Pedro Almodóvar
Encyclopedia
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero (ˈpeðɾo almoˈðoβar kaβaˈʎeɾo; born 25 September 1949) is a Spanish film director
, screenwriter
and producer
.
Almodóvar is arguably the most successful and internationally known Spanish
filmmaker of his generation. His films, marked by complex narratives, employ the codes of melodrama
and use elements of pop culture, popular songs, irreverent humor, strong colors, glossy décor and LGBT
themes. Desire, passion, family and identity are among Almodóvar’s most prevalent themes. His films enjoy a worldwide following and he has become a major figure on the stage of world cinema.
He founded Spanish film production company El Deseo S.A.
with his younger brother Agustín Almodóvar
who has produced almost all of Pedro’s films. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
in 2001.
, Spain
, a rural small town of Ciudad Real
, a province of Castile-La Mancha
in the administrative district of Almagro
. La Mancha
is the windswept region of flat lands made famous by Don Quijote. He was born as one of four children (two boys, two girls) in a large and impoverished family of peasant stock. His father, Antonio Almodóvar, who could barely read or write, worked most of his life hauling barrels of wine by mule. Almodóvar's mother, Francisca Caballero, turned her son into a part time teacher of literacy in the village and also a letter reader and transcriber for the neighbors. When Pedro was eight years old, the family sent him to study at a religious boarding school in the city of Cáceres
, Extremadura
, in the west of the country, with the hope that he might someday become a priest. His family eventually joined him in Cáceres
, where his father opened a gas station and his mother opened a bodega
where she sold her own wine.
While Calzada did not have a cinema, the streets where he lived in Cáceres contained not only the school, but also a movie theater. “Cinema became my real education, much more than the one I received from the priest,” he said later in an interview.
Almodóvar was influenced by such directors as Luis Buñuel
, Rainer Werner Fassbinder
, Alfred Hitchcock
, John Waters
, Ingmar Bergman
, Edgar Neville
, Federico Fellini
, George Cukor
, Luis García Berlanga and neorealist Marco Ferreri.
Against his parents' wishes, Pedro Almodóvar moved to Madrid
in 1967. His goal was to be a film director, but he lacked the economic means to do it and besides, Franco
had just closed the National School of Cinema so he would be completely self-taught. To support himself, Almodóvar worked a number of odd jobs, including a stint selling used items in the famous Madrid flea market El Rastro
. He eventually found full-time employment with Spain's national phone company, Telefónica
, where he worked for twelve years as an administrative assistant. Since he worked only until three in the afternoon, he had the rest of the day to pursue his own interests.
. He was also writing comics and contributing articles and stories to a number of counterculture
magazines, such as Star, Víbora and Vibraciones.
Madrid’s flourishing alternative cultural scene became the perfect scenario for Almodóvar's social talents. He was a crucial figure in La Movida Madrileña
(Madriliene Movement), a cultural renaissance that followed the fall of the Franco
regime. Alongside Fabio McNamara, Almodóvar sang in a glam rock
parody duo. He published a novella, Fuego en las entrañas (Fire in the Guts). Writing under the pseudonym "Patty Diphusa", he penned various articles for major newspapers and magazines, such as El País, Diario 16
and La Luna
. He kept writing stories that were eventually published in a compilation volume, El sueño de la razón (The Dream of Reason).
's night circuit and in Barcelona
. These shorts had overtly sexual narratives and no soundtrack: Dos putas, o, Historia de amor que termina en boda (1974) (Two Whores, or, A Love Story that Ends in Marriage); La caída de Sodoma (1975)
(The Fall of Sodom); Homenaje (1976)
(Homage); La estrella (1977)
(The Star) 1977 Sexo Va: Sexo viene (Sex Comes and Goes) (Super-8); Complementos (shorts) 1978; (16mm).
“I showed them in bars, at parties… I could not add a soundtrack because it was very difficult. The magnetic strip was very poor, very thin. I remember that I became very famous in Madrid because, as the films had no sound, I took a cassette with music while I personally did the voices of all the characters, songs and dialogues. After four years of working with shorts in Super-8 format, in 1978 Almodóvar made his first Super-8, full-length film: Folle, folle, fólleme, Tim (1978) (Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Tim), a magazine style melodrama. In addition, he made his first 16 mm short, Salome. This was his first contact with the professional world of cinema. The film's stars, Carmen Maura
and Felix Rotaeta, encouraged him to make his first feature film in 16 mm and helped him raise the money to finance what would be Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón
.
Asked to explain the success of his films, he says that they are very entertaining. "It's important not to forget that films are made to entertain. That's the key." He was heavily influenced by old Hollywood movies in which everything happens around a female main character, and aims to continue in that tradition.
Almodóvar is openly gay, and he has incorporated elements of underground and gay culture into mainstream forms with wide crossover appeal, thus redefining perceptions of Spanish cinema and Spain.
d her; Luci, a mousy, masochistic housewife; and Bom, a lesbian
punk rock
singer. The central theme of the film, friendship and female solidarity, appears repeatedly in Almodóvar’s filmography.
The film was plagued by financial and technical problems. However, Almodóvar would look back fondly to his first film: "Pepi, Luci, Bom… is a film full of defects. When a film has only one or two, it is considered an imperfect film, while when there is a profusion of technical flaws, it is called style. That’s what I said joking around when I was promoting the film, but I believe that that was closer to the truth.
The film captured the spirit of the times – above all the sense of cultural and sexual freedom – and established Almodóvar as an agent provocateur
. With its many kitsch
elements, campy
style, outrageous humor, and explicit sexuality (there is a famous golden shower
scene in the middle of a knitting lesson), the film amassed a cult following
. It toured the independent circuits and then spent four years on the late night showing of the Alphaville Theater in Madrid
which provided the funds for Almodóvar's second film.
about multiple identities, one of Almodóvar’s favorite subjects. The plot follows the adventures of two sex-crazy characters: Sexilia, an aptly named nymphomaniac pop star, and Riza, the gay
son of the leader of a fictional Middle East
ern country. Their unlikely destiny is to find one another, overcome their sexual preferences and live happily ever after on a tropical island. The campy roundelay also involves Queti, Sexilia’s “biggest fan”, whose delusional father rapes her. The film is an outrageous look at love and sex, framed in Madrid
of the early 1980s, during the so called Movida madrileña, a period of sexual adventurousness between the dissolution of Franco's authoritarian regime and the onset of AIDS
consciousness. Labyrinth of Passions caught the spirit of liberation which then ruled in Madrid and it became a cult film.
Almodóvar said about Labyrinth of Passions: "I like the film even if it could have been better made. The main problem is that the story of the two leads is much less interesting than the stories of all the secondary characters. But precisely because there are so many secondary characters, there's a lot in the film I like."
with comic elements. This film has an almost all-female cast featuring many of Almodóvar's favorite leading ladies: Carmen Maura, Julieta Serrano
, Marisa Paredes
and Chus Lampreave
. The narrative centers upon a cabaret singer, who, running away from justice, finds refuge in a convent of destitute nuns, each of whom explores a different sin. The mother superior, a lesbian drug addict, falls in love with the singer.
