Since the invention of cinema, Tangier has played host to a large number of film shoots in its streets, squares and even on its rooftops. What's more, Tangier has been named in dozens of film titles for commercial reasons alone. After all, the image of this mythical city made it possible to carve out a place for itself among the hits of the silver screen.
From Hollywood productions to auteur films, the Pearl of the Strait has inspired filmmakers the world over.
This is the story of a cinematic dream called Tangier.
TANGER, A DREAM OF CINEMA
Ramadan morning. The city is frozen in torpor. Even more so in the Kasbah, which always wakes up (much) later than other districts. Today, however, it's unusually busy. Streets blocked off, dozens of trucks parked all around, policemen on duty and big shots in black suits and earpieces, kilometers of cables on the ground, crackling walkie-talkies and technicians installing tons of equipment.
The reason for this tohu bohu: James Bond is back in Tangier! 30 years after Timothy Dalton's Killing Is Not Playing, it's Daniel Craig who, in 2015, makes a stopover in the Moroccan city to film the adventures of the famous British spy. This 24th opus in the 007 saga is entitled The Spectre.
Several buildings in the historic area have been repainted, a pharmacy has been transformed into a café, and the Palais Akaboun where the Rolling Stones recorded Continental Drift becomes the Hotel l'Américain where the enigma unravels. Filming will last around ten days. However, for fans and other curious onlookers, it will be complicated to catch a glimpse of the film's stars. In fact, the production team has taken steps to avoid crowds that could disrupt the filming.
This was the case during the filming of Bourne Ultimatumin 2006. The cameramen and the film's director, Paul Greengrass, did their utmost to avoid intrusive onlookers or unruly extras, glaring at the camera and disrupting Matt Damon's chases through the streets of the Medina or in front of the famous Café de Paris.
American blockbusters aside, there have been a plethora of films shot in Tangier, from thrillers and nanars to the most poetic works. The mythical city inspires filmmakers. It has also inspired producers, since until the 1970s, many films attached Tangier to their titles for image reasons.
THE BEGINNINGS OF CINEMA
At the end of the 19th century, the Lumière brothers sent operators to film the world in search of exotic and extraordinary images. Tangier had the advantage of being close by. The Grand Socco would feature in one of these films, which the first Cinématographe viewers would watch in amazement. The young sultan Moulay Abdelaziz, an enthusiast of new Western technologies, was shown one of the films made by the Lyonnais industrialists. He became fascinated by photography and moving images.
Gabriel Veyre, who had worked with the Lumière brothers, was recruited by the sovereign. In his memoirs, Dans l'intimité du sultan, he recounts: " I was resting on the banks of the Rhône when I learned that they were looking for a man, an engineer capable of teaching the Sultan of Morocco first of all photography, which he had fallen in love with, and then to initiate him, if necessary, into the most recent modern discoveries: the latest developments in electricity, telephony and telegraphy combined, cinematograph and phonograph, the bicycle and even the automobile, if he so wished. Why shouldn't I? It was an excellent opportunity to see a new country, even more mysterious and closed than any I'd been to before. I applied. I was accepted. I left. It was the beginning of 1901".
Veyre lived in Morocco until his death at the age of 64, producing numerous photographic reports and documentaries on the country. And, of course, on Tangier, providing invaluable first-hand accounts of the city before its transition to international status.
CINEMA IN TANGER
Morocco's first pay-per-view cinema was opened in Tangier in 1905. Eight years later, the Tivoli Theatre, a wooden structure on the seafront, became the first cinema dedicated exclusively to the cinema. In 1929, the illustrious Cervantes Theatre showed the first talking film in Tangier.
Zarzuela, Capitol, Ciné-Americano, Dawliz, Flandria, Goya (built in the '40s), Ciné Lux, Mabrouk, Mauritania, Paris (founded in 1937), Rif (founded in 1948), Roxy (opened in 1950), Tarik and Vox are just some of the cinemas that went on to delight moviegoers. Each specialized in a particular genre.
This is what the great Moroccan filmmaker Moumen Smihi recounts in his childhood memories: " On the street leading up from Petit Socco, the doors of the Vox cinema opened, specializing in Egyptian productions. It was there that I saw the famous Oum Kkalsoum films. It was Hollywood à la mode égyptienne, in black and white, with beautiful images, sumptuous sets and costumes. In fact, the neighborhood was surrounded by several theaters. At the Cervantes, there were orgies of Spanish and South American films, often of Christian inspiration. The Crusades, the Inquisition and the crucifixion scene were all strangely familiar. At the Cervantes, I'd sit in the chicken coop. It was a small turn-of-the-century theater, with corbels, gold, red velvet, painted ceilings and all around the great names of world theater. The ciné-Americano, tucked away in the basement stairs of the tanneries, specialized in American films, especially Westerns, dubbed in Spanish. There, I saw John Ford's Fantastic Ride and Prisoner of the Desert".
The Alcazar still showed spaghetti westerns, the Rif other American productions and the Goya Spanish cinema only, while the Mauritania, Lux and Paris showed French films. Later, all these cinemas lost their specificity, showing mainly Egyptian and Lebanese films, then Bollywood productions and, in the 70s, karate films.
