This online database documents film versions of the Carmen story, a passionately melodramatic encapsulation of one of the major stereotypes of woman in Western culture. 'Carmen' has been filmed no less than 74 times, four times in the 1980s, in other words at the beginnings of what has come to be known as the crisis of masculinity. It is therefore not just an example of intertextuality, but arguably also the most potent modern myth of woman as whore, femme fatale, self-destructing trap for the weak-willed man. It is all the more surprising then that there has been no substantial research on the film versions of the myth (although there is a chapter comparing the opera and a few of the films in Jeremy Tambling, Opera Ideology and Film, MUP, 1987). Despite the apparent endurance of the myth, details for film versions are often rudimentary, particularly for the silent period.

In an attempt to fill this gap, the Centre for Research into Film & Media at the University of Newcastle has set up the Carmen Project, to rationalise existing archive material, uncover new material, and provide critical analysis of the myth, with an emphasis on theorising European film. The Carmen Project aims to explore a major topos of Western culture, and, eschewing to a large extent the auteurist focus of much contemporary European film scholarship, will confront versions of the Carmen narrative both from the Hollywood tradition and from the European tradition using theoretical tools which combine the two major strands of film analysis, gender and history, using a Cultural Studies approach.

Contact: Ann Davies - --Ann.Davies AT newcastle.ac.uk--

AHDS Performing Arts is part of the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS). Copyright 2003-7.
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