Flamenco (1995 film)

For other uses, see Flamenco.

1995 Spanish film

Flamenco

Theatrical release poster

Directed by| Carlos Saura
Written by| Carlos Saura
Produced by| Juan Lebrón
Starring|

* La Paquera de Jerez
* Merche Esmeralda
* Manolo Sanlúcar
* Joaquín Cortés
* Manuel Moneo

Cinematography| Vittorio Storaro
Edited by| Pablo del Amo
Music by| Isidro Muñoz

Release dates

* 16 June 1995 (1995-06-16) (Spain)
* 25 April 1997 (1997-04-25) (U.S.)

Running time

| 102 minutes
Country| Spain
Language| Spanish
Box office| $449,964.00

Flamenco is a 1995 Spanish documentary film directed by Carlos Saura with camerawork by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. The film is entirely musical and dancing vignettes, composed and photographed on a sound stage.[1][2]

## Synopsis

[edit]

Flamenco is a documentary that includes performances from some of the best flamenco singers, dancers and guitarists. With the masterful cinematography of the Oscar winning director of photography Vittorio Storaro, director Carlos Saura brings with this film the "Light of Flamenco to the World".

As a hall fills with performers, a narrator says that flamenco came from Andalucia, a mix of Greek psalms, Mozarabic dirges, Castillian ballads, Jewish laments, Gregorian chants, African rhythms, and Iranian and Romany melodies. The film presents thirteen rhythms of flamenco, each with song, guitar, and dance: the up-tempo bulerías, a brooding farruca, an anguished martinete, and a satiric fandango de Huelva. There are tangos, a taranta, alegrías, siguiriyas, soleás, a guajira of patrician women, a petenera about a sentence to death, villancicos, and a final rumba. Families present numbers, both festive and fierce. The camera and the other performers are the only audience.

This film shows a world of flamenco—singing, dancing and guitar playing melded into an intense, enclosing and dramatic space. Song, guitar and dance are blended in inventive ways. They are performed sometimes a cappella, extending the guitar playing in subtle and intense "solos" accompanied often by hand-clapping or knuckles rapped on a table. These dancers have learned the technique but they make the flamenco their own. Here we see children dancing with their parents; and grandparents demonstrating that flamenco imbues the spirit with a graceful power that does not age. At the end, we see the form of flamenco symbolically passed through a class of aspiring dancers.

## Cast

[edit]

Performances by: Paco de Lucía, Joaquín Cortés, Manolo Sanlúcar, Lole y Manuel, La Paquera de Jerez, Fernanda de Utrera, José Menese, Enrique Morente, José Mercé, Farruco y Farruquito, Ketama, Manzanita, Maria Pagès and many others at the old Seville train station.

## DVD release

[edit]

Flamenco was issued on DVD by New Yorker Video in December 2003, in Spanish with English subtitles. The lyrics of the songs are translated in the subtitles (the only "dialog" in the film).

## See also

[edit]

* Flamenco at 5:15, a 1983 Oscar-winning documentary about flamenco

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Flamenco, Flamenco de Carlos Saura (DVD PAL), Carlos Saura". 2011-12-10. Archived from the original on 2011-12-10. Retrieved 2024-01-02.
2. ^ "Blog | Cinerama". 2022-07-07. Archived from the original on 2022-07-07. Retrieved 2024-01-02.

## External links

[edit]

* Flamenco at IMDb

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Films directed by Carlos Saura

* Cuenca (1958)
* The Delinquents (1960)
* Weeping for a Bandit (1964)
* The Hunt (1966)
* Peppermint Frappé (1967)
* Stress Is Three (1968)
* Honeycomb (1969)
* The Garden of Delights (1970)
* Ana and the Wolves (1972)
* Cousin Angelica (1973)
* Cría Cuervos (1975)
* Elisa, vida mía (1977)
* Blindfolded Eyes (1978)
* Mama Turns 100 (1979)
* Faster, Faster (1980)
* Blood Wedding (1981)
* Sweet Hours (1981)
* Antonieta (1982)
* Carmen (1983)
* The Stilts (1984)
* El amor brujo (1986)
* El Dorado (1988)
* The Dark Night (1989)
* ¡Ay Carmela! (1990)
* The South (1990)
* Marathon (1992)
* Sevillanas (1992)
* Outrage (1993)
* Flamenco (1995)
* Taxi (1996)
* Little Bird (1997)
* Tango (1998)
* Goya in Bordeaux (1999)
* Bunuel and King Solomon's Table (2001)
* Salomé (2002)
* The 7th Day (2004)
* Iberia (2005)
* Fados (2007)
* I, Don Giovanni (2009)
* Flamenco, Flamenco (2010)
* Zonda, folclore argentino (2015)
* J: Beyond Flamenco (2016)
* Renzo Piano, an Architect for Santander (2018)
* The King of All the World (2021)
* Las paredes hablan (2022)

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