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Tarantula Presents
Eugenia Ramírez
Miori
in
THE TANGO SINGER
a film by
Diego Martinez Vignatti
with
Bruno Todeschini
Belgium/ Argentina/France/Netherlands - 2009 - 102 mins - Scope - Dolby SRD - Spanish/French
www.lacantantedetango.com
World Sales
Celluloid Dreams
2 rue Turgot, 75009 Paris, France
T : + 33 (0) 1 4970 0370 F : + 33 (0) 1 4970 0371
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SYNOPSIS
Helena is a rising Tango talent who is deeply and madly in love. When
she successfully auditions with her band for a residency in a prestigious
theatre in Buenos Aires her career looks set to take off. But she is hit by
tragedy: the man with whom she is in love will no longer love her back.
For Helena, who lives and sings for love, this is the end of the road.
Obsessed and tortured by her loss, she can’t get over her heartbreak
and becomes a shadow of her former self.
But what if she took off and started all over again? What if she just left
behind the sorrow and stepped into new life in a new country? Perhaps
she could also leave behind the pain, and slowly, learn to live and love
again...
Interview with Diego Martinez Vignatti
Like your previous film La Marea, The Tango Singer focuses on a
woman trying to get over the torment of her past. Can you tell us
more about this recurrent theme?
I think that in some way “The Tango Singer” could be the sequel and
the continuation of my two previous films. It’s on one hand, a continuity
of culture, atmosphere and colour, because Tango fascinates me and I
have always been captivated by it. My first film, ‘Nosotros’ was a tribute
to the world of Tango. On the other hand both Azul from “La Marea”
and Helena in “The Tango Singer” share something in common: the
devastating heartbreak of a departure, an unbearable loneliness, yet
incarnated by a strong character who has a mesmerizing presence. It’s
not a surprise that I chose the same actress. Cinema being the reflection
of life, naturally, the themes that interest and touch me as a human also
interest me as a filmmaker. It is because of life, of the birth of my daughter
that my vision of the world has also changed and Helena’s story ends
in a peaceful loneliness instead of a disturbed one like in “La Marea”.
There is also the important theme exile. We often speak about political
exile and economic exile but rarely about emotional exile: when you
have to leave everything behind to get away from someone, or when
someone’s absence becomes an insufferable torture. I wanted to speak
about the love exile, the unendurable absence of the lover and its power
of destruction. It’s also true that I’m more interested in the complexities
of the feminine rather than the masculine. In my films so far, the main
characters have always been women.
You have mentioned that you work intuitively, how did you develop
the script?
I start from a more or less basic script (often less than more). This causes
quite a few problems for my producer, as it’s hard to sell a script based
on feelings and not on narrative storytelling. Once the script is written, I
try to forget it as much as possible. On set, I really don’t want to read or
re-read anything. I only want to feel: to feel that the material is becoming
something exclusively cinematic in front of my eyes and in my ears.
And I shoot what I ‘feel’ in the least number of possible shots. I like the
essential; shooting chronologically and making time to reflect.
The film takes us to some surprising places. How did you choose the
locations?
I shot the Argentinian part in my hometown, Bahía Blanca, an indistinct place
without much explicit charm. People said to me that I was mad to shoot there, that
it was ugly. I laughed. We only needed a few locations to reveal the inside of this
“ugliness”, for the sake of our film. Cinema is not to show off but to discover, to
explore… and because nobody ever shot there, we had not only the surprise of
new places but also incredible support from the town and the people .
For the European part, it was more complex. The north of France with its wild
coast, the cold and the wind, and its deserted seaside villages…gave me a strange
feeling, almost dreamlike, which I really couldn’t work out. Then, we toured through
Brussels where I stayed to shoot the tango ball with my friends. We finished in the
Netherlands for 3 days to shoot the final key scenes. I can still clearly see our last
night of shooting in an Olympic swimming pool in Amsterdam, my actress in the
water for 10 hours… such bravery! An exceptional achievement!
In “The Tango Singer”, you use time in an unusual way, to the point where
it seems that you are implying that the protagonists could have chosen
other paths in life. What do you wish to say?
I believe that at least once everyone has asked themselves questions such as,
“what would have happened if I had not done that? Is it right to stay and not leave?
