Bizet's Carmen

Rare poster i

OH, CARMEN!

Opera ain’t my bag, so I’m not in a position to discuss this much-loved art form except with prejudice. Can only relate what makes me indifferent to it: everything’s ostentatious and absurdly humongous; the singers often seem to be performing vocal cord exercises instead of demonstrating much artistry; when it comes right down to it, for a pleb like me, all the sweat and energy defy the goings-on. Neither underestimate the intelligence it takes to produce opera nor the rigors the singers must endure to learn the librettos; for the millions of opera lovers who can’t seem to get enough, a huge part of their love is in watching the splendiferous effects of the productions and listening to the singers reach for new and more grandly throbbing heights. Envy their thrills, though I do sometimes get a few watching tapes of Beverly Sills who is more actress than singer, compelling in her range of emotion in character amid opera’s apparatus, or get transfixed by the films of prima donna Maria Callas who’s unquestionably hypnotic—perhaps because she attempts to carry the whole weight of mythic melodrama upon her. I resist opera anyway, probably because I’m a movie lover first; even when emblazoned with fakery, movies are common denominators, acting as levelers. And so, with all that said, I carried my limitations about opera to Francesco Rosi’s movie Bizet’s Carmen. One hundred and fifty six minutes later, I left the theatre exhilarated. Just about every one of my fears was wiped out, nearly every bias buried. Bizet’s Carmen is not just the best movie of 1984, it may also be an example of what is the ultimate movie musical. Though there have been over thirty previous movies of Carmen, including Otto Preminger’s all black version and Carlos Saura’s dance and Jean Loc Godard’s contemporary versions (even Beyoncé took a crack at a hip-hop update), none has received the attention, acclaim and, in some circles, criticism as Rosi’s. And it’s Rosi who best explains why: “It is contrary to the spirit, the rhythm of cinema to make a movie of opera. Not many operas could ever sustain a film. Only a few—Otello, Madame Butterfly, La Boheme. Carmen permits it because it’s so dynamic. It enters into the street—the stage is too narrow. It has music that demands images, demands more breathing room.” Exactly what he’s given the opera—space only film can provide. His background in movies helps to explain the success of Bizet’s Carmen: At 25, he became an assistant to Luchino Visconti and later to Michelangelo Antonioni. He says, “From Visconti, I learned a rigorous method of working, a method of analysis, research and preparation. It was very professional and very severe. From Antonioni, I came to understand the enormous power of the image, and importance of the selection of each image.” The preparations and sets are very reminiscent of Visconti, yet there’s not an ounce of labor to them. And you breathe in Bizet’s Carmen—the opposite of Franco Zeffirelli’s La Traviata and Otello, claustrophobic overdoses of oppressive tapestries, rugs, candles and soft focus. Rosi’s locales and images surpass Antonioni and I include his L’Avventura. Under the sunny eye of master cinematographer Pasqualino De Santis, many of the real street, mountain and caves scenes look like some of the finest glass shots you’ve ever seen. (Some of them are virtual paintings ready for the Prado.) Much of the diehards’ criticism towards Rosi has been over the fact he dumped opera’s intrinsic mendacity, its overwrought theatricality, which are comforting attributes on stage, by rescaling the art form into a movie musical. The critics seemed to be complaining Rosi eliminated the hangover of antiquated respect, refusing to be intimidated by stale traditional concept, thus the sensible reduction of the annoying ubiquity of the chorus. Rosi has made a sweeping, fluid folk opera of inclusiveness, which is what composer Georges Bizet, who never got to see his work become a success, envisioned Carmen as.

Placido Domingo’s physicality could challenge a movie audience’s receptiveness. He’s stiff, mechanized, dutifully rehearsed; he seems to be waiting for the still photographer instead of the cinematographer. (And more pronounced in Franco’s La Traviata, wherein he and Teresa Stratas—looking like a sickly Karen Valentine—were posing for dead-life.) He’s outsized, not in the grotesque Pavarotti way, but in a crashing bore-schmuck way; it’s comically providential we see his “type” coming when he rides into the Andalusian setting. The reserved, inflexible manner works favorably for him; his Don José is so ordinary. unlived and wrapped in such idiot formality he becomes close to mesmeric. And when he sings, he never disappoints; every bad thought you have about Don José’s boobishness subsides. As the storm clouds approach the bullring, and he’s outfitted in a complimentary beard and black suit to contrast Carmen’s red threads, he sings the fate of pained love—its intense sharpness plunging right into you.

An American, Julia Migenes is the first actress to ever get me to tolerate a performer who shows gums; in fact, I began to look forward to seeing them. It’s the tarty sluttishness, of course; this woman is Carmen. She sways her hips, works her thighs and threatens to expose her crotch to turn up the heat and, because there’s the utmost dignity in the production, you don’t see any flesh—her bosom only appears to want to be liberated—but the eroticism is abounding; she’s transcendent pornography. Like Sills, she emotes with precision, and like Sills, she’s also egalitarian; this Carmen, an accidental fusing of Shirley Bassey, Phyllis Newman and Rhea Perlman, is no elitist’s fancy. Rosi has helped her enormously by yanking from her singing all the shrill extravagance. Though quick subtitles are provided throughout the movie, we don’t really need them for Migenes; what comes out of this firebrand is so stirring it would rob her for due to waste time reading instead of watching. Offering it as the highest form of praise, she’s one of the screen’s choicest puta donnas.

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ralphbenner@nowreviewing.com