Movies About Tango

[DanceMentor]

What are your favorite Tango movies?
The Tango Lesson (http://www.imdb.com/Title?Tango+Lesson,+The+(1997))
Tango Bar (http://www.imdb.com/Title?Tango+Bar+(1988))
Tango, The Obsession (http://www.imdb.com/Title?Tango,+the+Obsession+(1998))
Tango (http://www.imdb.com/Title?0120274) - was this one weird or what?
Scent of a Woman (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0105323) - just one scene

Any other good ones you would recommend?

[Anonymous]

I find it rather strange to list Adam Boucher's film Tango:The Obsession as a Copes film. This documentary features a number of dancers. Carlos Copello is the most prominent.

[DanceMentor]

Welcome, El Rey del Tango!

Thanks for pointing that out about Copes. I must have read incorrectly. I changed the notation.

So what are some other good Tango movies or movies featuring a Tango performance?
(I just remembered "Scent of a Woman". I'm going to add that one to the list).

[DancePoet]

Assassination Tango

[pascal]

Tango (Saura)
Would be The tango lesson, if Sally Potter had just directed and not played.
Certainly not Assasination [of] tango.
Never seen Tango Bar. Saw "Parfum de femme", but a long time ago when I had not yet taken up A.T, and I can't remember the scene.

[newbie]

Some Like It Hot, the tango scene

[DancePoet]

I vaguely recall a tango in True Lies.

[ReneeJoan]

There's a breathtakingly beautiful tango in Indochine between Catherine Deneuve and her adopted Vietnamese daughter when Catherine Deneuve starts dancing tango with her to keep the girl away from CD's young French officer lover who is attracted to the girl. It's really exquisite.

And for sheer joyous camp, don't forget in the first Addams Family movie (the one with Raoul Julia and Angelica Houston) where Gomez and Morticia dance this incredibly over the top tango, complete with the rose in the teeth, and flames of fire igniting on the dance floor. I need to watch that again. I haven't seen that movie since before I started dancing tango.

In Chicago, of course, there is the Cell Block Tango, but it is so modern and stylized that only an experienced and serious tango student would even recognize it as tango. I mean, sure, I recognized all the movements, but it would be hard to call it tango, mostly because it was done as a prodution number, and not as a partnership dance. But, it was still very interesting. Anything Bob Fosse did is worth studying, even though this was another choreographer's interpretation of Bob Fosse's original choreography, and it was re-done for film rather than for stage. Still, it was fascinating.

I don't remember a tango in Some Like It Hot!!! Gives me an excuse to watch it again!!

Renee

[casa]

Guess which one is my favourite ?

[naranjo en flor]

I love Gardel's movies. Particulary, "Eldía que me quieras"I've bought some of them at Farolatino.com
I think that it's a site from Argentina

[pygmalion]

There's a breathtakingly beautiful tango in Indochine between Catherine Deneuve and her adopted Vietnamese daughter when Catherine Deneuve starts dancing tango with her to keep the girl away from CD's young French officer lover who is attracted to the girl. It's really exquisite.



Hmm. I saw this movie long before my dancing days. The tango didn't stick with me. :? Gotta check it out.

[naranjo en flor]

Do yo know that Astor Piazzolla appeared in one of Carlos Gardel's movies when we was a kid? I think taht it was in "Mi Buenos Aires querido" (nice film too!!)

[naranjo en flor]

Check this link. You'll find wonderful Tango DVDs

tienda.farolatino.com/browse.do?dispatch=requestSubCategoria&subcategoriaId=1011

[DancePoet]

There's a breathtakingly beautiful tango in Indochine between Catherine Deneuve and her adopted Vietnamese daughter when Catherine Deneuve starts dancing tango with her to keep the girl away from CD's young French officer lover who is attracted to the girl. It's really exquisite.



Hmm. I saw this movie long before my dancing days. The tango didn't stick with me. :? Gotta check it out.
I saw this movie, too! Very good film, Catherine Deneuve was super!

Don't recall the dance. Bummer. Maybe I can find it somewhere to watch this movie again.

[chachachacat]

I am always tickled pink to see partner dancing in any movie or any form of media.
Tango is especially powerful and passionate. I adored the Cell Block Tango. I would give my life to dance and sing! a number like that on film! I loved that whole movie.

I saw a touring Tango theatre performance in San Diego many moons ago - about 15? maybe? It was extremely powerful, emotional, not merely sexy,[1] but all the way to scary, with all kinds of political stuff, whipping and strange stuff.
I can't rememeber the name of it. It was dancing, of course, several vignettes, storytelling. Did anyone see this?



[1] I never thought I'd say "merely sexy"!! :!:

[macha]

In ALW's The Phantom of the Opera, "Past the Point of No Return" aka Don Juan Triumphant was a PERFECT OPPORTUNITY for a tango, but did they take it? NOOOO.

Dont' get me wrong- I'm of the opinion that it's blasphemy not to LOVE that movie (by gawd), but dammit- it had GERRY BUTLER, Emmy Rossum, Minnie Driver, all these hot people, smouldering music and subtext... and no tango.