The film is a satire
of Spain's religious institutions, portraying spiritual desolation and moral bankruptcy
. Dark Habits explores the force of desire in characters who are ruled by their intuition rather than reason. This is also Almodóvar’s first film in which he clearly uses popular music to express emotion: in a pivotal scene, the mother superior and her protégé sing along with Lucho Gatica
’s bolero
: Encadenados (Chained together).
Dark Habits was a modest success, and cemented Almodóvar’s reputation as the enfant terrible of the Spanish cinema.
of the late 50s and early 60s. It is the tale of a struggling housewife named Gloria and her dysfunctional family
: her abusive husband
, who works as a taxi driver; her oldest son, a cocaine dealer; the youngest son, who sells his body to the local perverts; and the grandmother who hates the city and just wants to return to her rural village.
The theme of the downtrodden housewife coping with the travails of everyday life arises repeatedly in the director's work, as do other issues of female independence and solidarity. What Have I Done to Deserve This? is also a critique on consumerism and patriarchal
culture. In one scene, the housewife trades her own son so she doesn't have to pay a dentist bill, and in another the only witness of a crime is a lizard, aptly named “Money.”
What Have I Done to Deserve This? was more successful than Almodóvar’s previous films and became his first with international distribution.
is a dark, complex story that centers on the relationship between a former bullfighter and a murderous female lawyer, both of whom can only experience sexual fulfillment in conjunction with killing. The film offered up desire as a bridge between sexual attraction and death.
Written together with Spanish novelist Jesús Ferrero
, Matador drew away from the naturalism
and humor of the director’s previous work into a deeper and darker terrain. Almodóvar established the interrelation between sexuality and violence as seen in his cinematographic quotation of the final sequence from King Vidor
’s Duel in the Sun. The violent elements of the film caused some controversy. Almodóvar justified his use of violence explaining "The moral of all my films is to get to a stage of greater freedom." Almodóvar went on to note, "I have my own morality. And so do my films. If you see Matador through the perspective of traditional morality, it's a dangerous film because it's just a celebration of killing. Matador is like a legend. I don't try to be realistic; it's very abstract, so you don't feel identification with the things that are happening, but with the sensibility of this kind of romanticism".
, together with his brother Agustín Almodóvar
, who has also had several cameo roles in his films. From 1986 on, Pedro Almodóvar has produced his own films.
The first movie that came out from El Deseo was the aptly named Law of Desire (La Ley del Deseo). The narrative follows three main characters: a gay film director who embarks on a new project; his sister, an actress who used to be his brother (played by Carmen Maura), and a repressed murderously obsessive stalker (played by Antonio Banderas
).
The film presents a gay love triangle and drew away from most representations of homosexuals in films. These characters are neither coming out nor confronting sexual guilt or homophobia; they are already liberated, like the homosexuals in Fassbinder’s films. Almodóvar said about Law of Desire : " It's the key film in my life and career. It deals with my vision of desire, something that's both very hard and very human. By this I mean the absolute necessity of being desired and the fact that in the interplay of desires it's rare that two desires meet and correspond".
Almodóvar's films rely heavily on the capacity of his actors to pull through difficult roles into a complex narrative. In Law of Desire Carmen Maura
plays the role of Tina, a woman who used to be a man. Almodóvar explains: "Carmen is required to imitate a woman, to savour the imitation, to be conscious of the kitsch part that there is in the imitation, completely renouncing parody, but not humour."
Elements from Law of Desire grew into the basis for two later films: Carmen Maura
appears in a stage production of Cocteau’s The Human Voice
, which inspired Almodóvar’s next film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown; and Tina's confrontation scene with an abusive priest formed a partial genesis for Bad Education
.
(Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios), a feminist light comedy that further established Almodóvar as a "women's director" like George Cukor
and Rainer Werner Fassbinder
. Almodóvar has said that women make better characters: “women are more spectacular as dramatic subjects, they have a greater range of registers, etc.”
The film, staged as a faux adaptation of a theatrical work, details a two-day period in the life of Pepa, (Carmen Maura
) a professional movie dubber who has been abruptly abandoned by her married lover and who frantically tries to track him down. In the course of her search she discovers some of his secrets, and realizes her true feelings.
Inspired by Hollywood comedies of the 1950s, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown became the stepping stone for Pedro Almodóvar's later work. This light comedy of rapid-fire dialogue and fast-paced action remains one of Almodóvar’s most accessible films (with no drugs or sex, although there is a sequence in which a sleeping woman dreams that she is having sex, and we see only her reactions). The film received public and critical acclaim worldwide, and brought Almodóvar to the attention of American audiences. Women was showered with many awards, and received an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film.
, and the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with another great actress of Spanish and European cinema: Victoria Abril
. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
(¡Átame!) was also the director's fifth and most important collaboration with Antonio Banderas.
In Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Ricky (played by Antonio Banderas
), a recently released psychiatric patient, kidnaps and holds hostage an actress (played by Victoria Abril
) in order to make her fall in love with him. “I’m 23 years old, I have fifty thousand pesetas and I am alone in the world. I will try to be a good husband for you and a good father for your children,” he tells her.
Rather than populate the film with many characters, as in his previous films, here the story focuses on the compelling relationship at its center: the actress and her kidnapper literally struggling for power and desperate for love. The film’s title line ¡Tie Me Up! is unexpectedly uttered by the actress as a genuine request. She does not know if she will try to escape or not, and when she realizes she has feelings for her captor, she prefers not to be given a chance.
In spite of some dark elements, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! can be described as a romantic comedy, and the director's most clear love story, with a plot similar to William Wyler
's thriller, The Collector
. Nevertheless, the film was the subject of heated debate; it was decried by feminists and women's advocacy groups for what they perceived as the film's sadomasochist undertones. Its U.S. release was marked by further scandal and controversy. The Motion Picture Association of America
(MPAA), which determines film ratings in the U.S., marginalized its distribution with the stigma of an 'X' rating. The film's distribution company, Miramax, filed a lawsuit against the MPAA over the X rating, but lost in court. However, numerous other filmmakers had complained about the X rating given to their films, and in September 1990 the MPAA dropped the X rating and replaced it with the NC-17 rating. This was especially helpful to films of explicit nature that were previously regarded unfairly as pornographic because of the X rating.
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, which did not enjoy the wide acclaim of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, rather had a negative reception among some Spanish critics, who declared that Almodóvar had lost his sense of direction; similar criticism was leveled at his two subsequent films.
The film has the feel of other mother-daughter melodramas like Stella Dallas
, Mildred Pierce
, Imitation of Life
and particularly Autumn Sonata
, which is quoted directly in the film. High Heels was an interpretative tour de force for two essential actresses of the "Almodovarian universe": Marisa Paredes
and Victoria Abril
.
, a choral film where each character belongs to a different film genre, thus generating a very free and heterodox movie. The plot centers on Kika, a clueless but good-hearted make-up artist involved with an older expatriate American writer and his bewildered stepson. A vampy, oddball television reporter who is constantly in search of sensational stories follows Kika's misadventures.
Kika is a critique of mass media
, particularly its sensationalism. Here Almodóvar gives a cameo role to his real life elderly mother, Francisca Caballero, who plays an ill-qualified hostess of a literary T.V. program. She reads badly and not much as her eyesight is bad, but she explains to the audience that she has been given her job as presenter by her son, the director (a self-reflexive Almodóvar), so that mother and son can spend time together.
