HIGHLA-L Digest - 1 Dec 2004 to 6 Dec 2004 (#2004-211)
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Mon, 6 Dec 2004 22:00:10 -0500
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Topics of the day:
1. Season Five dvd Commentary: Duende
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Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 11:39:43 -0500
From: kageorge <kageorge@erols.com>
Subject: Season Five dvd Commentary: Duende
Commentary w/screen captures at:
http://www.wordsmiths.net/MacGeorge/episodes/Season5/Duende.htm
COMMENTARY: Adrian says that duende is a state of being like Zen, so for
MacLeod (and for AP) it was very understandable since whether you are
fighting or dancing or whatever, you are “in the moment” and “that
moment is clarity.” He says it was a tough episode because there was so
much going on in it. He had trained for Flamenco months before when they
were in Vancouver, and the story was about love lost, and continuing the
search for this man who had abused and killed one of the loves of
MacLeod’s life, and was also MacLeod’s teacher. But AP says the problem
was that he was in virtually every frame of the show and had to learn an
“Ispadi Daga” [a phonetic rendition of what I think he said], which was
not easy to do.
David A. had told Anthony Delongis that they had never built a story
around a fighting style (as Delongis had suggested they do), but if
Delongis could come up with a backstory then they’d give it a try. It
took some doing and a lot of tries, but eventually they came up with the
story line that MacLeod was defeated in a duel and a woman that he loves
sacrifices herself for him, demanding that he respect her honor and her
decision.
Delongis says the character (Consone) has a story to tell and that was
his main objective, but he was able to add an element of style on top of
that, and it was very satisfying. It was a show where the swordfight was
a huge character element, and where this particular style of
swordfighting had never been done before on screen. It had been
suggested in “The Mask of Zorro”, but that was shot after this episode.
AP says shooting the finale scene happened on a surface that got very
slick when it started to rain. At one point Anthony Delongis went down
hard, and they were lucky he wasn’t hurt. For MacLeod, it was a tough
choice to face Consone, especially in his arena and on his terms. So it
was again another obstacle for MacLeod to overcome, and the visual
effect at the end, he says, was stunning.
OUTTAKES: Gillian says that one of the inspirations for the story was
that Adrian was studying flamenco and did all his own dancing. We see
the unedited version of the flamenco performed in the flashback in a
single take. [Somewhat to my surprise, since I know the whole Riverdance
phenomenon is dubbed even in “live” performances, what we see and hear
in the final version is truly all the work of the two dancers on screen.]
We see an outtake of the scene in the car between Consone and the
daughter, where Consone asks her if she knows were Duncan MacLeod lives.
At the end, when they languidly kiss, the director breaks in before they
go too far. They all laugh, then break into a verse of “Swing Low, Sweet
Chariot.”
In the scene at the sword academy, Adrian and AD go through it a couple
of times, and it goes well, except at the end of the second take,
Delongis calls for them to cut since he went from a Spanish accent to an
British one and commented, “We’ve got to cut. I’m in the British Isles.”
The day of the filming of the fight, an icy rain turned the fighting
circle into an ice rink. We see them fight, hearing an airplane fly
overhead as they start and stop. It is really interesting to watch two
fighters who really know what they’re doing, and who are watching out
for each other as they do it. Then Delongis slips and goes down flat and
Adrian comments on the slippery surface. It gets dark, and it’s still
raining and they’re still filming (they had stopped to see if it would
stop raining, but eventually had to keep going, and now it was both dark
and pouring rain) as Adrian calls out to those watching, “Don? Bill
Panzer? We can do this now because it’s *not raining*!”
They keep going, and going, which looks exhaustsing [Delongis slips
again and almost gets accidentally skewered. Adrian: “Whoa, that was
close.”] Finally, they get to the climatic moment when Consone stabs
Duncan and tells him, “And now you die a pig farmer.” They hold the post
intently for a couple of seconds, then Adrian, still holding the sword
supposedly skewering his stomach, starts dancing and singing, “I’m
singing in the rain!” AD joins him, so they are both dancing around,
laughing and holding their swords.
The tag was originally supposed to start on the barge with Richie
anxiously awaiting MacLeod’s return. We see Richie, sighing in worry and
impatience as he does a poor job of tossing playing cards into what
looks like an antique bowl of some kind. He keeps tossing and tossing
until they cut. And the point of showing us that scene was… unclear.
VIDEO COMMENTARY: Commentary is by Gillian Horvath and Anthony Delongis,
and this is a shortened version of those long dialogues. The original
title of the episode was “The Mysterious Circle”, and they learned about
the concept of duende during their research for the episode. Delongis
says the spirit of duende is like being possessed, an altered state that
in the gypsy dance world has to do with alcohol, exhaustion and
adrenaline. Gillian says that it is also used in the world of
bullfighting, in the confrontation between life and death. Delongis says
in swordfight terms, you are in the moment, not worrying about living
and dying.
