surly expression." It is only when the director/choreographer travels to a similar studio in Seville that he finds his Carmen, played by the dark-haired del Sol. The film then moves seamlessly between the rehearsals of the company for its new production and the lives of the dancers, reflecting the story of the opera in an almost surreal way that blurs the distinction between illusion and reality.
When he discovers, however, that she is married and her husband has just been released from prison after serving a sentence on a drug-related charge, his possessiveness turns into a destructive jealousy that ends the film on a melodramatic tone.Some of the most memorable scenes in Carmen include Gades dancing the Ferucca in his own home as his lover sees him through his window, then, once inside, watches while he performs a full routine.
Though the performance by del Sol captures Carmen's fiercely independent streak, for me she seems a bit too wholesome to be fully convincing as a jezebel, leaving the tragic resolution of the story feeling unmotivated.
Whether or not you find the drama convincing, however, ultimately the film is not about the story but about the passion and breathtaking art of the dance.
Carmen is a powerful experience that can evoke in the viewer an unexpected feeling of wonder.
A very compelling version of the opera, with amazing Flamenco dancing, bare bones sets, and wonderful music; probably my all time favorite foreign film.
It's a very compelling version of the opera Carmen, with amazing Flamenco dancing, bare bones sets, and, of course, wonderful music.
Obviously a low budget Spanish production, the film contains dancing by some of Spain's premier Flamenco dancers.
The combination of the soaring opera music and the sound of the dancers boots on the wooden stage, makes the telling of the story even more powerful.It's independent movie making at it's best and probably my all time favorite foreign film..
Personally, I think that the film was done very professionally, I loved the choreography and the acting.
The film itself is very emotional, and what I liked about it most is that it makes you think afterwards.
Antonio Gades has absolutely lived his role to the end, and I must say that it's one of my favourite pictures and Saura is a wonderful director..
Carlos Saura's Carmen is one of the finest achievements in world, let alone Spanish, cinema.
It manages to excite interest in flamenco in its wonderful staged adaptations from Bizet with powerful physical force.
At the same time we see the impact of the creation and rehearsal of a new interpretation of Carmen on the choreographer/director and the principle dancers.
great dancing, great music, great story.
The story of the opera repeats itself in a production.
This did look like an interesting film and it absolutely was, not to mention that it was a brilliant movie in its own right.
The music is magnificent as well and performed with authentic flavour which makes the experience even more passionate.
The choreography is very vivid and shows a big amount of technical, even virtuosic brilliance, while the Flamenco dancing is not only efficient but the dancers actually show they're into it.
The story is still as beautiful and passionate as ever, while the performances of Antonio Gades and Laura De Sol are superb and the two are riveting together.
Carlos Saura's Carmen is a tense and surreal story of a director who falls in love with the lead actress he has chosen for his stage version of Bizet's Carmen.
The acting performances are very good: Antonio Gades as the perfectionist, passionate and contemplative director Antonio and Laura del Sol as Carmen, the epitome of the femme fatale.
Saura cleverly uses the switching between reality, play and a combination of both, which adds to the surreal feel of the film.
One is the dance, here wonderful flamenco.
There's always something antecedent to it that animates the desire, in the original gypsy world of flamenco I suppose this was marginalization, poverty, lawlessness, it comes down to an anger, passion or pride that can't be reasoned and is let out in abstract shape.
Here we have a flamenco staging about a flamenco staging of Carmen become animated by the same tumultuous passions in the opera.
So when Carmen and her rival in the troupe dance out their rivalry, or Carmen and her instructor dance out the seduction, we have a richer, more dangerous life than the opera or dance could afford.Saura had made another exercise prior to this and what looks like a few more, mixing dance with a story about the urges.
CARMEN (Carlos Saura, 1983) ***.
Nominated for the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar, it details the vicissitudes behind a flamenco dance company's staging of Georges Bizet's famous opera "Carmen" based on the Prosper Merimee' novel.
In that respect, it adheres to pretty much all of the established tropes of the sub-genre: the girl cast in the title role on the strength of her ideal temperament is a non-starter at first and, naturally, incurs the jealousy of the company's star attraction (past her prime and basically relegated to being a co-choreographer with the director/male lead, himself not so young anymore!); the latter, then, has a turbulent relationship with his new protégé (married to an estranged drug dealer just out of prison and an unrepentant wanton to boot!) – which threatens the production and, ultimately, brings about his personal downfall.Clearly the film's mainstay for the casual viewer is the way the plot line being 'dramatized' becomes mirrored in reality: apart from the male lead's afore-mentioned double-duty, rather unsubtly, the female protagonist shares her name with that of the character she is 'interpreting' – making this turn-of-events somewhat predictable.
What strikes me about the film is the incorporation of the art of the rehearsal into the lives of the characters and visa versa.
Throughout the movie the two intertwine and at times one is never too sure if one is watching the lives of the characters or a scene from a rehearsal.
All these years later my friends and I still love to debate whether or not "Carmen" is really stabbed at the end.
The passion of the dance, the quality of the acting, the love of art, and the brilliance of the performances all combine to create a superb movie that, once again, blends and twists the line between life and art.