Why didn’t I have the courage to refuse or to do something?” Confronted with
her heartbreak, Helena sees two opposing possibilities. I wanted to highlight this
opposition and because of this, we encounter a series of formal and thematic
contrasts: major city/small village, summer/winter, asphalt/nature, colour/
monochrome, and crowds/loneliness. When Helena chooses to stay in Argentina
believing that her singing will save her, she is wrong and it finishes badly. When she
chooses exile, she suffers at first (she cannot even bring herself to sing). However,
she rebuilds herself, and at the end we see her peaceful yet solitary. The ellipsis,
the backwards and forwards, the flashbacks…these are only cinematic tools that
allow me to escape from a straightforward story which really doesn’t interest me.
As a filmmaker I need to believe in the audience. When engaged the audience
enjoys being active and part of the film. Breaking up the narrative is an awakening
and means freedom for me and my audience.
Diego Martinez Vignatti
Diego Martinez Vignatti was born in Argentina in 1971. He
studied Art History, scriptwriting and photography before
getting his law diploma in 1995. The year after he left for Europe
to study cinematography at the INSAS in Belgium.
In 2003 he directed his first film “Nosotros”, a feature length
documentary on Tango which was selected in a number of
International film festivals including Rotterdam (International
Competition), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Lussas, Leipzig and
the Rencontres Internationales du film documentaire à Montréal.
The film won the SCAM prize in France in 2004.
The film was exceptionally well received on its Belgian release.
“La Marea” (The Tide), his first fiction film was selected in Official
Competition in Rotterdam, as well as the Alba Film Festival, the
international festival of the Art of Film (Slovakia), Buenos Aires
and the d’Open Doek Film Festival. It won the Fipresci prize for
a first film at the Toulouse film festival.
Vignatti has also had a successful career as a director of
photography.
Tango music has a central position in the film; through it we
obtain an intimate look at the emotions of the characters.
Why have you concentrated so much on the Tango?
Tango is a big part of my life. I’m a really tango person. There is
something melancholic and existentialist in me which I decided to
stop fighting against - a hopeless battle anyway. Tango is basically
the only popular music and poetry that knows how to talk about the
great solitude of being human. In the film Helena sings, “La vida es
una herida absurda” (life is an absurd injury). But the question is:
what do we do with all this lucidity on life? Well, perhaps we don’t
immediately throw ourselves out of the window! No, we should try
and live, or survive in the best possible way, with lots of irony and a
handful of convictions. No matter what happens, music, poetry and
dance accompany us and at least that’s not too bad.
I chose the songs in the film for their beauty but mostly for their poetry.
They helped to reveal and express the soul of a character: she sings
what she feels and I could get away with using less dialogue. But it
also allowed me to do something else: I dreamed of Helena (Eugenia
Ramírez Miori) singing for real. I didn’t want to dub her, as I wanted
her to act out the poetry in each tango. I didn’t care about perfection
- I wanted emotion. I wanted truth. That said, to record music during
shooting (and to camera) is very complicated technically. However,
we did it: all the tangos that Eugenia sings are live sequence shots,
and I believe they increase the emotional charge. She and the
musicians have shown incredible mastery, thanks to the technical
team who fully supported me with this mad idea.
You used Eugenia Ramírez Miori again as the driving force
of the film. Can you tell us more about your collaboration?
After La Marea, I only wanted to shoot with her again. I conceived
The Tango Singer with her in mind. Day by day, it was obvious to me
that the film was her voice, her body, her look and her interior light.
She remains at the centre of the film from the beginning to the end
shot and the other characters only pass around her as satellites.
Eugenia is a wonderful actress and works relentlessly. She really
worked on her singing and was even better than I had dreamed of.
Our collaboration is based on trust and listening to each other. When
she suggests something I really listen to her as she is experiencing
the evolution of the character in a clear and intelligent way. It is very
much her and her work that make me fortunate in every experience
of the film.
Interview with Eugenia Ramírez Miori
What steps did you take to give life to your character?
