THE LAST CONVERSATION:
EISENSTEIN'S CARMEN BALLET
Original language title: [same]

Country of production: USA
Year: 1998
Language: English, Russian
20 mins.

If you're an Eisenstein completist, you have to see this. In the late 1940s, in the aftermath of IVAN THE TERRIBLE, Soviet filmmaker and theorist Sergei Eisenstein created this miniature ballet distilling the final scene of Bizet's opera CARMEN. This duet for two Bolshoi dancers was one of the last creative acts of this 20th century artistic giant. Here, that dance is reconstructed by noted dance historian and critic (including, for a time, for the CHICAGO READER) Sally Banes. The film's text is written by her husband: noted film critic, theorist, and aesthetic philosopher Noel Carroll.

Director: Sally Banes
Script: Noel Carroll
Music: Sergei Eisenstein
Editing: Clark Thompson
Producer: Sally Banes
Source:
Art Works Video
Douglas Rosenberg
5973 Purcell Rd.
Oregon, WI 53575
rosend@education.wisc.edu

Sally Banes is the Marian Hannah Winter Professor of Theatre and Dance Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of numerous books, including GREENWICH VILLAGE 1963: AVANT-GARDE PERFORMANCE AND THE EFFERVESCENT BODY and WRITING DANCING IN THE AGE OF POSTMODERNISM. She has also published extensively in performance and media criticism.

Noel Carroll is the Monroe C. Beardsley Professor of the Philosophy of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of numerous books, including THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART: AN INTRODUCTION, A PHILOSOPHY OF MASS ART, THEORIZING THE MOVING IMAGE, and THE PHILOSOPHY OF HORROR. He has also published extensively in film and performance criticism, and in documentary film theory.

Sunday, March 23
5pm
Facets Cinematheque
With discussion
Screening with BERGMAN'S COMMERCIALS PRECEDING THE PLAY

FILMS ABOUT FILMMAKERS