They mention that Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter was the actress who
played Teresa, and that she had been in “Reasonable Doubt”, but that her
English had not been very good at that time and her dialogue had to be
looped. By the time of the casting of Duende, she had worked hard on her
language skills and she could do her own dialogue.
In the so-called Sauna Scene, actually they were freezing cold, filming
in the same restaurant where they had filmed the dance scene earlier. AD
says he wasn’t used to being on camera practically naked, so he had to
get a few pointers from Adrian on how do wrap himself without having
“anything really important popping out.”
AD talks about the choice of their swords in technical terms which I
will not try to replicate, except that Consone’s blade was designed to
inflict “chewing” damage when it went in and came out, and was a nasty
weapon. They had a half an hour the night before, very late, to show
Adrian what AD and Braun had come up with for the courtyard swordfight
between Duncan and Consone. The next morning, the camera truck broke
down, giving them another half an hour to rehearse that fight scene.
In the final fight scene, for which they had delayed filming to see if
the rain would stop, the downpour finally ceased as soon as AD
officially “hit the deck” and died.
Gillian says as the last scene plays that Adrian just really pulls it
together and in the true spirit of duende really kind of made the
episode, where everything came out better than they had hoped.
THE EPISODE: The prologue begins with a man and woman dancing
passionately to flamenco music as a man looks on importuning them to
give more. When they are done, the man, Octavio Consone, announces that
the woman, Anna Hidalgo, will be his wife. She seems shocked, and tells
him she is already engaged to the other dancer, and is pregnant by him.
Consone goes into a rage, hits her and ends up stabbing her lover. He
malevolently tells her that for as long as she lives, she should
remember that killing her lover was “only the first cut.” She collapses,
weeping over her lover’s body.
In the present, we see a much older Anna Hidalgo, walking with a cane,
as she watches her daughter dance the flamenco in a nightclub. Duncan
and Richie are there, and Duncan is telling a drooling Richie the story
of the dance. Anna invites Duncan to dance with Anna. He does, and it is
apparent after a moment that he already knows how, and we get a
flashback to Duncan dancing flamenco in a nightclub in Madrid in 1851.
As he dances, a young woman avidly looks on as her prim nurse sternly
lectures her on how improper her behavior is.
Also watching is Consone and Teresa’s father, who is shocked to see her
when she rushes up to Duncan to tell him how wonderful he was. Duncan
kisses Teresa’s hand, deflecting Teresa’s father’s ire by flirting with
her nanny, flustering her as Consone looks possessively at Teresa.
Duncan offers to escort the nanny home, and Teresa smilingly offers to
be their chaperone. It is clear, however, that both know it is Teresa
who is the object of Duncan’s affections. Teresa confesses she is in
love with Duncan and announces that Duncan should ask for her hand in
marriage. Duncan confesses he loves her but hesitates, fearing rejection
by her father since he is not from a noble Spanish family, and that she
doesn’t know him, what he is. She protests that they will have a
lifetime to learn about each other.
In the present, outside the flamenco club where Duncan tells Richie that
25 years ago, Anna was one of the best dancers in the world until she
was injured by a hit and run driver. Anna and her daughter, Luisa, are
arguing outside the restaurant. They feel an Immortal and a limousine
drives up. Luisa gets in over Anna’s protest. Inside the car is a
seductive Consone, who asks about the “man with her mother and where he
lives”.
Anna comes to see Duncan at the barge, telling him that Luisa never came
home the night before. They go inside to talk and Duncan feels an
Immortal arrive. He leaves Anna with Richie so he can go investigate. It
is Consone, who tells him “to stay away from the Hidalgos, or die.”
Inside the barge, Anna tells Richie about the meaning of duende, “when
the dancer is beyond being tired, so exhausted he can’t think. He can’t
stop either. The spirit of the dance enters you and for a moment time
stops, pain stops. The body seems to move by itself. It is then that the
dance can be truly perfect.”
Anna looks out a porthole and sees Consone, rushing out in a rage,
trying to attack him as the man who murdered Luisa’s father, Raphael.
Luisa jumps out of the car, screaming that Anna must be crazy that it
can’t be the same man since he is far too young.
We learn in a flashback that back in Spain, Consone had been Duncan’s
teacher of a specialized sword technique where you fought with two
blades in a circle where movement was restricted. At the end of their
session, Consone stabs Duncan, saying that winning required being
relentless, and not to let a dagger in the ribs stop him, that a
champion is a man to fights until the final stroke.
In a sauna scene, Duncan tells Consone that he Teresa wanted him to ask
for her hand in marriage. Consone is amazed and offended, saying she is
of noble blood and that Consone has already spoken to Teresa’s father
and that “if she does not love me now, one day she will.” He tells
Duncan to leave Madrid, “or die.”