I prepare my characters by continuously reading the text and letting my imagination
take off… I take lots of notes, but don’t adopt anything completely. I construct a past
for each character, a past which often seems to have nothing to do with the story at
all - small events in this woman’s childhood, presents she has received, her fears, her
weaknesses, her dreams, her relationships with her family, her failures and her loves.
I also physically prepare myself and aim to slightly transform my body: the body is something that reflects our experiences. In “La Marea”, I really worked on my arms, in “The
Tango singer”, more on my back, the way I held myself, and most obviously, my voice.
Despite all this, I arrive on set on the first day without any certitude. This is where the
real experiences of my character will be revealed and unveiled. I develop my characters
while acting - I digest each scene to give more and more depth and complexity to the
character. With Diego, we film in chronological sequence as much as possible which
helps a lot.
Did we have to look to personal experiences? While I was studying I did a bit of “emotional/sensory memory”, which I found very useful for helping me to dive right into the
soul, into suffering, without fear of having a breakdown. But I don’t like relating to my
own experiences when acting. That’s a sort of utilitarian use of personal feelings that
to me seems unhealthy and it’s also exhausting. I prefer to construct an interior life and
a past for my character. This approach is limitless, pleasant and creative. There will
always be similarities between myself and the characters I play of course.
I left my country nearly 6 years ago… It was because I fell in love. It was love at
first sight and left everything behind the very next day. Was I running away from
something?Anyway, when I arrived in Brussels I realised that a blank page had opened in front of me and I could write what I wanted, start again and rebuild myself as I
wished. I could erase past events that were not close to my heart (all the little things). I
wasn’t reminded of anything from the streets in Brussels, nobody knew anything about
me. I was a woman “without a past”.
At the same time, something strange happened to me. I had the feeling that another
Eugenia could continue to live in Argentina… this feeling has been even more enhanced since my daughter’s birth. A new Eugenia is born while all the others die.
This is also somehow like Helena’s story. But we, women, all have similar stories….
It’s the second time that you have worked with Diego. Can you tell us
more about the way you collaborate?
It’s such a pleasure to work with Diego - each day of shooting is a celebration
and a challenge. What does the director have in mind for the camera movements?
What’s he going to surprise us with? He is easy to work with. You can quickly rely
on his talent. He is genuine and charismatic and he knows how to lead his team
like a rugby coach.
What’s more, he’s my husband. I love him. And I love his projects like they were our
children. That guarantees an artistic intimacy and leaves no room for egotism.
I believe that mostly the director provides authenticity and confidence for a film. He
must know what he wants and what he wants has to be consistent with his film. And
he must be consistent with himself with all the characters during the entire film. That
requires a lot of talent and self-confidence. Diego has all that.
I have complete trust in Diego when he’s behind the camera and also in his “all
seeing eye”, and I have a lot of trust in the camera, which is capable of reading even
the most banal thoughts and x-raying the soul.
I think of my character as a whole, not from scene to scene.. I’m conscious of the
size of the cinema screen. I don’t work for myself, but for the film. I never try to act
through performance, but rather compose the little things one at a time, without
judging emotions or the feelings that appear. I never look at myself from the outside.
I would rather say nothing than tell a lie.
In the film, you play a Tango Singer. How long have you been singing?
I have always loved singing. I was in a choir at school, I like tango and i enjoy dancing to it and I’ve sung a few pieces in the theatre. Singing has always been a part
of my life, however, that wasn’t enough for this film.
Diego had dreamed of filming and recording the concerts live, and I had to get a
“professional” voice. Not necessarily a more beautiful voice, but a singer’s voice
and a tango voice, a very unique style in itself.
I prepared myself for a year and a half with a teacher of tango technique in Belgium
and a repertoire tango teacher in Argentina. I also took a course in logopedics
(speech therapy). I did my exercises everyday without fail. I had lots of willpower
and discipline, even when I felt disheartened. It wasn’t easy, but it was crucial for
my performance, it gave it depth and soul.
Can you tell us a bit more about your career
as an actress and the way that you embark
upon a role? Who are your inspirations?
I did the “Conservatorio Nacional de Arte Dramatico” (IUNA) in Argentina, a few intense internships
and a year of a masters in theatrical pedagogy.
