Bullfighter and the Lady

Englischer Titel: Torero Jegyzet (német): A young American film producer Chuck Regan (Stack) aspires to be a bullfighter and looks to an ageing matador, Manolo Estrada (Roland), to teach him. Manolo reluctantly agrees. Regan is brash, exhibitionistic and inconsiderate. Manolo is mature and serene. As Paul Schrader puts it, 'Regan is an individualist, Manolo is a formalist'. Regan's exhibitionism-his desire to perform in the bullring without the methodical training of the apprentice matador-leads to tragedy.

This semi-autobiograhical film, part romantic action picture, part documentary-perhaps the most authentic portrayal of bull-fighting to have come out of Hollywood-was the first on which Boetticher put his preferred name 'Budd'. It has a primal quality that looks forward to the Ranown cycle. Bullfighting is more than a sport, it is a ritual. Schrader has noted the continuing tension in Boetticher's films, between 'sport and ritual, individual and icon', a tension that is played out through irony in the westerns but remains intriguingly unresolved in The Bullfighter and the Lady. Regan is mysteriously transformed in the ring from exhibitionist to icon, from an aggressively individualistic American to a matador performing a timeless ritual.

To play on double bills the film was brutally cut by nearly 40 minutes but has been since restored by the UCLA Archive to Boetticher's original edit of 124 minutes. The title is a Hollywood concoction; Boetticher's chosen title for his original story (which was nominated for an Oscar) is 'Torero'. (http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/festivals/01/15/biff_boetticher.html)


References in Databases
KinoTV Database Nr. 23349


Last Update of this record 04.05.2010

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