Carmen
Although the story of Carmen is well known universally due to the opera Georges Bizet premiered in March 1875, it was his fellow citizen Prosper Mérimée who had previously immortalized the story in a novella with the same title.
Concha Calleja in her book Carmen: Deseo y muerte, presents three different sources that encompass the story of Carmen. She mentions "tres Carmenes distintas—dependiendo de quien las narre—pero que lindan en una misma mujer: libre, que no libertina; luchadora, que no salvaje; esposa que no esclava; apasionada que no lasciva... Tres espíritus nobles para las tres Carmenes, porque las tres son la misma." (5)
The author, in order to present them and then compare them, writes about the three "Carmenes" as if they were contemporaries and friends. These three sources are: the real Carmen, who lived in Seville between 1810 and 1824, the year in which José Lizarrabengoa supposedly killed her; and the two fiction characters—the one Eugenia de Montijo talked about to her friend Prosper Mérimée, and the Carmen he created in his novella.
Although there are some similarities, many are the differences among these "three Carmenes." The most important one would beon the way Mérimée presents Gypsy society and particularly the way he depicts women. The author portrays promiscuous women when chastity and honor have been and still are of great value in Romani society.
Mérimée's Carmen
Mérimée was a writer and a historian who used specific Spanish history and culture to create the exotic background of Carmen. In the novella, he drew on false violent associations of the Basques through Don José and, wove into his story the flavor of Gypsy life he had observed on his travels, mixing real and romantic legend elements that contributed to construct a popular mythology of Romani life that does not fully agree with reality. In fact, Carmen was one of many works from the French Romanticism period that helped to construct a popular mythology of Gypsy life and history—together with novels by Victor Hugo, and Alexandre Dumas, paintings by Gustave Doré, and Charles Baudelaire's poems. (6)
When the novella was first published in a French periodical called "La Revue des Deux Mondes" in 1845, it was divided into three parts. A fourth one was added when the book was published a year later. This last part does not have anything to do with the rest of the story since it is a "scholar looking" non-scientific set of remarks on the Romani (Gypsy) people. This part is particularly interesting to me because I can teach students about stereotypes, how to recognize and question them in order to break them.
Mérimée tells the story as if it had happened to him on a trip to Spain in 1830. In Part I, Mérimée is searching for the site of a battle in Andalusia, when he meets and befriends an ex-soldier called José. At an inn they both stay at, Mérimée learns that his new friend is José Navarro, a dangerous robber the authorities are looking for. As Mérimée's guide leaves to inform on him, the narrator warns Don José, who escapes in time.
Part II: Later on, in Córdoba, Mérimée meets a beautiful gypsy who insists on telling him his fortune and who seems to be fascinated by his watch. He goes to her home so she can tell his fortune. A man who happens to be Don José interrupts them and, although Carmen makes threatening gestures to him, he escorts Mérimée out. The Frenchman finds his watch missing, but does not go back to get it. Months later, Mérimée learns from a friend that the bandit who supposedly robbed his watch, José Navarro, is to be garroted. Mérimée visits him and is about to hear the story of his life.
In Part III, Don José narrates his story. His real name is José Lizarrabengoa, he is a hidalgo from Elizondo, Navarre. As the result of afight, he had to flee, entering a cavalry regiment in Almansa, a town in La Mancha. He then moved to Seville as a sergeant in order to supervise the Tobacco Factory, where he met Carmen. A few hours later he had to arrest her for cutting another worker in the face in a fight. She convinced him to let her go and, as a result, he was demoted and spent a month in prison.
After his release he encountered her again, allowing her fellow smugglers passing his post and finally, after killing his lieutenant moved by jealousy, he had to join Carmen's outlaw band. When José found out Carmen was a married woman, he provoked a fight withher husband, killing him.
Carmen lost interest on Jose as she became attracted to a picador called Lucas. When she confessed to José she would never give in to him, he stabbed her to death and turned himself in. José ends this story claiming the Roma are to blame for the way they raised Carmen.
Part IV, as mentioned before, attempts to be a compendium on the Roma customs, history and language, lacking accuracy and/or reality.
The story of Carmen has been versioned in film more than fifty times. I have chosen six different adaptations of the original in order to offer my students an ample vision of the myth and to help them discern that this same old myth transcends cultures and time.
Some of the versions worth mentioning I will not work with are: Carmen (United States, Charles Chaplin, 1915), Carmen directed by Ernst Lubitsch in Germany in 1918, Loves of Carmen (United States, Raoul Walsh, 1927), another Loves of Carmen directed and produced by Charles Vidor in the United States in 1948, and Prénom Carmen (France, Jean-Luc Godard, 1983)
Carmen (Spain, Carlos Saura, 1983)
Carmen is the second part of the trilogy of flamenco films made in collaboration between Carlos Saura, Emiliano Piedra (producer) and Antonio Gades, one of the great flamenco figures and choreographers of all times. This film was created specifically for the screen, unlike Bodas de Sangre, which resulted from the filming of the rehearsal of a ballet version Gades had prepared in advance.