THAT was a lamentable mess.

(I'msosorryi'msorryi'msorrymisterhobbitalwiloveyou rmoviepweasedontsendthephantomwraithsaftermejustge rrybutlerinathongwithoilsowecantangoplease)

[newbie]

Saw "Shall we dance" in the plane to Buenos-Aires. There is a scene where Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez dance on Gotan Project's "Santa Maria". But I don't know exactly what they're dancing. It's not A.T., and it doesn't look like competitive ballroom A.T. It seems they're not dancing, just taking poses for a photograph.

[salsamale]

The Spanish film, "Belle Epoque", has a nice gender-twisting tango scene
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103791/

[Me]

The opening theme for the movie Twelve Monkeys is a Piazzolla piece. They never tango'd though. Just... time travelled and shot each other. (Good movie!)

[bordertangoman]

The opening theme for the movie Twelve Monkeys is a Piazzolla piece. They never tango'd though. Just... time travelled and shot each other. (Good movie!)

Yes its Punte del Este Suite which you can download from www.7digital.com

[Joe]

A friend of mine who's seen Daywatch (or is it Nightwatch? Whatever, the second movie in the series) says one of the characters tangos someone to death...not sure how that works, as I haven't seen the flick.

[Peaches]

The opening theme for the movie Twelve Monkeys is a Piazzolla piece. They never tango'd though. Just... time travelled and shot each other. (Good movie!)Omg. I guess I'll have to re-watch that movie.

[piimapoika]

Finland, as any Finn will tell you, is the home of the tango. Here are some Finnish tango-related films:

Onnen maa (happy land). Set in and around a rustic dance hall where nothing but tangos are played, it is described as a nostalgic comedy; although with vicious duffing-up scene (fortunately off-screen) and the death of the grandfather it is hardly Carry On Tangoing. But it is a pleasant, and allegedly accurate, picture of the rural tango scene in the 60’s.

It is the supporting programme of a two-film DVD. The main feature is Badding, which is about the adventures of reluctant rock star Rauli “Badding” Somerjoki. All he wants is to be left alone to read comics, but he is chased across the idyllic Finnish countryside by detectives and others and manhandled onto the stage by heavies. Although the music is described as rock, I would call it middle of the road. No tango content though.

Aki Kaurismäki directed these films with at least one tango scene:

Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö (Match Factory Girl), 1990, stars Kati Outinen as a young girl who has a rotten job in a match factory, supporting her useless parents. She goes to a dance where Reijo Taipale sings the classic Finnish tango Satumaa. The words are on the lines of "there's a beautiful fantasy land far away, and I can't get to it." Nobody asks her to dance. Later she meets a chap, who gets her pregnant, then doesn't want to know. Everything goes downhill from there. At the end, when her world, such as it is, is completely destroyed, Olavi Virta, generally regarded as Finland's Carlos Gardel, sings Kuinka saatoitkaan? (How could you?). "You've destroyed the flower of love with your hard eyes and chilly smile." A depressing film. Industrial archaeology buffs will enjoy the shots of old matchmaking machinery. You can see I'm struggling to be positive here.

Mies vailla menneisyyttä (Man without a Past), 2002, is much more uplifting. Markku Peltola stars as a man who loses his memory after a vicious mugging. He is befriended by a poor family who live in what appears to be an abandoned container. But with no name, and worse still no social security number, he cannot find a job. Fortunately the Salvation Army helps him, and he even finds love, with Kati Outinen. Their awkward, almost silent courtship (they are Finns after all) is a delight. The tango comes in when he decides the Salvation Army band needs to update its repertoire with something more modern - such as tango. They play Pieni sydän (Little Heart). Veteran tango star Annikki Tähti sings that the human heart is a small object, but it can hold huge quantities of love, passion, etc.

Tangos appear as background music in some of Kaurismäki's other films, such as Varjoja paratiisissa (Colours of Paradise), a romance between a dustman and a checkout girl (Matti Pellonpää and Kati Outinen).

Two films by Aku Louhimies have tango episodes. Levottomat (Restless) has the shortest ever at about 28 seconds (1 hr 36 min 43 sec into the film), with a tango played at a wedding party. This is rudely interrupted when it is discovered that the hero, played by Mikko Nousiainen, has been bonking not only the bride but also the vicar (who is a woman, in case you were wondering). The director's wife, Laura Malmivaara, also stars as the hero's long-suffering girlfriend.

Laura Malmivaara also stars in Kuutamolla (By Moonlight) as a married woman who still carries a torch for a tango dancer she once met in Buenos Aires. Deleted scene 16 "Rome and Buenos Aires" is longer, better, and has more tango content than the sequence actually used in the film.

Tango Kabaree has been described as Finland's answer to "Moulin Rouge". Both are set in theatres, and both have tall, slim, beautiful, red-haired heroines. Both are surreal, one more so than the other.

