Bianca Castafiore - The Opera Diva from the Tintin Comic Adventures

Bianca Castafiore first appears in the King Ottokar's Sceptre and was to make an appearance in several of the Adventures of Tintin albums written and illustrated by Herge. Bianca Castafiore character is a Milanese opera singer and her disposition is definitely one of an opera diva.

Herge the creator of Tintin was not a big fan of opera and the creation of Bianca Castafiore was considered by many to be an acknowledgment of that fact.

Castafiore is presented as being one of the leading lights in of opera of her generation but in all her appearances in the albums is only heard to sing a couple of lines form The Jewel Song (l' air des bijoux) from Faust and then only at deafening volumes "Ah my beauty past compare, these jewels bright I wear!...Was I ever Margarita? Is it I? Come reply...Mirror mirror tell me truly!" It was fair to say that Castafiore was not universally liked by all of the Tintin gang.

Captain Haddock in particular isn't a big Castafiore fan and at one point she even calls him a "scruffy little school boy". She shows a maternal instinct for Haddock which he truly hates and when he is later linked romantically to Bianca Castafiore by a newspaper reporter he is revealed by Herge as a very unhappy character indeed.

Captain Haddock's is further annoyed by the fact that the signora can never get his name right (see the end of the post for details) and when she ever shows signs of affection for Captain through gifts the results are always calamitous.

Bianca Castafiore (her name means "chaste flower") ends up captured along with her entourage (her maid Irma, her musician Igor Wagner and the detectives Thompson and Thompson) in the album Tintin and the Picaros by General Tapioca on the advice of Colonel Sponsz. The general and colonel's aim being to lure Captain Haddock, Tintin and Professor Calculus to San Theodoros where they are then accused of conspiring with Castafiore to assassinate and overthrow General Tapioca. Then however through an unseen chain of events General Tapioca is overthrown with the help of the accused.

This doesn't help Castafiore as she is unfortunately still imprisoned and is seen to complain of over cooked pasta. Bianca Castafiore is one of the best loved characters in the Tintin adventure comics and it will be very interesting to see which lucky actress will get to play her in the upcoming Tintin movie to be directed by Spielberg and Jackson.

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Spielberg And Jackson Find Their Captain Haddock For Tintin Movie

Peter Jackson who is to direct one of the Tintin movies (three movies r planned) has found his Captain Haddock or so the Hollywood rumour mill suggests. Anyone who s familiar with Peter Jackson's work will be familiar with the name Andy Serkis as they worked together during the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.

The Tintin movie is going to have a similar look to the character Gollum from Lord of the Rings with Peter Jackson using his valuable technological expertise. Jackson along with his partners as the Weta Workshop will use technology developed for Lord of the Rings. The character Gollum was created by Weta using motion capture techniques on actor Andy Serkis then using key frame animation and subsurface scattering rendering techniques enabled the first completely convincing portrayal of an animated humanoid in a feature film. This technology will bring a realistic portrayal of Tintin to the big screen.

Jackson said "We are making the character look photorealistic,the fibres of their clothing, the pores of their skin and each individual hair. It is possible that the work, certainly the first one will start next year".

Andy Serkis was first seen in a little known TV serial Streetwise in 1989 going on to work in more British TV appearing in small parts in such well known TV series such as The Bill and Darling Buds of May (Which introduced Catherine Zeta Jones to the world). His first film appearance came in a forgotten but worthwhile retelling of Hamlet called The Prince of Jutland.

Andy Serkis has gone on to appear in over 50 production on both TV and in film having just finished his last movie which he himself directed called Freezing Time which is in post production and is an account of Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904), pioneering photographer, technologist, self-confessed murderer and founding "Godfather" of cinema and is scheduled for release in 2009.

Andy Serkis also appeared in King Kong that was also directed by Jackson so the rumour has definite appeal. The Tintin movie is scheduled for release in 2009 and will be one of the biggest movies of that year. Tintin although not well known in America as he was introduced to the world just a few months after Mickey Mouse who instantly captured the hearts of the Americans has a very big fan base in Europe.

In France it is claimed that 6 in 10 household own at least one Tintn album. The cult of Tintin is growing with China now selling at least 600,00 Tintin albums a year. There is defiantly a worldwide audience that is ready for the Tintin movie.

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The way that movies are made today is so much different than yester years. Kids today barely even know what a black and white movie is. If you ask my grand daughter, who is six, she would tell you that they are also grey. I ask her what she meant and she explained to me that those old movies were also grey. An amazing observation, why were they not ever called black, white, and grey movies?

The movie making special effects combined with all the computerized and digital technologies that is used to make them now is wonderful. It is easy to understand why kids might think watching the old classics a little boring. The new visual effects are so mesmerizing, but when you are watching a grand old classic like The Grapes of Wrath, is it any better or is it just different?

It is very important that young people do not miss seeing some of the great black, white, and grey films of the past. There is so much to be learned from some of them. Movies like To Kill a Mockingbird depicts an era gone by and the innocence of kids in that time. The Wizard of OZ is one of the greatest films ever made for kids and it is great in the color version, but many older people prefer the original black, white, and grey version.

The next time you have a Saturday or Sunday afternoon free, try to get your kids to sit down and watch whatever classic black and white film that might be on television. You will probably not have to worry about inappropriate language or content, and perhaps you can introduce them to an era of film making that no one should miss being exposed to.

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