Carmen Jones: a Carmen la Afro-American

This study intends to examine the unconscious desires and the phantasmatic substratum lying at the core of two adaptations of Georges Bizet's Carmen: the musical Carmen Jones by Oscar Hammerstein II (1943) and Otto Preminger's film Carmen Jones (1954). After analysing the differences from the original story by Prosper Mrime and the changes operated by Bizet's librettists which led to the creation of the myth of Carmen, the study focuses on Hammerstein's own justification of his choice of the African-American community to replace the gypsy one. The close examination of Hammerstein's use of words then reveals the fantasy which produced the transference leading to the transformation of Carmen into Carmen Jones. By resorting to various psychoanalytical theories and concepts, it is made clear that Hammerstein's choice originated in some kind of projected fantasy. Otto Preminger's film adaptation of Hammerstein's musical bears the mark of the same fantasy and participates in the construction of a blackness which is but a white construct. This was even strengthened by the decision to dub the leading role by a white singer, obviously raising the problem of the unconscious nature of the voice.