Kika created a certain amount of controversy in the United States
thanks to a humorous rape scene that was perceived as being both misogynistic and exploitative. The film was not well received by critics, but opened the door to a new era in the director’s career.
to avoid her, Leo fights to hold on to a past that has already eluded her, not realizing she has already set her future path by her own creativity and by supporting the creative efforts of others.
Starring Almodóvar regular Marisa Paredes
, this psychological drama was hailed as his most mature film to date, and remains one of the director's humblest films. Leaving Almodóvar's usual choral exercises aside, the story centered on the love-torn writer. The Flower of My Secret has many common elements with All About My Mother
and Talk to Her
. The three films are about “loss, growth and recovery”.
The Flower of my Secret heralded a change in Almodóvar's filmography to a more mature period. It is the transitional film between his earlier and later style. It is worth noting, however, that many leading critics did not respond well to this film.
’s novel Live Flesh
. All that remains in the film from the book is the plot line of the two male protagonists: David, a police detective, and Víctor, the man accused of wounding and paralyzing him. Upon his release, Víctor, looking for revenge, is soon entangled in the lives not only of David and his wife, but also of David’s former partner, Sancho, and Sancho’s wife.
Live Flesh explores love, loss, and suffering with a sober restraint only briefly glimpsed in the director's earlier work. The film tells the story of several characters implicated in each other's fates in ways that are beyond their control. Live Flesh is historically framed from 1970, when Franco declared a state of emergency
, to 1996, when Spain
had completely shaken off the restrictions of the Franco regime. With this film Almodóvar started his collaboration with Penélope Cruz
.
(Todo sobre mi madre). The film grew out of a brief scene in The Flower of My Secret, telling the story of a mourning mother who, after reading the last entry in her dead son's journal about how he wishes to meet his father for the first time, decides to travel to Barcelona
in search of the boy's father. She must tell the father that she had their son after she left him many years ago, and that he has now died. Once there, she encounters a number of odd characters - a transvestite prostitute, a pregnant nun, and a lesbian
actress - all of whom help her cope with her grief.
The film revisited Almodóvar's familiar themes of the power of sisterhood and of family. Dedicated to Bette Davis
, Romy Schneider
and Gena Rowlands
, All About My Mother is steeped in theatricality, from its backstage setting to its plot, modeled on the works of Federico Garcia Lorca
and Tennessee Williams
, to the characters' preoccupation with modes of performance.
The comic relief
on the film centers on Agrado, a pre-operative transsexual. In one scene, she tells the story of her body and its relationship to plastic surgery
and silicone
, culminating with a statement of her own philosophy: “The more you become like what you have dreamed for yourself, the more authentic you are”.
All About My Mother received more awards and honors than any other film in the Spanish motion picture industry. Its recognition includes an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a Golden Globe in the same category, Best Director Award
and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
Award at Cannes
; the French Cesar for Best Foreign Film, the Goya Award as best film of the year, best Actress in a Leading Role for Argentine actress Cecilia Roth and a twelfth Annual European Film Award.
(Hable con ella). The film revolves around two men who become friends while taking care of the coma
tose women they love. Their lives flow in all directions, past, present and future, pulling them towards an unsuspected destiny. Combining elements of modern dance and silent filmmaking with a narrative that embraces coincidence and fate, Almodóvar plots the lives of his characters, thrown together by unimaginably bad luck, towards an unexpected conclusion.
The film was hailed by critics and embraced by arthouse audiences. Almodóvar won numerous honors across the world for his film, including a French César for Best Film and an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
(La mala educación), a richly baroque tale of child sexual abuse
and mixed identities. Two children, Ignacio and Enrique, discover love, cinema and fear in a religious school at the start of the 1960s. Father Manolo, the school principal and their literature teacher, is witness to and part of these discoveries. The three characters meet twice again, at the end of the 1970s and in the 1980s, or so it seems.
Bad Education
has a complex structure that not only uses film within a film, but also stories than open up into other stories, real and imagined to narrate the same story: A tale of child molestation and its aftermath of faithlessness, creativity, despair, blackmail and murder.
Almodóvar used elements of film noir
, borrowing in particular from Double Indemnity. The film's protagonist, Juan (Gael Garcia Bernal), was modeled largely on Patricia Highsmith
’s most famous character, Tom Ripley, as played by Alain Delon
in René Clément's Purple Noon. A criminal without scruples, but with an adorable face that betrays nothing of his true nature. Almodóvar explains : "He also represents a classic film noir character - the femme fatale. Which means that when other characters come into contact with him, he embodies fate, in the most tragic and noir sense of the word."
(Return), a mixture of comedy, family drama and ghost story, is set in part in La Mancha
(the director's native region). The film opens showing dozens of women furiously scrubbing the graves of their deceased, establishing the influence of the dead over the living as a key theme. The plot follows the story of three generations of women in the same family who survive wind, fire, and even death. The film is an ode to female resilience
, where men are literally disposable.
Many of Almodóvar's stylistic hallmarks are present: the stand-alone song (a rendition of the Argentinian tango
song "Volver"), references to reality TV, and an homage to classic film (in this case Luchino Visconti
's Bellissima).
Volver started as a story of la España negra, or 'black Spain'--the rural, superstitious and conservative
part of the country still often associated, the director says, with violence, tragedy, even backwardness: "It looks like they are living a century before. But I tried to demonstrate that the same Spain, in the same local places with the same local characters, could be called 'white Spain', because the neighbors are in complete solidarity, all the women join together and create a kind of family. The movie really talks about women who survive, women who fight fiercely.
The storyline of Volver appears as both a novel and movie script in Almodóvar's earlier film, The Flower of My Secret.
The film reunited Almodóvar with Carmen Maura, who had appeared in several of his early films.
on 18 March 2009, is the director’s longest and most expensive feature. The plot follows the tragic fate of a former film director, who was blinded in a car accident fourteen years before. The film has a fractured puzzling structure, mixing past and present and film within a film that Almodóvar explored previously in both Talk to Her
and Bad Education
. Broken Embraces is built up as homage to the craft of film making and takes some cues from Roberto Rossellini
’s Journey to Italy
and Almodóvar’s own Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
.
for the male lead role in his thriller film The Skin I Live In
. The film was first published as a novel in France as Mygale
(Editions Gallimard
, 1995), and then published in the US in 2003 by City Lights
. It was also published in the UK as Tarantula in 2005 (Serpent's Tail
). Filming started on 23 August and lasted 11 weeks. It premiered in Competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival
.
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
, screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
and producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
.
Almodóvar is arguably the most successful and internationally known Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
filmmaker of his generation. His films, marked by complex narratives, employ the codes of melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
and use elements of pop culture, popular songs, irreverent humor, strong colors, glossy décor and LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
themes. Desire, passion, family and identity are among Almodóvar’s most prevalent themes. His films enjoy a worldwide following and he has become a major figure on the stage of world cinema.
He founded Spanish film production company El Deseo S.A.
El Deseo
El Deseo is film production company owned by Spanish film producers the Almodóvar brothers . Films produced by the company include All About My Mother, Talk to Her, My Life Without Me, Bad Education, Volver, Broken Embraces and The Skin I Live In.- External links :* Film production company owned...
with his younger brother Agustín Almodóvar
Agustín Almodóvar
Agustín Almodóvar Caballero is a film producer and younger brother of filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar.He was born in Calzada de Calatrava and obtained a degree in chemistry from the Complutense University of Madrid....
who has produced almost all of Pedro’s films. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
in 2001.
