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Author Post
jchalas
at 14:45, 11 Jun 2005
Posts: 2
Tango Lesson
You are scheduled to be in Chicago June 15 to screed "Yes" and for a post screening conversation and cuisine.

Do you have the time to discuss your work on "Tango Lesson" with Chicago Argentine tango dancers while here? We milonga every day of the week in Chicago.

Tango On!
Jim Halas
847-823-6296
sally potter
at 16:21, 11 Jun 2005
Posts: 193
tango
Sadly I will only be in Chicago for one night and occupied, it would seem, for every moment with the screening and with interviews. i can think of nothing more lovely than to be able to dance the night away with you all but it seems it will not happen on this visit. I hope you and your tango colleagues and friends will be able to make the time somewhere in your nightly tango schedule to see YES. There is some dancing in it, in various senses of the word. Once a dancer, always a dancer.
jchalas
at 14:47, 12 Jun 2005
Posts: 2
YES
"YES"...once a tango dancer always a tango dancer. Now to see the movie. I also work at another theatre in Chicago, so we dancers are everywhere.

You have many existing fans among my friends. I look forward to your latest movie.

Tango On!
Jim Halas
bott
at 19:17, 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 3
The Tango Lesson - identification of book therein
Sally,

I have been haunted by The Tango Lesson for years. I think it quite the most beautiful film I have ever seen.

I have desperately been trying to identify a book in that film. You are looking at it (it contains photographs of Paris) in the beginning of the film when you are working on your film script at the table in your London flat.

If this message ever reaches you, I would be eternally grateful if you could identify the book for me.

PS I have just seen Yes at the Sydney Film Festival and that is the second most beautiful film I have ever seen.

Thanks and regards,
Joanne Bottcher
Sydney
Australia
sally potter
at 21:58, 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 193
THE MYSTERY BOOK
You may be referring to 'Atget's Paris', a compendium of photographs of Paris, meticulously recorded over many years. But i dont recall it being visible at the beginning of the film, though perhaps it was in a later scene when many books and photos are strewn over the bed in the hotel room in Buenos Aires. I will have to check ! It was certainly one of the many photographic books i studied (with great pleasure, as also Lartique, Doisneau, Cartier Bresson and others) when developing a 'visual language' for The Tango Lesson.
I'm so glad you enjoyed the film.
bott
at 22:19, 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 3
The mystery book
Sally

Thank you so much for your reply.

Yes it probably was the book on the bed in Buenos Aires. I was unsure about that point.

It was a slim book, wider than it was high. It did look a little bit like Atget.

Thanks again
Joanne
sally potter
at 08:20, 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 193
TANGO LESSON DELETED SCENE
for those of you interested in The Tango Lesson, you may be intrigued by some images of a deleted end sequence which appear in the "On Point" section of my 15 June New York blog on this site .
bott
at 16:11, 19 Jun 2005
Posts: 3
Mystery book
Sally

I was correct - after all I have seen The Tango Lesson many times!

The mystery book appears on the dining table after Lesson 1 and is really clear after Lesson 2 - it has "Paris" on the cover.

If you ever get the chance to recollect the book I would be very grateful.

Thanks again
Joanne Bottcher
lim
at 03:27, 29 Oct 2005
Posts: 1
Tango Lesson DVD
I've not found one, except a version out of New Zealand. Not sure why such a nice piece of work shouldn't be in more ready circulation. It needs to be. I've told people about the movie but they can't get to it. That's a shame.

Also, hope SP will appear as an actress again. This was a quite charming performance.
Igor_1066
at 08:05, 5 May 2006
Posts: 4
The directorial eye.
"Also, hope SP will appear as an actress again."

