Blood and Sand - (1941) Directed by Rouben Mamoulian
Starring Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Rita Hayworth, and
Alla Nazimova
I don't like hearing spanish spoken with an english accent, it immediately turns me off. Blood and Sand wasn't too bad about it but it had its moments. This was such a grand production, so epic and well shot that you can forgive the gringo "T" in "Garabato" or "Carmencita".
The story taking place among bull fighters made me think of what a good metaphor that is for Man's obsession with Power and Control. To dominate a beast, an angry animal with horns and stampeding excitement that could split life from you at any given moment; the thrill that must come from being a matador must feel like you've become the bull itself. Interesting that this is the same story of Icarus, over and over has this story been told through different settings and characters yet they all have the same fall downwards. Whether your bull is painting, music, business, or film, it seems that Man repeatedly flies too close to the sun as if he will be the special case spared by the heat that most certainly melts wax.
I really do wish this film was in spanish.
After finishing the film I had the urge to see Madonna's Take a Bow video in which Emilio Munoz (I always thought it Jim Caviezel) plays a famous Matador (which he is in real life) and she his neglected and abused lover. I never realized how much the video is suited for that song without any specific reference from the song to the video. Madonna's song makes one think of Hollywood celebrities.
This video did things, to and for me as a teenager. Needless to say Madonna in lingerie, writhing alone in bed was not the most innocent of images a teenager with a vivid imagination, and an army of developing hormones could be exposed to. I can't get the song out of my head now.
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