Early life
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero was born in Calzada de CalatravaCalzada de Calatrava
Calzada de Calatrava is a municipality in Ciudad Real, Castile-La Mancha, Spain. It has a population of 4,568. Pedro Almodóvar is a native of the area....
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, a rural small town of Ciudad Real
Ciudad Real
Ciudad Real is a city in Castile-La Mancha, Spain, with a population of c. 74,000. It is the capital of the province of Ciudad Real. It has a stop on the AVE high-speed rail line and has begun to grow as a long-distance commuter suburb of Madrid, located 115 miles to the north. A high capacity...
, a province of Castile-La Mancha
Castile-La Mancha
Castile-La Mancha is an autonomous community of Spain. Castile-La Mancha is bordered by Castile and León, Madrid, Aragon, Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia, and Extremadura. It is one of the most sparsely populated of Spain's autonomous communities...
in the administrative district of Almagro
Almagro
Almagro may refer to:*Diego de Almagro , Spanish explorer*Diego Almagro II , assassin of Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro*Nicolás Almagro , Spanish tennis player*Almagro, Buenos Aires...
. La Mancha
La Mancha
La Mancha is a natural and historical region or greater comarca located on an arid, fertile, elevated plateau of central Spain, south of Madrid, stretching between the Montes de Toledo and the western spurs of the Serrania de Cuenca. It is bounded on the south by the Sierra Morena and on the north...
is the windswept region of flat lands made famous by Don Quijote. He was born as one of four children (two boys, two girls) in a large and impoverished family of peasant stock. His father, Antonio Almodóvar, who could barely read or write, worked most of his life hauling barrels of wine by mule. Almodóvar's mother, Francisca Caballero, turned her son into a part time teacher of literacy in the village and also a letter reader and transcriber for the neighbors. When Pedro was eight years old, the family sent him to study at a religious boarding school in the city of Cáceres
Cáceres, Spain
Cáceres is the capital of the same name province, in the autonomous community of Extremadura, Spain. , its population was 91,131 inhabitants. The municipio has a land area of 1,750.33 km², and is the largest in geographical extension in Spain....
, Extremadura
Extremadura
Extremadura is an autonomous community of western Spain whose capital city is Mérida. Its component provinces are Cáceres and Badajoz. It is bordered by Portugal to the west...
, in the west of the country, with the hope that he might someday become a priest. His family eventually joined him in Cáceres
Cáceres, Spain
Cáceres is the capital of the same name province, in the autonomous community of Extremadura, Spain. , its population was 91,131 inhabitants. The municipio has a land area of 1,750.33 km², and is the largest in geographical extension in Spain....
, where his father opened a gas station and his mother opened a bodega
Bodega
Bodega is a Spanish word that may refer to:* a winery, wine cellar or wine bar* a convenience store specializing in Hispanic groceriesPlaces:* Bodega, California, town in Sonoma County, California...
where she sold her own wine.
While Calzada did not have a cinema, the streets where he lived in Cáceres contained not only the school, but also a movie theater. “Cinema became my real education, much more than the one I received from the priest,” he said later in an interview.
Almodóvar was influenced by such directors as Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
, Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Maria Fassbinder was a German movie director, screenwriter and actor. He is considered one of the most important representatives of the New German Cinema.He maintained a frenetic pace in film-making...
, Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
, John Waters
John Waters (filmmaker)
John Samuel Waters, Jr. is an American filmmaker, actor, stand-up comedian, writer, journalist, visual artist, and art collector, who rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films...
, Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
, Edgar Neville
Edgar Neville
Edgar Neville Romrée, Count of Berlanga de Duero was a Spanish playwright and film director, a member of the Generation of '27....
, Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
, George Cukor
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
, Luis García Berlanga and neorealist Marco Ferreri.
Against his parents' wishes, Pedro Almodóvar moved to Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
in 1967. His goal was to be a film director, but he lacked the economic means to do it and besides, Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
had just closed the National School of Cinema so he would be completely self-taught. To support himself, Almodóvar worked a number of odd jobs, including a stint selling used items in the famous Madrid flea market El Rastro
El Rastro
El Rastro de Madrid or simply el Rastro is the most popular open air flea market in Madrid . It is held every Sunday and public holiday during the year and is located along Plaza de Cascorro and Ribera de Curtidores, between Calle Embajadores and the Ronda de Toledo .A great variety of products ...
. He eventually found full-time employment with Spain's national phone company, Telefónica
Telefónica
Telefónica, S.A. is a Spanish broadband and telecommunications provider in Europe and Latin America. Operating globally, it is the third largest provider in the world...
, where he worked for twelve years as an administrative assistant. Since he worked only until three in the afternoon, he had the rest of the day to pursue his own interests.
Beginnings
In the early seventies, Almodóvar grew interested in experimental cinema and theatre. He collaborated with the vanguard theatrical group, Los Goliardos, where he played his first professional roles and met Carmen MauraCarmen Maura
Carmen García Maura is a Spanish actress. In a career that has spanned six decades, Maura is best known for her collaborations with noted Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar.-Early life:...
. He was also writing comics and contributing articles and stories to a number of counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
magazines, such as Star, Víbora and Vibraciones.
Madrid’s flourishing alternative cultural scene became the perfect scenario for Almodóvar's social talents. He was a crucial figure in La Movida Madrileña
La Movida Madrileña
La Movida Madrileña was a countercultural movement that took place mainly in Madrid during the Spanish transition after Francisco Franco's death in 1975...
(Madriliene Movement), a cultural renaissance that followed the fall of the Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
regime. Alongside Fabio McNamara, Almodóvar sang in a glam rock
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...
parody duo. He published a novella, Fuego en las entrañas (Fire in the Guts). Writing under the pseudonym "Patty Diphusa", he penned various articles for major newspapers and magazines, such as El País, Diario 16
Diario 16
Diario 16 was one of the most widely-circulated newspapers in Spain. According to the 1981 General Media Study , it had about 100 thousand readers. It often criticized President George W...
and La Luna
La Luna
La Luna can refer to* The Moon* La Luna , a 1979 film by Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci* La Luna , a 2000 album by English soprano Sarah Brightman* La Luna: Live in Concert, a 2001 Sarah Brightman concert inspired by that album...
. He kept writing stories that were eventually published in a compilation volume, El sueño de la razón (The Dream of Reason).
Short films
Almodóvar bought his first camera, a Super-8, with his first paycheck from Telefonica when he was 22 years old, and began to make hand-held short films. Around 1974, he made his first short film, and by the end of the 1970s they were shown in MadridMadrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
's night circuit and in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
. These shorts had overtly sexual narratives and no soundtrack: Dos putas, o, Historia de amor que termina en boda (1974) (Two Whores, or, A Love Story that Ends in Marriage); La caída de Sodoma (1975)
(The Fall of Sodom); Homenaje (1976)
(Homage); La estrella (1977)
(The Star) 1977 Sexo Va: Sexo viene (Sex Comes and Goes) (Super-8); Complementos (shorts) 1978; (16mm).
