From Dusk Till Dawn “Dance Scene” vs. Rammstein’s Engel Video

“Engel” (1997) was one of the first Rammstein videos I’ve watched. I was mesmerized by it. I particularly liked the woman’s dance with the snake and whiskey pouring part. I thought she was very very sexy. And the song was amazing.

The dancer is very expressive but unfortunately I couldn’t find her name. Update: Happily, someone pointed out that the dancer’s name is Cécile Dütsch (here is her Linkedin account). On Rammstein Belgium (best Rammstein fan page) I found a copy from what it looks to be a magazine:

Although no one knows the dancer’s name, we do know the female singer’s name. She is Christiane Bobolina Hebold. Although she doesn’t appear in the video, it seems that one time she did sing on stage with Rammstein (according to this guy, they sung together in Parkbühne Wuhlheide show in Berlin in 1998).

Anyhow, here is the amazing video with its amazing dance scene:

I like to think that the dancer represents the whore of Babilon dancing with the devil and baptizing poor Flake with the sinners’ water.

I thought this little “story” was a myth or something like this. Instead, the story itself was written by Robert Kurtzman for the movie From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). The screenplay was written by no other than Quentin Tarantino and the directing was made by Robert Rodriguez.

So, there is no myth about a whore of Babylon baptizing with whiskey lost souls, it’s a story made up by Tarantino and his friends. And guess who played the dance in the movie? – The extremely sexy Salma Hayek! And who is the subject of Salma’s baptise in this movie? Well, Tarantino, of course! 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvnL4dtqIY8

One year later, Rammstein deliberately took inspiration for their Engel video from this movie. They even state this in their Making of.

Now, if you’ve watched both videos, you can see there is great resemblance between them. The question is, who did it better?

I believe that Rammstein did it better. As much as I love Salma Hayek, I must say that the girl from Rammstein’s video was more suitable for the part. I think she is a professional dancer, she moves like a snake, like an alien, she even looks out of this world.

Salma is a little bit too “human” and “woman” for this part. She is sexier than the dancer from Rammstein’s video. The dancer is a little bit more androgynous, as she is above earthly things, making her more devilish. But, of course, Salma was the first one to do it and it is always a little bit easier to recreate something and avoid the mistakes than to be the first one to do something. Also, Salma has her classic charm and I am sure that some people will say that the original shooting is better than the second.

If you still haven’t seen Engel video or “From Dusk Till Dawn” movie, I highly recommend them both. The original idea is amazing, Salma was so good in the snake dance scene and Rammstein did the best cover this scene could possibly have.

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