Then I left my country. I did a lot of theatre acting,
radio things, several short features and then three
feature-films. I studied with passion and have tried
different approaches.
I don’t think about technique when I work as I aim for
spontaneity... yet, paradoxically I’m also very methodical as I take note of everything, I re-read before
shooting, I look after the small objects that belong
to my character and during the workday I won’t allow myself to get distracted even for a minute.
Technically, I believe in work as physical actions
and thoughts as a practical actions. All that leads
to emotions. I also believe in what Stanislavski called trust… trust in the falsehood… this is an inherent ability in children. This confidence constructs
itself… I don’t wait for “inspiration”.
Since the human being is very complex, I don’t like
characters that are too straightforward, however it
depends a lot on the director… in the film industry
I often try to give some options of “volume/depth”
to the director. However, it’s up to the director to
choose from the proposals.
Eugenia Ramírez Miori
Eugenia Ramírez Miori was born in Buenos Aires in 1974. She studied at the
Conservatorio Nacional de Arte Dramático in Buenos Aires. She quickly became
one of the most promising actresses of her generation. In Theatre, she played a
large range of characters from the classical to the modern. In 2002, she played
the lead role in Dancing With Dreams by the Iranian director Mahmoud Kalhari.
She plays the lead role in The Tango Singer the new feature film by Diego Martinez
Vignatti. She is also a Tango dancer.
My favorite actresses are Gena Rowlands, I have
a lot of admiration for her work and the characters
she succeeds in constructing. Before her, I think
of Audrey Hepburn. In French cinema, I admire the
strong and powerful work of Sandrine Bonnaire and
I have always admired the technique, precision and
the restraint of Isabelle Huppert.
The great Tango poets; Amadori, Castillo and Contursi inspired me in the creation of Helena’s soul,
which is of course invisible but present throughout the film. The modern yet atmospheric music
of Rovira allowed the filmmaking process to evolve. And the impressive improvisation work of the
bandonion player Santiago Cimadevilla brought the necessary dose of melancholy in every story of
Tango. Finally, the work on the music was completed by the original arrangements by two extremely
talented musicians Juan Otero in Argentina and Hernán López Ruiz in Europe.
The moment then arrived where I had to decide how to integrate the tango songs into the film. I
clung to the idea that they must be recorded live. It was out of the question to dub the main actress
Eugenia nor would I have wanted her to overdub herself! I wanted live emotion, even with the mistakes and the charm that come with them. I always loved the way Eugenia sings. But to sing tango is
another challenge. I asked her if she was ready for it and she accepted. She started by immersing
herself into the Tangos more than a year in advance. Which is to say that she was very motivated.
To reassure her I said that we could always rely on the playback the way almost everyone else does.
But, in my head I knew it would be out of the question. But Eugenia never gave up the idea of singing live, despite the difficulty of the exercise.
Of course - it could have been much simpler with a professional singer. But what I would have
gained in technical perfection, I would have lost in intensity and magnitude. Helena is not just a
singer, she is a woman, and a complex one at that. To communicate that, I needed a real actress.
If I mention the work of Eugenia here, I must also mention the undeniable contributions of Alfredo
Piro and Oscar Ferrari. The first is a friend but, moreover, one of my favourite Tango singers of the
younger generation. He’s the son of Susana Rinaldi and Osvaldo Piro so Alfredo was literally born
into Tango. He taught Eugenia how to sing in a modern Tango style : because one doesn’t sing the
Tango in 2009 as you would in the time of Tita Merello.
A Journey into Tango
Since the beginning, I wanted to make the protagonist of the film a Tango singer for a number of reasons.
I knew that I could use Tango as a way of expressing the interior world of this woman: Helena sings what
she feels, her suffering, her doubts, her joy and her struggles. I consequently began a long research
to find the Tango that would not only touch me musically, but also that would give voice, through their
poetry and emotion, to my theme. The words of the songs came to nourish and add rhythm to the mix.
They gave substance and an outline - Tango is incontestably a character in itself in the film.