“I showed them in bars, at parties… I could not add a soundtrack because it was very difficult. The magnetic strip was very poor, very thin. I remember that I became very famous in Madrid because, as the films had no sound, I took a cassette with music while I personally did the voices of all the characters, songs and dialogues. After four years of working with shorts in Super-8 format, in 1978 Almodóvar made his first Super-8, full-length film: Folle, folle, fólleme, Tim (1978) (Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Tim), a magazine style melodrama. In addition, he made his first 16 mm short, Salome. This was his first contact with the professional world of cinema. The film's stars, Carmen Maura
Carmen Maura
Carmen García Maura is a Spanish actress. In a career that has spanned six decades, Maura is best known for her collaborations with noted Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar.-Early life:...
and Felix Rotaeta, encouraged him to make his first feature film in 16 mm and helped him raise the money to finance what would be Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón
Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón
Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón is a 1980 Spanish film, a campy comedy, written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Starring Carmen Maura, Alaska and Eva Siva...
.
Film career
Almodóvar is openly gay, and he has incorporated elements of underground and gay culture into mainstream forms with wide crossover appeal, thus redefining perceptions of Spanish cinema and Spain.
Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (1980)
Almodóvar made his first feature film, Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls on the Heap (Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón), in 1980 with a very low budget and a team of volunteers shooting on weekends. The film was based on his photo-novella, General Erections, previously published in the magazine El Víbora (The Viper). Pepi, Luci, Bom… consists of a series of loosely connected sketches rather than a fully formed plot. It follows the adventures of the three characters of the title: Pepi, who wants revenge from the corrupt policeman who rapeRape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
d her; Luci, a mousy, masochistic housewife; and Bom, a lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
singer. The central theme of the film, friendship and female solidarity, appears repeatedly in Almodóvar’s filmography.
The film was plagued by financial and technical problems. However, Almodóvar would look back fondly to his first film: "Pepi, Luci, Bom… is a film full of defects. When a film has only one or two, it is considered an imperfect film, while when there is a profusion of technical flaws, it is called style. That’s what I said joking around when I was promoting the film, but I believe that that was closer to the truth.
The film captured the spirit of the times – above all the sense of cultural and sexual freedom – and established Almodóvar as an agent provocateur
Agent provocateur
Traditionally, an agent provocateur is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act...
. With its many kitsch
Kitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
elements, campy
Camp (style)
Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
style, outrageous humor, and explicit sexuality (there is a famous golden shower
Urolagnia
Urolagnia is a paraphilia in which sexual excitement is associated with the sight or thought of urine or urination. The term has origins in the Greek Language .Those who enjoy urolagnia may enjoy urinating on another person or persons, or being urinated upon...
scene in the middle of a knitting lesson), the film amassed a cult following
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
. It toured the independent circuits and then spent four years on the late night showing of the Alphaville Theater in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
which provided the funds for Almodóvar's second film.
Laberinto de Pasiones (1982)
Labyrinth of Passions (Laberinto de Pasiones) is a screwball comedyScrewball Comedy
Screwball Comedy is an album by the Japanese band Soul Flower Union. The album found the band going into a simpler, harder-rocking direction, after several heavily world-music influenced albums.-Track listing:...
about multiple identities, one of Almodóvar’s favorite subjects. The plot follows the adventures of two sex-crazy characters: Sexilia, an aptly named nymphomaniac pop star, and Riza, the gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
son of the leader of a fictional Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
ern country. Their unlikely destiny is to find one another, overcome their sexual preferences and live happily ever after on a tropical island. The campy roundelay also involves Queti, Sexilia’s “biggest fan”, whose delusional father rapes her. The film is an outrageous look at love and sex, framed in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
of the early 1980s, during the so called Movida madrileña, a period of sexual adventurousness between the dissolution of Franco's authoritarian regime and the onset of AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
consciousness. Labyrinth of Passions caught the spirit of liberation which then ruled in Madrid and it became a cult film.
Almodóvar said about Labyrinth of Passions: "I like the film even if it could have been better made. The main problem is that the story of the two leads is much less interesting than the stories of all the secondary characters. But precisely because there are so many secondary characters, there's a lot in the film I like."
Entre Tinieblas (1983)
Dark Habits (Entre Tinieblas) heralded a change in tone to somber melodramaMelodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
with comic elements. This film has an almost all-female cast featuring many of Almodóvar's favorite leading ladies: Carmen Maura, Julieta Serrano
Julieta Serrano
Julieta Serrano Romero is a Catalan theatre and cinema actress. Her prolific career began in the 1960s, and she has worked with directors Pedro Almodóvar and Ventura Pons.-Filmography:...
, Marisa Paredes
Marisa Paredes
María Luisa Paredes Bartolomé, , better known in show business as Marisa Paredes, is a Spanish actress.-Biography:...
and Chus Lampreave
Chus Lampreave
Chus Lampreave is a Spanish actress.She started in movies in 1958, but she became internationally known thanks to her roles in films by Pedro Almodóvar, where she plays old ladies with maternal or pastoral traits.- Filmography :...
. The narrative centers upon a cabaret singer, who, running away from justice, finds refuge in a convent of destitute nuns, each of whom explores a different sin. The mother superior, a lesbian drug addict, falls in love with the singer.
The film is a satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
of Spain's religious institutions, portraying spiritual desolation and moral bankruptcy
Moral bankruptcy
Moral bankruptcy is a synonym for immorality that has gained popular usage in the fields of business and politics, in which it specifically implies some instance of political corruption or corporate crime...
. Dark Habits explores the force of desire in characters who are ruled by their intuition rather than reason. This is also Almodóvar’s first film in which he clearly uses popular music to express emotion: in a pivotal scene, the mother superior and her protégé sing along with Lucho Gatica
Lucho Gatica
Luis Enrique Gatica Silva, better known as Lucho Gatica, is a Chilean bolero singer, film actor, and television host. It is estimated that Gatica has released more than 90 recordings. He has toured a vast portion of the world, having made concerts in Europe, the Middle East and Asia...
’s bolero
Bolero
Bolero is a form of slow-tempo Latin music and its associated dance and song. There are Spanish and Cuban forms which are both significant and which have separate origins.The term is also used for some art music...
: Encadenados (Chained together).
Dark Habits was a modest success, and cemented Almodóvar’s reputation as the enfant terrible of the Spanish cinema.
¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? (1984)
Almodóvar's next film, What Have I Done to Deserve This? (¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto?) was inspired by the Spanish black comediesBlack comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
of the late 50s and early 60s. It is the tale of a struggling housewife named Gloria and her dysfunctional family
Dysfunctional family
A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often abuse on the part of individual members occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is...
: her abusive husband
Domestic violence
Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
, who works as a taxi driver; her oldest son, a cocaine dealer; the youngest son, who sells his body to the local perverts; and the grandmother who hates the city and just wants to return to her rural village.
The theme of the downtrodden housewife coping with the travails of everyday life arises repeatedly in the director's work, as do other issues of female independence and solidarity. What Have I Done to Deserve This? is also a critique on consumerism and patriarchal
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
culture. In one scene, the housewife trades her own son so she doesn't have to pay a dentist bill, and in another the only witness of a crime is a lizard, aptly named “Money.”
What Have I Done to Deserve This? was more successful than Almodóvar’s previous films and became his first with international distribution.