As elsewhere, the arrival of DVDs, piracy and streaming has led to the disappearance of almost all of the city's cinemas. The few surviving cinemas are withering away, allowing young people to flirt discreetly in the dark or others to smoke their joints in peace. During this hecatomb, only the Rif was able to revive, becoming, thanks to the enthusiastic madness of several people including the famous photographer Yto Barrada, a cinematheque offering quality and repertory films. The Alcazar and Le Mauritania, which have since been renovated, are boosting attendance. Of course, as elsewhere, the city is gradually being equipped with cinema complexes that compete with popcorn and blockbusters to attract customers...
CINEMA AND TANGER
It was under the impetus of Marshal Lyautey, during the French protectorate, that the first feature film, shot in Tangier, saw the light of day in 1919. Mektoub was directed by Jules Pinchon (famous for creating the character Bécassine) and Daniel Quintin. The film's cast was, surprisingly for the time, all Moroccan, with the exception of two theater actors from France, Mary Harald and Robert Bogaert.
Dozens of films about, in and around the city of international stature followed. The most famous actors and actresses of each era were featured in these productions: Charles Vanel, Harry Baur, Pierre Fresnay, Edwige Feuillère, Fernand Ledoux, Erich von Stroheim, Tony Curtis, Eddie Constantine, Joan Fontaine and Jack Palance, James Mason, Daniel Gélin, Bernard Giraudeau, Miguel Bosé, Jean Rochefort, Gérard Depardieu, Catherine Deneuve, and many more.
Likewise, some of the world's greatest directors drew inspiration from the sultry atmosphere to create atmospheres and characters that were out of the ordinary. Julien Duvivier, André Hunebelle, Bernard Borderie, Robert Parrish, Alexandre Arcady, Bernardo Bertolucci, David Cronenberg, André Téchiné, Manoel de Oliveira, Stephen Frears and Christopher Nolan will be among those to set down their cameras in Tenerife.
And, of course, Moroccan filmmakers such as Laïla Marrakchi and the funny and moving Rock the Casbah with Omar Sharif in his final role, Farida Belyazid who will be directing a magnificent Juanita de Tanger, Leila Kitani(Sur la planche) and, among others, Moumen Smihi with his beautiful El Chergui and Le Gosse de Tanger.
Tangier, Les Scorpions de Tanger, Los Misterios de Tanger, Mission à Tanger, The woman from Tangier, Le voleur de Tanger, Flight to Tangier, Guet-apens à Tanger, Thunder over Tangier, Duffy, le renard de Tanger: there's a whole string of French, Spanish, English or American films that, from the 1930s to the 1970s, attached this mythical name to their title.
At the time, the city's notoriety was worldwide. What most of these films have in common, particularly those shot before and after the Second World War, is the imaginary world that has developed around this international and sulphurous zone, a nest of spies, diplomats, smugglers, sailors and cabarets, but also a haven for men and women with ambiguous, even obscure personalities.
Most of these films were shot in the studio, such as André Hunnebelle's 1949 film Mission à Tanger(later directed by Fantomas), which marked the debut of Michel Audiard and Louis de Funès, and Bernard Borderie's La môme vert de gris, starring Dario Moreno and Eddie Constantine as FBI agent Lemmy Caution,
Other films include Manina, la fille sans voile, directed by Willy Rozier and starring Brigitte Bardot, the second film of her career, and Le Voleur de Tanger, with young Tony Curtis in the title role.
However, over 50 films have been shot here over the years.
Films d'auteur include Stephen Frears' Prick Up Your Ears in 1987, David Cronenberg's Le festin nu (adapted from the book by William Burroughs) in 1991, Bernardo Bertolucci's Un Thé au Sahara (1990) based on the book by Paul Bowles, with Debra Winger and John Malkovitch, Alexandre Arcady's Dernier été à Tanger (1987) with Roger Hanin and Thierry Lhermitte, Gael Morel's Prendre le large (2017) with Sandrine Bonnaire and Jim Jarmush's superbly poetic Only lovers left alive.
There will also be American blockbusters such as The Lion and the Wind (1975) with Sean Connery and Candice Bergen, Legionnaire (1998) with Jean-Claude Van Damme, La Vengeance dans la peau (2007) with Matt Damon as Jason Bourne or Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010) with Leonardo di Caprio and Ellen Page, as well as the two 007s, To Kill is Not to Play (1987) with Timothy Dalton and The Spectre with Daniel Craig and Monica Belucci in 2015.
Bolywood was not to be outdone with Agent Vinod (2012), a shimmering, agitated spy film with a sing-song feel.
Tangier has always given rise to many fantasies. Those evoked by the writer Jean Genet, in Le Journal du voleur (The Thief's Diary), who imagined it before he knew it as " a sort of gambling den where gamblers haggle over the secret plans of all the armies in the world ". It has also been a source of inspiration for the cinema. And provoked dreams.
Like those told by André Téchiné. The great French filmmaker will shoot twice in the northern town(Loin with Stéphane Rideau, Lubna Azabal and Gael Morel, in 2001, and Les Temps qui changent with Gérard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve in 2004).
In an interview, he sheds light on Tangier's century-long relationship with the 7th art: "Over the years, I've had the opportunity to make brief visits here, and I've been fascinated by this cosmopolitan village that is both the East of the West and the West of the East. It's a very heterogeneous site, and that's all the more striking because it's so small. Countryside, mountains, city and sea are all juxtaposed without any sense of continuity. The same goes for the communities that live here and the languages spoken: English, Spanish, Moroccan and French. All this creates a climate of movement, movement and mystery, allowing all kinds of people to cross paths... Tangier seemed to me to be a dream city for cinema. Maybe I made this film to check out the consistency of my dream, to see if Iwas right."
