Big screen finally gets a taste for tango

It’s like these guys took a crash course to be in a Western and can’t ride a horse. You just can’t take a crash course to be a tango dancer in a movie

STRICTLY COME Dancingmight have spawned millions of armchair experts on the intricacies of the rumba or foxtrot, but ask anyone to describe the tango and chances are they'll fall back on the stereotype: a striding couple, cheek-to-cheek, straight-armed, heads thrown back, clenching a rose in their teeth.

It is a cliche that has nothing to do with tango’s origins in the slums of Buenos Aires and its songs of violence, despair and love. But cast a historical glance at tangos on the big screen and you’ll see none of these proud roots, but rather a depressing number of films that use the dance for comic set-pieces or a symbol of upper-class, stuck-up formality.

The roses, rigid arms and striding steps are completely inauthentic and referred by purists as dancing "a la Valentino", after Rudolph Valentino's tangoing in Four Horsemen of the Apocalypsefrom 1921.

Historians notch it up as the first onscreen tango, but enthusiasts despair at how it established the stereotype. It was nevertheless alluring, helped by Valentino’s persona, which came to represent Hollywood’s archetypal Latin lover, according to Charles Ramirez Berg, professor of media studies at the University of Texas.

“He’s alluring, sensuous, magnetic, with a mysterious sexuality and an undercurrent of danger and possibly violence,” he says.

It’s also true of tango itself. In the 1920s and 1930s the dance exuded a mysterious eroticism and danger and began a life of stereotyping just like Valentino’s Latin lover.

But his sins are venal compared to Jack Lemmon's in Some Like it Hot.

Here, tango is fully formed kitsch with Lemmon disguised as a woman, stumbling around the dancefloor – “Daphne, you’re leading again” – in a performance that established the rose-in-teeth campness that prevailed for years.

A brooding Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Pariswas more destructive, disrupting a tango competition with drunken abandon, mooning at an irate judge and ridiculing the ballroom conformity.

Hollywood’s version of masculinity had to distance itself from tango, by camping it up or staying judgmentally aloof. But by the 1990s alpha males, such as Robert de Niro, Al Pacino and Arnold Schwarzenegger had all danced on screen and changed tango from an object of ridicule to a symbol of comfortable and sophisticated maleness. What brought about this change?

"The steady honest labour of hundreds of tangueros finally triumphed over sensation with sense and sensibility," says Robert Farris Thompson, author of Tango: The Art History of Love. "But the greatest weapon was the world triumph of the stage hit Tango Argentino. That changed everything."

Created by impresario Claudio Segovia for the 1983 Festival d’Automne in Paris, it featured 33 of Argentina’s finest dancers, singers and musicians. They flew over in a military plane – sharing it with soldiers and an Exocet missile going to France for repairs – but returned as stars. The week-long run was extended to an entire season and after subsequent European triumphs, the show eventually made it to Broadway.

Actor and director Robert Duvall became an enthusiastic tanguero after seeing Tango Argentina, and he now splits his year between the United States and Buenos Aires. He used to play tough guys who loved the smell of napalm in the morning, but these days his tough guys tango. In Assassination Tango(2003), he stars alongside his wife Luciana Pedraza, as an American hitman who becomes enthralled with the dance when he's on a job in Argentina.

Duvall's tangoing is overshadowed by cameo appearances from stars such as Milena Plebs and Pablo Veron, but he is a tireless student of the dance and critical of fellow actors who don't show the same commitment. Asked during an interview with Josh Horowitz about Al Pacino's performance in Scent of A Woman, he said: "It wasn't really the tango . . . It was shot from the waist up. It's like these guys trained to ride in a western and you can see they can't ride a horse. They take a crash course to be in a western. You just can't take a crash course to be a tango dancer in a movie."

Hollywood’s hard men bitching about each others’ tango steps. Who’d have thought? It’s certainly a far cry from Valentino with his stereotypes.

“One way to counter stereotype, whether you are talking about a Latin lover or a dance, is to develop the character. Make it less about the symbol and more about the individual by giving it more screen time and depth,” says Ramirez Berg.

This is true of modern Latin lovers such as Antonio Banderas as well as recent tango films, where the dance is the main character.

Adam Boucher's Tango, the Obsession(1998) and Carlos Saura's Tango(1998) finally show true versions, with Saura choosing Buenos Aires as an authentic urban backdrop. Tango is finally at home again, reconnected to the roots that have fed its vitality and enduring appeal.

HOLLYWOOD’S TANGOS ON YOUTUBE

3 Good

The Tango Lesson

Carolina Lotti and Pablo Verón’s beautiful performance in the opening scene beguiles film director Sally Potter.

‘Recuerdo’ from Tango

Clip featuring the world-famous Juan Carlos Copes.

Assassination Tango

A brief scene with snippets of outstanding dancing, including the male dancing duo Los Hermanos Macana.

3 Bad

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

The original stereotype, full of tassles and shawls and drunk onlookers.

Death on the Nile

A tango has seldom been so over-the-top as this version by Angela Lansbury and David Niven.

Never Say Never Again

Sean Connery and Kim Basinger give a watery rendition with frequent pauses to make room for essential dialogue such as “Your brother is dead.”

Tango Pasiónruns from October 18th to 23rd at the Grand Canal Theatre, Dublin