Matador (1986)
Almodóvar's subsequent films deepened his exploration of sexual desire and the sometimes brutal laws governing it. MatadorMatador (film)
Matador is a 1986 film by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar about a student matador, Ángel Jimenez , who confesses to murders he didn't commit. Themes include sex, death, and religion.- Plot :...
is a dark, complex story that centers on the relationship between a former bullfighter and a murderous female lawyer, both of whom can only experience sexual fulfillment in conjunction with killing. The film offered up desire as a bridge between sexual attraction and death.
Written together with Spanish novelist Jesús Ferrero
Jesús Ferrero
Jesús Ferrero is a Spanish writer born in 1952 in the Spanish province of Zamora.After completing his secondary education he studied literature in Zaragoza for a while and then moved to Paris to study ancient Greek history at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales.Jesús Ferrero, like...
, Matador drew away from the naturalism
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
and humor of the director’s previous work into a deeper and darker terrain. Almodóvar established the interrelation between sexuality and violence as seen in his cinematographic quotation of the final sequence from King Vidor
King Vidor
King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...
’s Duel in the Sun. The violent elements of the film caused some controversy. Almodóvar justified his use of violence explaining "The moral of all my films is to get to a stage of greater freedom." Almodóvar went on to note, "I have my own morality. And so do my films. If you see Matador through the perspective of traditional morality, it's a dangerous film because it's just a celebration of killing. Matador is like a legend. I don't try to be realistic; it's very abstract, so you don't feel identification with the things that are happening, but with the sensibility of this kind of romanticism".
La Ley del Deseo (1987)
Almodóvar solidified his creative independence when he started the production company El DeseoEl Deseo
El Deseo is film production company owned by Spanish film producers the Almodóvar brothers . Films produced by the company include All About My Mother, Talk to Her, My Life Without Me, Bad Education, Volver, Broken Embraces and The Skin I Live In.- External links :* Film production company owned...
, together with his brother Agustín Almodóvar
Agustín Almodóvar
Agustín Almodóvar Caballero is a film producer and younger brother of filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar.He was born in Calzada de Calatrava and obtained a degree in chemistry from the Complutense University of Madrid....
, who has also had several cameo roles in his films. From 1986 on, Pedro Almodóvar has produced his own films.
The first movie that came out from El Deseo was the aptly named Law of Desire (La Ley del Deseo). The narrative follows three main characters: a gay film director who embarks on a new project; his sister, an actress who used to be his brother (played by Carmen Maura), and a repressed murderously obsessive stalker (played by Antonio Banderas
Antonio Banderas
José Antonio Domínguez Banderas , better known as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish film actor, film director, film producer and singer...
).
The film presents a gay love triangle and drew away from most representations of homosexuals in films. These characters are neither coming out nor confronting sexual guilt or homophobia; they are already liberated, like the homosexuals in Fassbinder’s films. Almodóvar said about Law of Desire : " It's the key film in my life and career. It deals with my vision of desire, something that's both very hard and very human. By this I mean the absolute necessity of being desired and the fact that in the interplay of desires it's rare that two desires meet and correspond".
Almodóvar's films rely heavily on the capacity of his actors to pull through difficult roles into a complex narrative. In Law of Desire Carmen Maura
Carmen Maura
Carmen García Maura is a Spanish actress. In a career that has spanned six decades, Maura is best known for her collaborations with noted Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar.-Early life:...
plays the role of Tina, a woman who used to be a man. Almodóvar explains: "Carmen is required to imitate a woman, to savour the imitation, to be conscious of the kitsch part that there is in the imitation, completely renouncing parody, but not humour."
Elements from Law of Desire grew into the basis for two later films: Carmen Maura
Carmen Maura
Carmen García Maura is a Spanish actress. In a career that has spanned six decades, Maura is best known for her collaborations with noted Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar.-Early life:...
appears in a stage production of Cocteau’s The Human Voice
The Human Voice
The Human Voice a 1930 play, first staged at the Comédie Française in 1930, written by Jean Cocteau, is a monologue taking place in Paris, where a middle-aged woman is on a phone call with her lover of the last five years. He is to marry another woman the next day, which causes her to despair...
, which inspired Almodóvar’s next film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown; and Tina's confrontation scene with an abusive priest formed a partial genesis for Bad Education
Bad Education
Bad Education is a 2004 Spanish drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar and starring Gael García Bernal, Fele Martínez, Daniel Giménez Cacho and Lluís Homar. The plot is about two reunited childhood friends in the vein of a murder mystery...
.
Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1988)
Almodóvar’s next film was his first huge international success: Women on the Verge of a Nervous BreakdownWomen on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is a 1988 Spanish black comedy film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Carmen Maura and Antonio Banderas...
(Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios), a feminist light comedy that further established Almodóvar as a "women's director" like George Cukor
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
and Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Maria Fassbinder was a German movie director, screenwriter and actor. He is considered one of the most important representatives of the New German Cinema.He maintained a frenetic pace in film-making...
. Almodóvar has said that women make better characters: “women are more spectacular as dramatic subjects, they have a greater range of registers, etc.”
The film, staged as a faux adaptation of a theatrical work, details a two-day period in the life of Pepa, (Carmen Maura
Carmen Maura
Carmen García Maura is a Spanish actress. In a career that has spanned six decades, Maura is best known for her collaborations with noted Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar.-Early life:...
) a professional movie dubber who has been abruptly abandoned by her married lover and who frantically tries to track him down. In the course of her search she discovers some of his secrets, and realizes her true feelings.
Inspired by Hollywood comedies of the 1950s, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown became the stepping stone for Pedro Almodóvar's later work. This light comedy of rapid-fire dialogue and fast-paced action remains one of Almodóvar’s most accessible films (with no drugs or sex, although there is a sequence in which a sleeping woman dreams that she is having sex, and we see only her reactions). The film received public and critical acclaim worldwide, and brought Almodóvar to the attention of American audiences. Women was showered with many awards, and received an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film.
¡Átame! (1990)
Almodóvar's next film marked the breaking-off with his reference actress, Carmen MauraCarmen Maura
Carmen García Maura is a Spanish actress. In a career that has spanned six decades, Maura is best known for her collaborations with noted Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar.-Early life:...
, and the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with another great actress of Spanish and European cinema: Victoria Abril
Victoria Abril
Victoria Abril is a Spanish film actress. She is best known to international audiences for her performance in the movie ¡Átame! by director Pedro Almodóvar....
. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! is a 1990 Spanish film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, a dark romantic comedy starring Antonio Banderas and Victoria Abril. The plot follows a recently released psychiatric patient who kidnaps an actress in order to make her fall in love with him...
(¡Átame!) was also the director's fifth and most important collaboration with Antonio Banderas.
In Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Ricky (played by Antonio Banderas
Antonio Banderas
José Antonio Domínguez Banderas , better known as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish film actor, film director, film producer and singer...
), a recently released psychiatric patient, kidnaps and holds hostage an actress (played by Victoria Abril
Victoria Abril
Victoria Abril is a Spanish film actress. She is best known to international audiences for her performance in the movie ¡Átame! by director Pedro Almodóvar....
) in order to make her fall in love with him. “I’m 23 years old, I have fifty thousand pesetas and I am alone in the world. I will try to be a good husband for you and a good father for your children,” he tells her.
Rather than populate the film with many characters, as in his previous films, here the story focuses on the compelling relationship at its center: the actress and her kidnapper literally struggling for power and desperate for love. The film’s title line ¡Tie Me Up! is unexpectedly uttered by the actress as a genuine request. She does not know if she will try to escape or not, and when she realizes she has feelings for her captor, she prefers not to be given a chance.