This comment brought back to me with some immediacy one of my first reactions to "The Tango Lesson". The film excited and impressed me in many many ways, but by far the salient one was my recognition of the unprecedented ability of Ms. Potter to see with a single eye. This was manifest in her use of herself as the female lead. To be able to see the beauty of face, form, carraige, charisma, all that goes into making a star, to recognize those characteristics in another is part of the skill of a director. To be able to see such things in a woman of middle years is a clue that this is a great director. To be able to apply that skill to one's own body and one's own self when one has passed the first bloom of youth without being distracted by insecurities or pride or any feelings whatsoever, and to then see that that beauty is most beautiful and best presented in its natural state without embellishment is rare to the point of uniqueness. I felt as breathless and awestruck by her evident genius as if I had seen a unicorn.
Annevita
at 15:24, 9 Jun 2006
Posts: 2
Je ne sais pas, une révélation?
...and I am still crying...
Ricks has gone to bed. I can hear him breathe. I makes me feel safe but at the same time I long for days gone by, days in Argentina, but also days in Chile, where there is no dance like tango for them to express the horror of 30 years ago.
I was hurting for them, I really was. Them? No one was willing to discuss it and it made me hurt even more. Funny, that. Is it a Jewish thing? It has been said that we have a propensity to feel others' pain.
Tango scared me I must say, when I first saw it. I blushed. First of all it was intensely sexual, then I watched and watched and I began to understand and feel a lot more things. A bit like maturing ten years in a couple of weeks. I went back home and everything felt insipid.
Through funny circumstances I find myself living in London. Chile is so strongly in my heart and I simply do not find things, places, people who fill it in that way, who fill it as South Americans did. When I feel empty, I always have this treasure. But I do feel empty.
But your film, tonight...Why hadn't I come across this before? Was it not the right time? And what am I supposed to do with it now?
Your film scared me as did tango. But then, but then...
aria3fishbone
at 02:24, 25 Jun 2006
Posts: 3
"The butterfly syndrom"
There is a despicable theme in mainstream films I call "The butterfly syndrom". There is always that "ugly" woman that falls in love with the "prince" and than throughout the course of the film she supposedly transforms herself into a "beauty" and then he falls in love with her; "END TITLES". I cannot even begin to say how distractive is that to a woman's psyche. It propagands that you cannot be loved before you change; whilst in reality it's usually love and acceptance that changes you. It says that the only beauty that is "beautiful" is the straight nose thin type; if you are not that no man will look upon you as being a woman. And last but not least, a woman should be willing to lose herself in order to win a certain man. Sexiness is in the clothes; you can buy sexiness from stores for goodness sake! According to them of course.

But what about that man? What about the superficial way he handles his relationships? Another thing that is never portrayed in films is a man, verbally rejecting a woman. He is indifferent maybe, but he never says "we should be concerned with work" or any other thing. Supposedly men are always ready to have sex with anyone who comes along; caracter doesn't matter, commitment doesn't matter. The only thing that we see is a man willing to have sex but not being able to because "so and so". So if a man rejects you in real life, you feel imenselly ugly: "how ugly can I be for a man to reject his "real self"?"

All is lies. The Tango Lesson isn't. It is as true as it gets. She didn't go buy the X lipstick. She didn't go wearing sexy clothes. She suffered as much as a woman can, though she did not leave herself behind. She fought the mistreatment. She never forgot her worth, both as a shining mind and a woman. Nothing was said in excess. No scene was in excess. Now that is a film that should be watched by every young woman. That is the film that will nurture her soul.
marob
at 05:23, 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 2
the butterfly syndrome
I'd like to add my comment on how nurturing Tango is to the feminine
soul. Shortly after seeing The Tango Lesson, I saw a documentary on the making of Last Tango in Paris (Tango must have been the theme of the week). In this documentary Maria Schneider sat older, drawn & sad as she remembered the humiliation of the famous 'butter' scene which had been unrehe****d & she experienced as a 'rape on camera'. This brought tears to my eyes. How different to the Tango Lesson where the equality, the alchemical balance of man/woman in the creative process is lived, is danced, so subltley & elegantly.
scarletjames
at 05:00, 3 Sep 2006
Posts: 3
THE TANGO LESSON
I don`t know how I fell over this film .. So glad and grateful I did ..introduced me to your work and talent..agree with all the acalades ..Thank you ..last night I fell over Yes on cable in Florida
Quelle Joy...Brava
sally potter
at 03:22, 17 Oct 2006
Posts: 193
REPLY
I like this falling metaphor. When I was learning to tango I fell over a lot. The bruises were psychic as well as physical, and gradually the falling became a surrender to my passion to the form as I “fell” in love with it.
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