Santa Esmeralda was a band of mixed French and US composition.
They were primarily Disco…. but had enough Flamenco in them that I liked them in the seventies.
Their seminal feat was a nearly fifteen minute classic remake of ‘The House of the Rising Sun’.
Here we can see a few minutes of it, set to the carnage of sports.
It’s tough to see this…. the flailing appendages… so fragile.
We can so easily tear ourselves up.
I’ve been in many of those positions…. and I feel it now when I get up.
Another song of theirs that won popular acclaim was ‘Please Don’t Let Me Be Understood’
A portion of it was on the soundtrack of the Tarantino film ‘Kill Bill’
Here’s the full sixteen minutes of that classic
The beat is fine, the tempo is upbeat (*you might say)
But the Flamenco guitar is what gives this its beauty, depth, and uniqueness.
As much as there are enjoyable instruments….
I can’t think of anything that can beat a guitar properly handled.
Just like music, film-making is an art.
There are many elements to film-making…. hardly anyone fully understands them all.
Most people in film know just their own little piece of the pie…
it is all so complex to get it done properly.
I suppose it is something like the art of painting…. it takes a good artist/craftsman to make the canvas, another set of disciplines make the paints… another the brushes…. then you have the artist who puts it all together, and still another to arrange the showing and eventual sale. But will the subject matter of the painting have an intrinsic value in itself? Something that people would really want to see… and pay to own?
In film, it is mostly technical skills with an artists’ mind to find the proper balance of elements in that particular skill…
Whether it be the story, properly written out into a screenplay, the audio, lighting, the camera, editing… scoring….. all very complex subjects, each one of which can take years to fully understand and properly bring together. To have a compelling story, properly brought to the screen so it is compelling to watch…. that is the true art of film.
Tarantino did a great job (along with his many technically oriented support people) in the film ‘Kill Bill’.
Here we can see a portion of it set to this great song…