In spite of some dark elements, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! can be described as a romantic comedy, and the director's most clear love story, with a plot similar to William Wyler
William Wyler
William Wyler was a leading American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.Notable works included Ben-Hur , The Best Years of Our Lives , and Mrs. Miniver , all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture...
's thriller, The Collector
The Collector
The Collector is the title of a 1963 novel by John Fowles. It was made into a movie in 1965.- Plot summary :The novel is about a lonely young man, Frederick Clegg, who works as a clerk in a city hall, and collects butterflies in his spare time...
. Nevertheless, the film was the subject of heated debate; it was decried by feminists and women's advocacy groups for what they perceived as the film's sadomasochist undertones. Its U.S. release was marked by further scandal and controversy. The Motion Picture Association of America
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
(MPAA), which determines film ratings in the U.S., marginalized its distribution with the stigma of an 'X' rating. The film's distribution company, Miramax, filed a lawsuit against the MPAA over the X rating, but lost in court. However, numerous other filmmakers had complained about the X rating given to their films, and in September 1990 the MPAA dropped the X rating and replaced it with the NC-17 rating. This was especially helpful to films of explicit nature that were previously regarded unfairly as pornographic because of the X rating.
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, which did not enjoy the wide acclaim of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, rather had a negative reception among some Spanish critics, who declared that Almodóvar had lost his sense of direction; similar criticism was leveled at his two subsequent films.
Tacones Lejanos (1991)
The family melodrama High Heels (Tacones Lejanos) is built around the fractured relationship between a self-involved mother, a famous torch song singer, and the grown daughter she abandoned as a child, who works as TV newscaster. The daughter has married her mother's ex-lover and has befriended a female impersonator of her mother. Popular songs, always a key element in Almodóvar’s work, are never more present than in this film full of boleros. High Heels also contains an unexpected prison yard dance sequence.The film has the feel of other mother-daughter melodramas like Stella Dallas
Stella Dallas (1937 film)
Stella Dallas is a 1937 film based on the Olive Higgins Prouty novel of the same name. It was directed by King Vidor, and stars Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, and Anne Shirley. Stanwyck was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and Shirley for Best Actress in a Supporting Role...
, Mildred Pierce
Mildred Pierce (film)
Mildred Pierce is a 1945 American drama film starring Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, and Eve Arden in a film noir about a long-suffering mother and her ungrateful daughter. The screenplay by Ranald MacDougall, William Faulkner, and Catherine Turney was based upon the 1941...
, Imitation of Life
Imitation of Life (1959 film)
Imitation of Life is a 1959 American film directed by Douglas Sirk, produced by Ross Hunter and released by Universal Pictures, starring Lana Turner and John Gavin and features Sandra Dee, Dan O'Herlihy, Susan Kohner, Robert Alda and Juanita Moore as Annie Johnson. Gospel music star Mahalia Jackson...
and particularly Autumn Sonata
Autumn Sonata
Autumn Sonata is a 1978 Swedish drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The film stars Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann and Lena Nyman. It tells the story of a celebrated classical pianist who is confronted by her neglected daughter...
, which is quoted directly in the film. High Heels was an interpretative tour de force for two essential actresses of the "Almodovarian universe": Marisa Paredes
Marisa Paredes
María Luisa Paredes Bartolomé, , better known in show business as Marisa Paredes, is a Spanish actress.-Biography:...
and Victoria Abril
Victoria Abril
Victoria Abril is a Spanish film actress. She is best known to international audiences for her performance in the movie ¡Átame! by director Pedro Almodóvar....
.
Kika (1993)
After the melodramatic intensity of High Heels, Almodóvar took another sudden turn in his career by shooting one of his most unclassifiable movies: KikaKika
Kika is a 1993 Spanish language Pedro Almodóvar film starring Verónica Forqué as the title character.-Plot:Kika , a young, bubbly aspiring actress turned cosmetologist, is called to the cottage of Nicholas Pierce , an American freelance writer who has moved to Spain to write about game hunting, to...
, a choral film where each character belongs to a different film genre, thus generating a very free and heterodox movie. The plot centers on Kika, a clueless but good-hearted make-up artist involved with an older expatriate American writer and his bewildered stepson. A vampy, oddball television reporter who is constantly in search of sensational stories follows Kika's misadventures.
Kika is a critique of mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
, particularly its sensationalism. Here Almodóvar gives a cameo role to his real life elderly mother, Francisca Caballero, who plays an ill-qualified hostess of a literary T.V. program. She reads badly and not much as her eyesight is bad, but she explains to the audience that she has been given her job as presenter by her son, the director (a self-reflexive Almodóvar), so that mother and son can spend time together.
Kika created a certain amount of controversy in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
thanks to a humorous rape scene that was perceived as being both misogynistic and exploitative. The film was not well received by critics, but opened the door to a new era in the director’s career.
La flor de mi secreto (1995)
Almodóvar changed gears with his next effort, 1995's The Flower of My Secret (La flor de mi secreto). It is an exploration of denial in its various forms, a film in which melodrama is treated more as theme rather than as plot line. The Flower of My Secret is the story of Leo Macias, a successful romance writer who has to confront both a professional and personal crisis. Estranged from her husband, a military officer who has volunteered for an international peacekeeping role in Bosnia and HerzegovinaBosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
to avoid her, Leo fights to hold on to a past that has already eluded her, not realizing she has already set her future path by her own creativity and by supporting the creative efforts of others.
Starring Almodóvar regular Marisa Paredes
Marisa Paredes
María Luisa Paredes Bartolomé, , better known in show business as Marisa Paredes, is a Spanish actress.-Biography:...
, this psychological drama was hailed as his most mature film to date, and remains one of the director's humblest films. Leaving Almodóvar's usual choral exercises aside, the story centered on the love-torn writer. The Flower of My Secret has many common elements with All About My Mother
All About My Mother
All About My Mother is a 1999 Spanish drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. The film deals with complex issues such as AIDS, transvestitism, faith, and existentialism....
and Talk to Her
Talk to Her
Talk to Her is a 2002 Spanish comedy-drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Geraldine Chaplin, and Rosario Flores...
. The three films are about “loss, growth and recovery”.
The Flower of my Secret heralded a change in Almodóvar's filmography to a more mature period. It is the transitional film between his earlier and later style. It is worth noting, however, that many leading critics did not respond well to this film.
Carne trémula (1997)
Almodóvar has written all of his films, but with Live Flesh (Carne trémula) the director shared script writing credits. This was his first script adapted from a book, Ruth RendellRuth Rendell
Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, , who also writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, is an English crime writer, author of psychological thrillers and murder mysteries....
’s novel Live Flesh
Live Flesh
Live Flesh, is a psychological thriller by British author Ruth Rendell, published in 1986. It won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year, and has also been loosely adapted into a critically acclaimed film of the same name by Pedro Almodóvar.-Plot summary:The...
. All that remains in the film from the book is the plot line of the two male protagonists: David, a police detective, and Víctor, the man accused of wounding and paralyzing him. Upon his release, Víctor, looking for revenge, is soon entangled in the lives not only of David and his wife, but also of David’s former partner, Sancho, and Sancho’s wife.
