Chapter 1 1. TANGO IN HOLLYWOOD I hear the echo of those tangos of Arolas and Greco danced upon the sidewalk, an instant distilled that remains without before, or hereafter, an anti-oblivion, having the taste of everything lost, and everything regained. jorge luis borges, "El tango," in El otro, el mismo (1969) In order to recognize a symbol by its sign observe how it is used with a sense. ludwig wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) The history of tango tangles with Hollywood. Tango on film is a chronicle of its own, lurid and strange, mixing dreams and deceptions. Often a tango augments a starRudolph Valentino, Marlon Brando, Madonna, Al Pacinonot for its sake but for theirs. And the accord with the tango is always with stereotype: sadness, sex, violence, and doom. This sounds ridiculous and was.

But thankfully, in the 1990s, with Adam Boucher's Tango, the Obsession (1998) and Carlos Saura's Tango, no me dejes nunca (Tango, Never Leave Me, 1998), truer versions have appeared on the screen. By then the authenticity of Claudio Segovia and Hector Orezzoli's stage extravaganza, Tango Argentino, had cleared the way for genuine footwork, sizzling like a Pollock on the floor. The trend toward the real article includes the conversion of a major star of film, Robert Duvall, who makes pilgrimages to Buenos Aires and frequents traditional dance halls. He takes lessons from masters like the late Lampazo, Danel and Maria Bastone of New York, and Juan Carlos Copes, the latter described by Duvall as a "Rolls-Royce without a speedometer." A Buenos Aires television special cuts to a dance floor where Duvall sits enthralled with his girlfriend, studying the moves. Early in 2000 Duvall danced tango for President Bill Clinton and the president of Argentina in the White Houseat the express request of the Argentine ambassador.On March 28, 2003, Duvall released his own tango film, Assassination Tango. It had cameo appearances by major tango dancers like Maria Nieves, Milena Plebs, Los Hermanos Macana, Pablo Veron, and Gerardo Portalea.

We've come a long way from Valentino. Valentino was the first man to tango on the screens of North America. His tango in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) is a celebrated sequence. Measured against Argentine barrio reality, his moves were a travesty, but his charm and self-confidence made people notice him. Rex Ingram, the director of Horsemen, tells us why: I was attracted at once by Valentino's face. It was obvious that he was the exact type for the young tango-hero of the story . Rehearsing the tango Rudy did so well I made up my mind to expand this phase of the story. I [used] a sequence in a Universal picture I had made years ago.

The sequence showed an adventurous youth going into a Bowery dive and taking the dancer, after he had floored her partner. I transposed this action to South America. The account is revealing: Ingram was not interested in tangohe just wanted to build up his star. Valentino was no stranger to tango. He had danced it at Bustanoby's Domino Room, on 39th and Broadway in Manhattan, around 1913. Mirrors around the room magnified his every action. There he learned the style of the "tango pirate"ostentatious dipping, holding tight, and above all bending the woman back, way back, building an image of conquest. Valentino was fluent in dips and bends, and that caught the eye of Rex Ingram.

Four Horsemen was the Titanic of its time. Like the Leonardo DiCaprio film, it had an Italianate lead, and a huge cast and budget. Not.