7 - Carmen on film

Summary

It is difficult to overestimate the impact of Carmen on popular culture. The pseudo-Spanish costumes typical of Carmen productions regularly influence fashion design. Several contestants in the ice-skating competitions of the 1988 Olympics presented routines based on Carmen, and this inspired a full-length television production in 1990 called Carmen on Ice, featuring three Olympic champions in the leading roles. Cartoon versions of the opera indicate that Carmen is a standard touchstone of general culture, even for children. In an episode of The Simpsons, the family goes to the opera, where – what else? – Carmen is playing. Bart and Homer join in singing the contrafactum lyrics to the “Toreador Song” that must be nearly as old as the original: “Toreador / Don't spit on the floor / Use the cuspidor / That's what it's for.”

But the principal site of Carmen's entry into popular culture is film. Films of Carmen began to appear in 1910, with versions produced by both Pathé and Edison. In 1915 Cecil B. De Mille released a Carmen starring the opera-singer Geraldine Ferrar, a casting decision that enhanced the film with Ferrar's prestige alone, since the film was silent; and Fox responded with a version starring Theda Bara, the quintessential “vamp.” Some of the more illustrious Carmen movies that followed include ones featuring Charlie Chaplin and Pola Negri (Lubitsch's Gypsy Blood) and Dolores del Rio (The Loves of Carmen).