The time came to make the difficult choice of which songs to use. This was a complex operation because I had to imagine an internal musical structure that was coherent with the narrative of the film. This
stage was incredibly important. Even if I was well acquainted with Tango (which was at the centre of my
first film, Nosotros) the enormity of the corpus tango is such that no one can claim to be a master. It’s for
this reason that I decided to stick to the themes I knew best. I also met people who were veritable bibles
of Tango who helped me in my research. Finally, I also had the great pleasure of intuitively discovering
new songs (the work of Rovira for example) which filled me with happiness.
It was also Alfredo also who put us in contact with his Maestro, Oscar Ferrari. Who became, in
turn the Maestro of Eugenia. It’s Oscar who, with much love but nevertheless, much severity taught
Eugenia to truly interpret Tango. His role is essential in the film and we are both indebted to him. He
was happy with his work and told Eugenia to never stop singing. His death just after the shoot of
the film was very painful for us. He didn’t even have time to see himself in the film. Strangely, the film
will allow us to not only preserve his memory but his presence with us. He will be come back to life
at each screening. After all this work with Maestro Ferrari, the first day of shooting arrived with an
enormous challenge for Eugenia because it was the sequence in the large concert hall where Eugenia was to sing ‘El último café.’ There was electricity in the air, 400 people on set and a sequence
of shots that we had to get right. I had three sound engineers: the first recorded environment, the
second took care of the musicians and the last sent the sound around the room like a real concert.
And everything miraculously worked out! Eugenia triumphed thanks to the Maestro.
A word on the place of Gardel in the film. As for millions Argentineans, Gardel is for me, still, the
grandest of them of all. I wanted him to be present in a number of different titles. He was initially
to appear in film as the absolute and unattainable model for Helena as a singer. Then, I wanted to
see him emerging on different occasions in a specific way with the Tango, ‘Alma en pena’ (Soul in
Pain), because it’s Gardel which made this song a classic. In the film, when the Maestro tries to
teach Helena how to interpret it, she can’t and feels lost. The accuracy and truth of the words which
describe, a hundred years from when it was written, exactly what she is going through, wounds her.
I wanted this sequence to unfold under the smiling and immortal portrait of Gardel. Later in the film,
for the doctor that Helena meets on the other side of the Atlantic, ‘Alma en pena’ is the one beautiful
piece of tango which makes him dream of Helena. Everyone who hears it feels it in a personal way.
Yes, the tango is complex, diverse…. yet marvellous. - Diego Martinez Vignatti
CAST
Helena Eugenia Ramírez Miori
Roberto Bruno Todeschini
Andy Andrés Ramírez
Théo Pieter Embrechts
Maestro Oscar Ferrari
Juan Juan Otero
Also with the special participation of:
Eva Dora Baret
Marc Patrick Descamps CREW
Director Screenplay
in collaboration with
Cinematography Sound Costumes
Set design Editing Producer Co-producers Production
In Co-production with Diego Martinez Vignatti
Diego Martinez Vignatti
Luc Jabon
Diego Martinez Vignatti
Gilles Laurent
Tim Van Steenbergen
Patrick Colpart
Marie-Hélène Mora
Joseph Rouschop
Pablo Ratto
Delphine Corniaut
Tomas Leyers
René Goossens
Annemiek Van Gorp
Arlette Zylberberg
Tarantula
Trivial Media (Argentina)
Mobilis Productions (France)
De Productie (Netherlands)
Minds Meet (Belgium)
With the aid of the Centre du Cinéma et de l'Audiovisuel de la Communauté française de Belgique et des télédistributeurs wallons, with the participation of la Région Wallonne (Wallimage), with the support of Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds, with the participation of the Tax Shelter du Gouvernement fédéral belge,
with the support of l'INCAA (Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales), CRRAV Nord-Pas de Calais with the support of la Région Nord Pas de Calais and in partnership with the CNC, with the support of the Nederlanads Fonds voor de Film, with the participation of Rotterdam Media Fonds, with the support of Eurimages, developed with the support of the Programme MEDIA de la Communauté Européenne, with the support of Tax Shelter ING Invest de Tax Shelter Productions, de B&L Lighting Services SA, de Dherte SA, ProduWeb SA et de Sativa Factory. Intermédiation financière : Fast Forward, Taxshelter.be, with the support of Pôle Image de Liège, The tango SINGER was presented at Cinémart at the Rotterdam International film festival.