Last night I watched Il Conformista for the fourth time. It’s a movie I never remember anything about… the second and third times I watched it, I didn’t even realize I had seen it before. This time I was at least intellectually aware that I had. Anyway…
In the scene where they all go dancing, and the women dance together… what is that dance hall? It is in Paris, it has tiny tables around the perimeter, and tall four-light windows fill up all the walls.
I am pretty sure it is the same place featured in The Tango Lesson, directed by Sally Potter. In the scene where she goes dancing with her instructor, and he sees his old partner, and dances with her.
IMDB lists a filming location for Il Conformista of the Gare d’Orsay, a former railway station/hotel. I haven’t seen either movie; is that it? Other movies filmed there include The Trial and The Destructors. Filming locations for The Tango Lesson are just Buenos Aires & Paris, with no specific locations listed.
It looks like that is the location used as the hotel, in Il Conformista. This dance hall is strange because it’s a quite small, but free-standing structure, and neither film shows much of the outside of it.
Here’s a screen shot from Il Conformista. Google isn’t coming up with a still from The Tango Lesson.
In the movie “Last Tango in Paris”,
Marlon Brando plays a 49 year old middle-age crazy
whose wife has just died. She was with her lover when
she died, and Brando was with a young ingenue. Near
the end of the story, Brando ends up in a dance hall
somewhat drunk. When a lady refuses a second Tango
with him, he moons her! The inference of this silliness is
that the moment is his last shot at being “young” and
irresponsible. IMHO this is the same dance hall you are talking
about.
