Film
Carmen Jones
Thursday, Aug 4, 2011
7 p.m.
Participants
Introduction and pre-screening performance by Kalup Linzy
Additional Info
Otto Preminger, 1954, 105 min., 35mm
Image: Otto Preminger, Carmen Jones (still), 1954; photo: courtesy Columbia Pictures/Photofest.
Print courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Archives.
Preminger’s Carmen Jones sticks closely to the original score of Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen, though the cast, lyrics, and story are modernized in surprising ways: the events are set in World War II America and the entire cast is African American. Don Jose becomes an all-American GI Joe, played by Harry Belafonte, and Carmen becomes parachute factory worker Carmen Jones, a role that won Dorothy Dandridge a Best Actress Oscar nomination.