French Bullfight
When I decided to move to France, bullfights never entered my mind. I had never thought of a French Bullfight. Did traditional Spanish events exist in the south of France?
Years ago, I attended a bullfight in Spain. It was the “thing to do” for a 20-something college kid visiting Barcelona. All I remember about it was that I bought a poster; I carried it around for years, and life went on.
Then, while living in France, I was invited to a bullfight in Nimes. Since that experience, visions of bulls, matadors, and swinging red capes swirled in my head until I did some research. For one thing, I had no idea bullfights were such a big deal in France. In Nimes, they draw quite a crowd. My first corrida was a full-fledged “Feria” in the ancient Roman arena.
French Bullfight: The Feria de Nimes
Feria des Nimes
Downtown Nimes was packed with people of all ages for the Feria de Nimes. White-topped tents with food and drink were set up around the arena as far as you could see. Music poured into the streets and alleys from every bar and café. Vendors selling matador capes and flamenco dresses lined up next to hawkers with tickets, t-shirts, and posters. The circus-like atmosphere was exhilarating.
Close to five o’clock in the afternoon, the raucous crowd around the cafes and drink stands started moving toward the arena.
Along with others, I filed into the spectator area of the “Plaza de Toros” to find my reserved seat. I cautiously climbed up the rough stone steps into the “bleachers” of the two-thousand-year-old coliseum and found my place. Better said, I found my “stone seat with backrest.” Fortunately, it was out of the blazing hot sun.
Once in my place, I noticed the people around me were quiet. Almost silent. The sounds of piped-in music filled the space that I had expected to be boisterous, like a pre-game football stadium.
In no time, my mind wandered off. My imagination kicked in. I was transported to another time, the same place.
French Bullfight
It was Roman days again, in this arena in Nimes, with onlookers gathered to see a gory contest of men against beasts.
When the band started playing and the pomp and ceremony of the paséillo began, it was as if the first act of an extravagant ballet had started to unfold before my eyes.
A dance with death. Put to music, with extravagant scenery. Skillfully orchestrated.
Dance with DeathFeria de Nimes
A Dance With Death
Act One: The “Suerte de Varas.”
Corridas have three acts. It’s been that way since early times. Hemingway calls Act One the “trail of the lances.”
The opening scene begins with a fighting bull on the stage. There are hundreds of unfamiliar sounds and objects around him. At first, he is dazed, and then he’s angry. He runs around the arena, butting his head into anything that gets in his path.
Two horses with riders come onto the stage (picadors.)
Picadors
The bull sees only one of the horses. He recognizes it as a target from his days in the wild.
Picador
The bull charges. His impact on the horse’s underside momentarily picks the horse off the ground. Until now, the bull hasn’t seen the rider on the horse. The picador, carrying a sharp-ended rod, stabs the bull between the shoulder blades. The bull, seemingly undaunted, pulls back and strikes the horse again.
The act is over when the “president” of the bullring — an official appointed by law to supervise the corrida—- signals the bugler to blow his horn.
The bull thinks he’s the winner. Everyone else has left the stage.
Act Two: “The Sentencing”
Act two features a troupe of fancy-dressed “banderilleros” who run the bull nearly breathlessly around the ring. Hemingway calls Act Two the “sentencing.” The dastardly banderilleros with flying darts appear in the scene only to taunt the injured bull. The fact they play an essential role in the drama of man vs. beast is not at first apparent.
Banderillero
Done well, Act Two is over quickly, without destroying the bravery and strength of the bull.
Banderillero is on the run.
Act Three: The “Moment of t=Truth.”
Act three is the “execution.” The Spanish call this act the “moment of truth.” It is performed in fifteen minutes. The curtain opens with the matador on center stage. Waving a red-capped muleta in his left hand, he waltzes around to show how artfully he dominates the bull. If the animal hooks from one side or another, the matador corrects his charge.
He makes the bull lower his head.
To kill the bull quickly, the matador must drive the sword between the bull’s shoulder blades. In doing so, the matador is in line with the bull’s horns. One wrong move can mean death.
With the muleta in their left hand and a sword in his right hand, the matador urges the bull forward. He strikes from the front, driving the sword in smoothly.
The bull dies.
Bulls often survive the strike of the sword. It takes a perfect hit by the matador to lay the huge creature dead. For a matador to kill a bull with one sword in the correct position, he is highly praised and rewarded.
Epilogue
The story of the “Dance with Death” is pretty simple. It is the story of a fighting bull and a matador who meet in a crowded arena and fight for glory and honor to the death. Through the story, actors with minor parts parade on stage with colorful fanfare.
