IN CARMEN JONES (1954) Otto Preminger transferred the plot of Georges Bizet's opera Carmen from Spain to the United States of the 1950s, while Oscar Hammerstein adapted the music. Joe, a young black army officer replaces Don José, Cindy-Lou is Micaëla, Haskey, the boxer, replaces the toreador, and the boxingring replaces the corrida. Carmen Jones, who works in an army canteen, is none other than the Carmen of Prosper Mérimée and Bizet. Another variation, Jean- Luc Godard's PRÉNOM CARMEN (1983), revolves around a Carmen who robs a bank in order to finance a film production for her uncle, Jean, a former director and her guardian. Joseph, her partner in crime, is Don José, while Dennis, the script-writer and Joseph's rival for Carmen's heart, has been substituted for the toreador in the story. Claire, the musician, is the other woman in this Carmen/ Joseph triangle.

As manifest versions of Carmen, these two films exhibit different transformations of plot, character and location. In what sense, then, can we conclude, along with Jeremy Tambling (1987: 27), that “there is no Carmen or Carmen: there are simply re-surfacings of a similar situation where the names encourage a false sense of continuity”? I will argue that the logic of multiple cinematic versions resides, first of all, in the special features of the text that are repeated and, secondly, in the dynamic between the constant and variable elements. The question that remains, however, is: how do we see a constant given a variable (to paraphrase Hofstadter (1985b [1982])), and by the same token, how do we perceive variability given constancy?

Ever since the publication of Prosper Mérimée's novella in 1845, and the production of Georges Bizet's opera in 1875, Carmen has had a lasting presence in opera, theater and dance, as well as in dozens of films, and even, recently, in computer games. By repeating the story again and again – either à la Mérimée or à la Bizet or, as in most versions, as a variation of the two – culture has kept the myth circulating in society's bloodstream, signaling its continued relevance.