The structure of the film is extremely interesting since Antonio frequently confuses real-life situations with those in Bizet's plot. In Carmen, Gades is planning a flamenco version of Mérimée's novella. While searching for the right bailaora (flamenco female dancer) to play the lead role, he meets Carmen (Laura del Sol). Even though Carmen is less talented than Cristina Hoyos (the lead dancer), he recruits her and falls in love with her. The movie then starts combining real-life and part of Bizet's version of the tale. The audience, from this point on, is not able to discern if the dance numbers the company rehearses are part of the ballet, Antonio's real experiences with Carmen or simply are a product of his imagination. His failure to separate his life and consciousness from the Bizet's opera is one of the main themes of the film.
Carlos Saura masterfully adds intellectual enigma to the dance sequences by presenting conflicting planes of reality and fiction (theater), alternating these with sets of incredible dance sequences. As D'Lugo states, "one of the most striking dimesions of the film, and what sets it apart from most other dance films, is the stunning collaboration between Saura's filming strategies and the powerful dance performance by Gades and Cristina Hoyos" (D'Lugo 1997, 41)
All of this is visually and aesthetically beautiful and the story within the documentary gives the movie a twist that will give the students reasons to think about narrative and structure. We will view the whole movie, since I want students to familiarize themselves with flamenco. We will have a small workshop on flamenco. The movie will be segmented so we can carefully discuss what is happening (the copy I own does not have subtitles) and what reactions the students have.
Carmen Jones (United States, Otto Preminger, 1954)
Carmen Jones is a 1943 version of the Broadway musical. This movie is an adaptation of Georges Bizet's opera by Oscar Hammerstein II (book) and Harry Kleiner (screenplay). They placed Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte in the lead roles. The action changed significantly: for instance, instead of an Andalusian tobacco setting, the backdrop is World War II America. Only the main character keeps her original name.
Carmen here is a parachutemaker who makes moveson Joe, a soldier who is in love with another woman called Cindy Lou. Carmen seduces Joe.He leaves everything to be with Carmen, until he gets into a fatal argument with his sergeant. Forced to desert his regiment, he runs away with Carmen, who loses interest in him and abandons him shortly after. Her new object of desire is the boxer Husky Miller. Joe kills Carmen when, at a boxing match, she rejects him. Asfor the music, Hammerstein translated Bizet's compositions, originally in French, into English for the Broadway production as well as for the film version of it.
Fragments of the movie will be compared to some fragments of the Opera in order to help students understand how adaptations work. It would also be of a great interest to have students compare fragments of Carmen Jones and fragments of the editing of Karmen Geï.
All the cast members in Carmen Jones are African-American, and students in my classes will appreciate this fact. I can explore the idea of myths transcending ethnic and cultural boundaries, as well as the idea of universality. I will have them identify those characteristics they consider intrinsic to African-Americans. They will finally compare them to the ones Mérimée considers to be the characteristics of the Roma people.
Carmen (Spain-United Kingdom-Italy, Vicente Aranda, 2003)
This is a movie I was hoping to use in its entirety. Unfortunately, there are too many scenes with either nudity or sex. I will only show some brief fragments since I really think students will enjoy the photography. The movie was filmed in Seville in some of the real historical places, a fact that will help my students think about the importance of setting and mise-en-scène in a movie. This version is very close to Mérimée's literary piece.
Carmen (France-Italy, Francesco Rosi, 1984)
This Francesco Rosi's version of Carmen, based on Bizet's adaptation, is one of the best opera films ever made. This excellent film mixes many unique elements such as actual bullfighting footage in the opening scene, extraordinary photography, real Andalusian locations (Seville, Ronda and Carmona), Antonio Gades' choreography as well as music with singers like Plácido Domingo, and featuring Julia Migenes and Ruggero Raimondi as lead actors. It received the 1984 César (national French film award) for sound. Since the movie was filmed in French, we will only view certain scenes to briefly introduce opera to students in order compare the film with another musical later on: Carmen Jones.
Carmen (United States, Cecil B. DeMille, 1915)
This silent movie premiered in October 1915 in Boston's Symphony Hall. It is interesting since Geraldine Farrar, the leading soprano of the Metropolitan at that time, plays the role of Carmen. She portrays a very sensual Carmen for the time. This version is based on Bizet's pattern which uses the bullfighter rather than the picador as a key character.
This movie is not too long, only 75 minutes and, although I will not use more than a couple of fragments, my students will grasp an idea of silent films. They will also notice and reflect on the advances of film. Since George Bizet's opera music is the sound track of the movie, they will start getting familiar with the sounds. I will have them work in groups to identify characters and their roles. By the time we see the movie we will have already worked with Merimée's text. So students will be able to recognize details and characters. Since it is a silent film, I can have them write the dialogue to fill out certain scenes.
Karmen Geï (Senegal-France-Canada, Joseph Gaï Ramaka, 2001)
Karmen Geï is the first African Carmen. The movie takes the story to Dakar, Senegal. Like all the others, the film is about the conflict between freedom and law, with a major difference: since Karmen Geï is an African film, the idea of freedom has to have a political dimension. We will not be able to view the entire film because of sexual content. I will only show scenes that illustrate an African style expressing the tensions in this universal story.
Carmen (Opera by Georges Bizet, 1975)
Doing adaptations of Carmen, I could not avoid taking a brief moment to work with the opera, since the story is well known universally due to this particular version. The purpose of including opera in the unit is merely to introduce this artform to my students. Due to the extension of the unit, I do not intend to spend too long with this version. Some other teachers might want to explore this further.
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