For thirty minutes of the performance, the bull and the matador try to kill each other. The matador gets a lot of help from his friends. The bull, however, is nobody’s fool. He shows his innate ability to spar with each aggressor, self-protect, and prove what the Spanish call “his nobility.”
It seems, at times, the bull might win.
A twist in the story comes when the matador, seeing the bull in his full glory, realizes that he has fallen in love with the bull. But he must kill the bull.
The matador has fifteen minutes to decide between love and glory.
He brings the bull close to him for their last “dance with death. “He weighs his options: “kill my beloved” or “miss the final act of my masterpiece.”
The drama’s outcome is a mystery until the end of the last act.
The bravery of the bull is at the heart of the Corrida drama. The honor of the matador determines the outcome. There are no reruns and no second seasons with the cast. Like other art forms, truth and beauty are for the beholder.
French Bullfight Writer’s Note
Since the Feria de Nimes, I have attended twenty or more corridas in southern France. I’ve read Hemingway’s books and studied books and articles by experts who love bullfights and those who hate them. I’ve also done a lot of soul-searching.
I’m an animal lover. It’s not pleasant to see an animal killed in front of my eyes.
In my research, a statement by Orson Welles, a great American filmmaker and writer, helped me distinguish between the “animal-lover” part of my brain and the part that appreciates corridas.
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“Either you respect the integrity of the drama the bullring provides, or you don’t…. what you are interested in is the art whereby a man using no tricks reduces a raging bull to his dimensions, and this means that the relationship between the two must always be maintained and even highlighted.”
4 Responses
Nice article, I live in Barcelona and travel around Spain to go to Corridas & Concursos de Recortes. At the moment Im on my way to Nimes for a bullfight, my first outside of Spain.
Hope you have a great day!
Thank you! Hope you enjoy Nimes. There’s nothing quite like Feria season .. but sooo hot here. I might have to be satisfied with the photos. Best wishes and stay tuned!
This was …. Disappointing to say the least. An animal was forcibly removed from its herd, taken on a journey that most bulls usually lose significant weight from stress (up to 30kg) so they’re in a weakened state, and then tortured, terrified and desperate for a way out of a situation it never asked to be in, in front of thousands of sociopathic people … and instead of calling it animal abuse, you tried to twist into a “dance”, an “act”, a “show. It’s not a fight between two beings when only one consented to it.
And then to add your last insult, you claim to be an animal lover. Are you delusional? Or extremely emotionally unintelligent?
I’m genuinely shocked at how much you tried to twist such a horrible, cruel thing into an almost whimsical, powerful love story. You are enabling the torture of a young, petrified, vulnerable animal for people’s entertainment. This entire article was sickening to read, it was like a look inside your warped mind. Yuck.
Thank you for your comment. It is obvious that we have very different views on bullfighting, and I respect your right to hold yours.What I cannot accept is the suggestion that my article was written out of ignorance or that I somehow support cruelty to animals. After more than 40 years as a journalist, I have learned never to write about a controversial subject until I have seen it for myself and done the research. Before writing this piece, I made it a mission to learn as much as I could about bullfighting. I attended more than 20 professional bullfights throughout the south of France – from major arenas to small village corridas—so I could experience the tradition in different settings. My research also included studying numerous books and articles on the subject, among them Ernest Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon, a classic English-language work on bullfighting.
I didn’t stop at what happened in the ring. I stood behind the barriers and watched the dead bulls being removed and butchered. It was disturbing, but I believed it was important to understand the entire process before forming an opinion. One of the questions that experience raised for me was where we draw the ethical line. Many people condemn bullfighting while accepting the slaughter of animals for food. Others see those as very different issues. That is a legitimate debate, and reasonable people can reach different conclusions. After all of my research and firsthand observation, I came to understand why many people in southern France and Spain regard bullfighting as both a cultural tradition and an art form.
You are free to disagree with that conclusion, but it was reached through careful research and direct experience—not by romanticizing cruelty.
As for your statement that fighting bulls are deliberately weakened before entering the ring, that is not consistent with what I learned. Fighting-bull breeders spend years raising these animals, and their reputation depends on presenting strong, healthy bulls. Deliberately sending a weakened bull into the ring would serve neither the breeder nor the integrity of the spectacle.
I respect your right to oppose bullfighting. I only ask that the discussion focus on the subject itself rather than on personal insults. We may never agree, but respectful disagreement is far more productive than questioning another person’s motives or character.