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Carmen
Release Date: 1984
Ebert Rating: ****
By Roger Ebert Jan 1, 1984
Bizet's CARMEN is what movies are all about. It's one of the few modern movies that requires one of
those legendary Hollywood advertising men who'd cook up copy like, for example:
Cheer! As Bizet's towering masterpiece blazes across the screen! Cry bravo! To passion, romance,
adventure! From the bullrings of Spain to the innermost recesses of her gypsy heart, Carmen drives
men mad and immortalizes herself as a romantic legend! Thrill! To the golden voice of Placido Domingo,
and the tempestuous screen debut of the smouldering Julia Migenes-Johnson!
The temptation, of course, is to approach a film like this with hushed voice and bended knee, uttering
reverent phrases about art and music. But to hell with it: This movie is the INDIANA JONES of opera
films, and we might as well not beat around the bush. Carmen is a Latin soap opera if ever there was
one, and the sheer passionate joy of Bizet's music is as vulgar as it is sublime, as popular as it is
classical. Carmen is one of those operas ideally suited to the movies, and this version by Francesco
Rosi is exciting, involving, and entertaining.
You are doubtless already familiar with the music. The sound track was recorded in Paris with Lorin
Maazel conducting the National Orchestra of France. Placido Domingo is in great voice, and a relatively
unknown American soprano named Julia Migenes-Johnson not only can sing the title role but, perhaps
just as importantly, can look it and act it. There is chemistry here, and without the chemistry -- without
the audience's belief that the scornful gypsy Carmen could enslave the soldier Don Jose -- there would
only be an illustrated sound track. After the recording was completed, the movie was shot on locations
in Spain by Francesco Rosi, the Italian director of THREE BROTHERS and CHRIST STOPPED AT
EBOLI. He has discovered lush, sun-drenched villages on hillsides, and a bullring of such stark Spanish
simplicity that the ballet within the ring for once seems as elegant as the emotions it is reflecting. He
also has found moonlight, rich firelight, deep reds and yellowsÑcolors so glowing that the characters
seem to warm themselves at his palette.
Opera films are traditionally not successful. They play in festivals, they find a small audience of music
lovers, maybe they make some money in Italy. Domingo broke that pattern with his LA TRAVIATA
(1983), directed by Franco Zeffirelli. It had good long runs around the United States, and even broke
through to audiences beyond the core of opera lovers. But we Americans are so wary of "culture."
Opera for many of us still consists of the fat lady on "The Ed Sullivan Show."
And for many of the rest, it is something that inhabits a cultural shrine and must be approached with
reverence. Maybe it takes the movies, that most popular of art forms, to break that pattern. Rosi,
Domingo, and Migenes-Johnson have filmed a labor of love.
copyright 2005, rogerebert.com
5/6/2012 5:13 AM