European Cinema Notes for 6-10-02

Class discussion of Carmen

• The class discussion of Carmen started out with Dr. Reimer telling us this was one of his favorite films. 
• Saura seems to be working out the problems in the movie through dance, in the movie dance presents the reality.
• In the Spanish tradition of filmmaking everything is supposed to blend.  The fiction and the reality definitely blends in Carmen, and follows the tradition.
• Carmen also tackles the fact that when in love the person that you imagine is never the real person that is actually in front of you.
• Saura really blends the reality and fiction in this film, to where they both become one at the end and the audience is never quite such what is going on.
• Saura also uses the Shakespeare idea that all the world is a stage.  This is another Spanish literary tradition taken over by film.  Saura definitely plays on this idea throughout the film.
• The idea of Shakespeare’s is the fact that we are all players in a fiction, and out life is just a long play, where we are the actors.
• Also Dr. Reimer let us know that he didn’t want to color our thoughts for the movie by giving us the history of the original play of Carmen he thought that would jade our responses to it.
• When this movie would have been released in Spain the people in Spain would have known about the story of Carmen.

Answers to the questions from the questions for the movie.

1. At the beginning of Carmen, there is the backdrop on the theater of the original Carmen.  The Spanish music is on the stage with guitars.  The opera music is over everything else.  There is the rhythmic beat in the music and with the dancers. 

Saura set the following things up for us:  there are the two types of music almost fighting with one another as the opening scene plays.  Saura is setting us up for a battle.  He also associates Antonio with the opera music right away and also shows that he will be alone, because no one else likes this music at all.  Also it shows that Antonio likes the Spanish music but clearly doesn’t want to lose the opera all together.  Also this is when Antonio tells the others that he sees none of the women trying out for the part of Carmen seem to fit the ideal Carmen that he has in his head.

2. The discussion of number two was about the scenes and how the roles of the characters seemed to be reversed in each of them.  This is part of Saura’s movie making and many others where they reprise scenes from early in the film and put them later in the film with a few changes.  This has long been a film tradition.  For example, in Nosferatu, the first film we viewed, we have scenes where the vampire is over Thomas and then later when the vampire is lurking over Nina.  Antonio counting out the rhythms earlier in the film to where she is counting them out for him.  When he is counting out to her he is telling her not to let Christina devour her, when she is counting for him she wants Antonio to devour her.  The roles are completely reversed.

The two other scenes involved a role reversal as well but it seemed to be about rivalry as well, over the women they both loved.  Carmen’s husband is a criminal in the movie, a drug dealer, where as Antonio is the director of the play that she is staring in.  In the first scene where Antonio meets the husband they are all in the real world, Antonio is the director, Carmen is the person and the husband is a real person.  In the card scene Antonio is the director now working as it, Carmen is the dancer and the husband is now an actor, all of them in the context of the play.  Saura uses this to pull us deeper into the fiction to confuse the viewer a little.  This is another part of the film where you wonder if it is real or not.  Saura develops it through manipulation he does this by repeating things and music in the film. 

3. Other parts of this manipulation and repeating are as follows:  the Carmen stabbing and the Christina stabbing.  The scene where Carmen seduces Antonio for the first time and comes black later as the ideal Carmen with the same seduction as before.  Another part is where Antonio is reading from the novel and after that Carmen the real person personifies it.
4. The two themes of reality and fantasy mix throughout the film.  The first one that I think you see is when you first see the tobacco scene.  Before the scene there are performers practicing, people making costumes, and musicians practicing.  Antonio then stands up and says “make me believe that it is hot in here”, then you are shown the tobacco fight where you are inside the rehearsal where Christina is murdered or so you think.  Then you are taken out of the rehearsal as quickly as you were put into it.  There is always rehearsals going on but then there are staging of reality with things from the play i.e. the bullfighter scene, and the Carmen and Christina dance off.  Blending the fiction and the drama showing the audience that all the world is a stage. 
5. For people who are familiar with Spanish dance it is obvious when Saura blends the two stories for the first time.  In the movie all of the characters are playing themselves except for one, that being Carmen.  So the first time the drama and the fiction intertwine is in the very first scene where Carmen is seen.  She comes in late to the dance rehearsal and is called Carmen.  For the rest of the class it wasn’t this obvious.  Saura always uses the same people and in this movie everyone is playing themselves, they are all part of the same dance troop, and Spanish moviegoers would have known this. 
6. The end can be explained simply.  At the end of the movie the class was torn between whatever it was real and fiction when Antonio killed Carmen.  But Dr. Reimers feeling is that the characters are so well blended with their parts that they are playing in the play that they become one within Carmen and Antonio so when he kills Carmen at the end it doesn’t matter if it is real or not, she is Carmen the one person and when she dies it is real to Antonio he is killing Carmen whatever it is real or a part of the play.

After the discussion of Carmen we were shown clips from various movies.

o       The first clip was from a Saura movie.  Dr. Reimer wanted to show the class that the fantasy reality thing is constant in his work.  In the scene there is a man in a wheel chair.  He was put in this wheel chair by an accident, which during this scene he is remembering.  There is also a morbid wheelchair dance of death, where all the people who had tried to get this mans money throughout the movie were in wheelchairs the same as him, moving like the town square clock all together.  Although this is not a dance movie Saura still brings in the fantasy of someone living in their own mind, thus expanding the minds of the viewers to interpret movies better.

o       The second clip is from a Spanish director named Bunuel.  The movie is The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie.  In the film all of the characters are trying to eat and they keep getting interrupted.  At the end of the scene they finally sit down to eat and then a curtain behind them is opened and they are all revealed to a audience, the people become disturbed and they all leave the table.  This was also a play on the fact that all the world is a stage.  You wonder if this is real or if it was all a drama.  In this clip dream, fiction, and reality all become confused.  This man predates Saura in Spanish film.

o       Dr. Reimer then told the class about how music can be used in different ways to take the visuals to a different level.

o       The class was shown four different examples of how a piece of music can be used in different ways in different movies in different situations.  The piece of music was Amazing Grace.

o       There were 2 examples from television and two examples from movies.

o       The first clip was from the show Roswell, where the music was used in a very traditional setting.  There was a funeral going on and many things that happen at a funeral were happening, there were flowers and dirt being thrown on the casket, along with many somber people around the casket.  The music in this scene supports all the action on the screen.

o       The Second clip was from the show Homicide.  There are many people gathered together in a street singing Amazing Grace.  They are morning someone who has been shot in the community, then without notice while they are singing another shot rings out.  In this clip the music was used as a kind of foreshadowing, that something bad was going to happen, it is being used before death rather than after it.  With the music the director hopes to set a mood that calms us down into a peaceful situation then we, like the people in the show are shocked when we hear the gun shot, and thus awakened and we take notice.   The director uses the music to heighten the dram of this particular scene; he wants the audience to feel like they are with the community when the gunshot shocks everyone.

o       The third clip was from the movie Star Trek.  It is the Spock funeral scene.  In this scene the director was using the music as an optimistic soundtrack.  He was also using it with a sense of irony, where as very emotional song is used for a character that prided himself on having no emotions at all.  Also a very somber situation for someone who is not even human.  Also the director is toying with the audience that this traditional piece is being used 400 years in the future.

o       The last clip was from the movie Silkwood.  In this scene you heard Amazing Grace being used as we watched the woman start singing it as she enters her car.  The music then accompanies her throughout a trip to town and her eventual death.  Then there is a flashback to the beginning of the scene where she is getting in the car and driving off again, the music returns to where it started and so does she.  We were left with this as the class ended.