Teresa’s father has made his decision, but Teresa says she won’t marry
Consone. Consone challenges Duncan and they fight. Consone stabs Duncan
and Teresa intervenes, offering herself for Duncan’s life, but saying
that if Consone kills Duncan, “I’ll be in a convent by nightfall.” Over
Duncan’s protest, she tells him that she has given her word and now he
must leave.
“Richard Redstone” goes to see Luisa’s fellow dancers, conning them into
telling him where Luisa is. Duncan goes to Consone’s estate, learning
from the housekeeper that Consone and Luisa had just gotten married. In
a flashback, we learn that two years after Consone and Teresa had
married, Duncan returned, desperate to see Teresa. He learns from the
nanny that Consone had pushed Teresa down the stairs, killing her out of
jealousy that she still loved Duncan. Duncan is distraught, ready to
kill Consone, but the nanny insists that it was Teresa’s dying wish that
Duncan was safe, and that if he fights Consone, Teresa died for nothing.
She begs him, for Teresa’s sake, to ride away, and to live. He does.
Anna Hidalgo is at the club (which is closed and empty), when she finds
Consone there, who gloats about Anna’s crippled leg, confessing that it
was he who deliberately ran her down. She attacks him with her cane, but
he pushes her down and taunts her, telling her he was now married to
Luisa and it was a “pity she will die so young,” reminding her that
killing her lover had only been “the first cut.”
Luisa returns to Consone’s house and finds Duncan there. Duncan tries to
tell her what Consone is, that he killed the woman Duncan had loved
after marrying her. He feels Consone approach and pushes Luisa inside,
where she hears Duncan and Consone’s conversation, where he confesses to
killing Teresa, and talks about his intent to ruin Anna’s life through
her daughter. Luisa storms out of the house, screaming at Consone, but
Duncan sends her away.
Finally, Duncan and Consone face off in the “magic circle” and fight
with sword and dagger. It is ritualistic and intense and goes on for a
very long time, into darkness and pouring rain. Finally, Consone stabs
Duncan through with his sword, proclaiming his victory. But Duncan grabs
the hilt of the sword trapping Consone's hand and pulling it into his
body, dropping his own sword, twisting the dagger out of Consone’s other
hand and taking it from him. Crossing the two short blades he uses them
to take Consone’s head. The quickening is spectacularly explosive and
goes on for quite a while.
Anna tensely waits with Luisa back at her apartment, where Duncan
arrives to tell them they don’t have to worry about Consone any more,
that Luisa is now a widow. Luisa starts to ask what happened, but Anna
insists that they ask no questions, and weeps in gratitude and relief.
Back at the barge, Duncan tells Richie that Consone had thought that the
fight was all about control, about mastering all the moves, but that
there is a point in the dance when you do things that are beyond what
your body has learned, of what your conscious mind is capable of.
“Duende,” Richie nods as they light cigars together.
MY COMMENTS: The interwoven themes of this episode were truly wonderful,
and it was great to have a real expert sword master play the villain so
they could exploit Adrian Paul’s abilities in a way we rarely get to
see. The passion of flamenco played off against the intellectual
precision of the “magic circle” fighting technique was a wonderful idea
for a story. The images were rich, and the flashbacks were visually and
emotionally satisfying.
However, I have to say that there were things about this episode that
bothered me and keep it from being among my favorites. As terrific as
Delongis is as a swordsman, I find him one-dimensional as an actor. He
essentially played the same arrogant, oily villain in this episode that
he did in “Blackmail”. The only real difference was the accent. The part
of Consone was much better written than his previous role, and the
fighting ability made it seem like a richer character, but that came
from the storyline and the writing, not the actor.
And I was conflicted about Anna Hidalgo, who was played with
scenery-chewing intensity. On the one hand, there were times when it
seemed way over-the-top, and it made me uncomfortable, but on the other
hand, she was a flamenco dancer, after all, and prone to being
passionate and almost violently emotional anyway, so I’m not certain if
my criticism is truly valid.
I really liked the performance of the nanny, who in only a few short
scenes managed to imbue what would normally be a minor character with a
lot of life and emotional intensity.
I also liked the range of events and emotions and personality changes we
see in Duncan MacLeod: his boyish flirtations to get Teresa alone, his
uncertainty and excitement about his love for Teresa. Even his more
measured responses in the present day are colored by a need to beat
Consone at his own game that is really about what Methos would see as
another of MacLeod’s antiquated and inappropriate interpretations of
“honor”. I always enjoy seeing the subtle changes in Duncan’s outlook
and personality with the passage of time and feel it is one of the
things about Highlander that keep me interested in it after all this time.
Over all, on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give this one about an 8, which
makes it a heck of a lot better than about 99% of what else is available
on television.
MacGeorge
All episode commentaries at:
http://www.wordsmiths.net/MacGeorge/episodes/indexframeset.htm
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End of HIGHLA-L Digest - 1 Dec 2004 to 6 Dec 2004 (#2004-211)
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