Directed by Pekka Lehto in 2001, the film tells of an impresario, played by Martti Suosalo, who wishes to produce a show "Tango Kabaree" on the life of dancer and model Aira Samulin, still at the top at the age of 73. Aira is successful and well-loved, but there have been much sadness in her life as well. Her father was killed during the war, her little sister died in infancy, the family home was overrun by Russians, her daughter (played by the real-life Pirjo Samulin) has a mental illness - but the impresario wants to cut all this out and concentrate on the happy stuff. Naturally Aira is not pleased at the sanitisation of her life.

There is plenty I don't understand. Why is there an antique steam train in modern Helsinki? Who's the scruffy guy in the stovepipe hat? What's the significance of the giant fibreglass seahorses? Not an awful lot of tango music - there is probably just as much 1970's disco. Recommended for those who like things a bit weird.

All these films are Finnish language and have English subtitles. Minä soitan sinulle illalla (I'll ring you in the evening) doesn't, so you need to know at least some Finnish. Directed by Armand Lohikoski, it tells of a factory girl Anneli Sauli who asks boss Olavi Virta for a tango at the works dance. The boss's domineering mother will not allow her son to accept, so Anneli takes to ringing him up at night. If made today, the movie would probably become a bunny-boiling bloodfest, but this is a 1954 romantic comedy and everything ends happily.

[spot]

Tango and Cash.


I think.

[Steve Pastor]

Madonna's "Drowned World Tour" is a concert movie, so maybe it counts. I rented it because of one number "Don't Tell Me" that I had seen years ago on Dick Clark's Rockin New Years Eve. This number, and several of the following ones had a country western theme.
Meanwhile, remember "Don't Cry for Me Argentina"? I'm going to guess that was what inspired one number that featured Argentine Tango fantasia dancing. I'd say it was up to the standard of Las Vegas stage shows. In other words, you could tell they were dancing choreography, and the postures, exchange of energy, or lack thereof, etc, was obvious. Nevertheless, it was readily identified as AT fantasia.
It seems that there are lots of choreographers who are familiar with the look of AT.
Now, if only SYTYCD would at least hire one of them, if not someone who really knows the dance.

[Heather2007]

For the life of me I do not know the name of the film - but it was one which my then boyfriend and I stumbled over years back after arriving home in the early hours following a boozy night out. Immediately, diving for the TV a film was running which we immediately saw was sub-titled. He was about to switch over until I spotted a beautiful man suddenly appeared into a scene and started to execute a beautiful piece of solo-dancing in front of another. Immediately taking charge of the remote-control for myself, I settled back and watched this same man perform a beautiful dance in front of another. When he finally stopped dancing he turned around and killed the other man. My boyfriend now was hooked. It was a dark, intense, I think Spanish movie and involved a paid assassin that always tango'ed Argentine stylie before he carried out his mission. The only thnig I clearly remember of the movie was the dancing and the man. Sadly, not the film title. Didn't know anything about AT at the time but now that I dance would love to watch it again. Familiar to anyone and if so, the name?

[tangotime]

[quote=piimapoika;448516]Finland, as any Finn will tell you, is the home of the tango :confused:



The Argentines, will be glad you informed them !! :rolleyes:

[piimapoika]

Well, it's not easy to tell when a Finn is pulling your leg, but I have been told perfectly seriously by several different people that the tango was invented in Finland. I had lessons in Finnish dancing from Leena Blomqvist of Helsinki in 2002, and she told me that the tango is a Finnish dance, based on crosscountry skiing.

[pascal]

Well, it's not easy to tell when a Finn is pulling your leg, but I have been told perfectly seriously by several different people that the tango was invented in Finland. I had lessons in Finnish dancing from Leena Blomqvist of Helsinki in 2002, and she told me that the tango is a Finnish dance, based on crosscountry skiing.

No no, a touring argentine made a demo in front of the reigning Finnish people near 1913 and from there it became very popular. Also it developped as a different tango branch than the Bs-As tango.

[samina]

I had lessons in Finnish dancing from Leena Blomqvist of Helsinki in 2002, and she told me that the tango is a Finnish dance, based on crosscountry skiing.

that's very funny... lol

[Steve Pastor]

"Leena Blomqvist of Helsinki ... told me that the tango is a Finnish dance, based on crosscountry skiing."
As a former avid cross country skier, I had to laugh out loud over this one.
They say laughing is good for you, so thanks for this one.
On the other hand, Finnish Tango is a Finnish invention. But Finnish Tango is not Argentine Tango.

[Ampster]

Well, it's not easy to tell when a Finn is pulling your leg, but I have been told perfectly seriously by several different people that the tango was invented in Finland. I had lessons in Finnish dancing from Leena Blomqvist of Helsinki in 2002, and she told me that the tango is a Finnish dance, based on crosscountry skiing.

Tango is an Argentine invention. However, "Finnish Tango," a version from the original Argentine Tango, was indeed invented in Finland.

Here's a blurb:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_tango