Live Flesh explores love, loss, and suffering with a sober restraint only briefly glimpsed in the director's earlier work. The film tells the story of several characters implicated in each other's fates in ways that are beyond their control. Live Flesh is historically framed from 1970, when Franco declared a state of emergency
State of emergency
A state of emergency is a governmental declaration that may suspend some normal functions of the executive, legislative and judicial powers, alert citizens to change their normal behaviours, or order government agencies to implement emergency preparedness plans. It can also be used as a rationale...
, to 1996, when Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
had completely shaken off the restrictions of the Franco regime. With this film Almodóvar started his collaboration with Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz Sánchez is a Spanish actress. Signed by an agent at age 15, she made her acting debut at 16 on television and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón, jamón , to critical acclaim...
.
Todo sobre mi madre (1999)
Almodóvar then continued to work in more serious dramatic confines, directing All About My MotherAll About My Mother
All About My Mother is a 1999 Spanish drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. The film deals with complex issues such as AIDS, transvestitism, faith, and existentialism....
(Todo sobre mi madre). The film grew out of a brief scene in The Flower of My Secret, telling the story of a mourning mother who, after reading the last entry in her dead son's journal about how he wishes to meet his father for the first time, decides to travel to Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
in search of the boy's father. She must tell the father that she had their son after she left him many years ago, and that he has now died. Once there, she encounters a number of odd characters - a transvestite prostitute, a pregnant nun, and a lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
actress - all of whom help her cope with her grief.
The film revisited Almodóvar's familiar themes of the power of sisterhood and of family. Dedicated to Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
, Romy Schneider
Romy Schneider
Romy Schneider was an Austrian-born German film actress who also held French citizenship.-Early life:Schneider was born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach in Nazi-era Vienna, six months after the Anschluss, into a family of actors that included her paternal grandmother Rosa Albach-Retty, her Austrian...
and Gena Rowlands
Gena Rowlands
Gena Rowlands is an American actress of film, stage and television. The four-time Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner is best known for her collaborations with her actor-director husband John Cassavetes in ten films, in two of which, Gloria and A Woman Under the Influence, she gave Academy...
, All About My Mother is steeped in theatricality, from its backstage setting to its plot, modeled on the works of Federico Garcia Lorca
Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
and Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
, to the characters' preoccupation with modes of performance.
The comic relief
Comic relief
Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension.-Definition:...
on the film centers on Agrado, a pre-operative transsexual. In one scene, she tells the story of her body and its relationship to plastic surgery
Plastic surgery
Plastic surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the correction or restoration of form and function. Though cosmetic or aesthetic surgery is the best-known kind of plastic surgery, most plastic surgery is not cosmetic: plastic surgery includes many types of reconstructive surgery, hand...
and silicone
Silicone
Silicones are inert, synthetic compounds with a variety of forms and uses. Typically heat-resistant and rubber-like, they are used in sealants, adhesives, lubricants, medical applications , cookware, and insulation....
, culminating with a statement of her own philosophy: “The more you become like what you have dreamed for yourself, the more authentic you are”.
All About My Mother received more awards and honors than any other film in the Spanish motion picture industry. Its recognition includes an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a Golden Globe in the same category, Best Director Award
Best Director Award (Cannes Film Festival)
The Best Director Award is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the 'official section' of movies at the festival. It was first awarded in 1946....
and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
The Prize of the Ecumenical Jury is an independent film award for feature films at the Cannes Film Festival since 1974. The Ecumenical Jury is one of three juries at the Cannes Film Festival, along with the official jury and the FIPRESCI jury. The award was created by Christian film makers, film...
Award at Cannes
1999 Cannes Film Festival
The 52nd Cannes Film Festival was held on May 12-23, 1999. The Palme d'Or went to the French-Belgian film Rosetta by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.-Jury:* David Cronenberg * André Téchiné * Barbara Hendricks...
; the French Cesar for Best Foreign Film, the Goya Award as best film of the year, best Actress in a Leading Role for Argentine actress Cecilia Roth and a twelfth Annual European Film Award.
Hable con ella (2002)
Two years later, Almodóvar hit another career high with Talk to HerTalk to Her
Talk to Her is a 2002 Spanish comedy-drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Geraldine Chaplin, and Rosario Flores...
(Hable con ella). The film revolves around two men who become friends while taking care of the coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...
tose women they love. Their lives flow in all directions, past, present and future, pulling them towards an unsuspected destiny. Combining elements of modern dance and silent filmmaking with a narrative that embraces coincidence and fate, Almodóvar plots the lives of his characters, thrown together by unimaginably bad luck, towards an unexpected conclusion.
The film was hailed by critics and embraced by arthouse audiences. Almodóvar won numerous honors across the world for his film, including a French César for Best Film and an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
La mala educación (2004)
Almodóvar followed two worldwide cinematic successes with Bad EducationBad Education
Bad Education is a 2004 Spanish drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar and starring Gael García Bernal, Fele Martínez, Daniel Giménez Cacho and Lluís Homar. The plot is about two reunited childhood friends in the vein of a murder mystery...
(La mala educación), a richly baroque tale of child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
and mixed identities. Two children, Ignacio and Enrique, discover love, cinema and fear in a religious school at the start of the 1960s. Father Manolo, the school principal and their literature teacher, is witness to and part of these discoveries. The three characters meet twice again, at the end of the 1970s and in the 1980s, or so it seems.
Bad Education
Bad Education
Bad Education is a 2004 Spanish drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar and starring Gael García Bernal, Fele Martínez, Daniel Giménez Cacho and Lluís Homar. The plot is about two reunited childhood friends in the vein of a murder mystery...
has a complex structure that not only uses film within a film, but also stories than open up into other stories, real and imagined to narrate the same story: A tale of child molestation and its aftermath of faithlessness, creativity, despair, blackmail and murder.
Almodóvar used elements of film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
, borrowing in particular from Double Indemnity. The film's protagonist, Juan (Gael Garcia Bernal), was modeled largely on Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist and short-story writer most widely known for her psychological thrillers, which led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train, has been adapted for stage and screen numerous times, notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951...
’s most famous character, Tom Ripley, as played by Alain Delon
Alain Delon
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon is a French actor. He rose quickly to stardom, and by the age of 23 was already being compared to French actors such as Gérard Philipe and Jean Marais, as well as American actor James Dean. He was even called the male Brigitte Bardot...
in René Clément's Purple Noon. A criminal without scruples, but with an adorable face that betrays nothing of his true nature. Almodóvar explains : "He also represents a classic film noir character - the femme fatale. Which means that when other characters come into contact with him, he embodies fate, in the most tragic and noir sense of the word."
Volver (2006)
VolverVolver
Volver is a 2006 Spanish dramatic comedy film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Headed by actress Penélope Cruz, the film features an ensemble cast starring Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, and Chus Lampreave...
(Return), a mixture of comedy, family drama and ghost story, is set in part in La Mancha
La Mancha
La Mancha is a natural and historical region or greater comarca located on an arid, fertile, elevated plateau of central Spain, south of Madrid, stretching between the Montes de Toledo and the western spurs of the Serrania de Cuenca. It is bounded on the south by the Sierra Morena and on the north...
(the director's native region). The film opens showing dozens of women furiously scrubbing the graves of their deceased, establishing the influence of the dead over the living as a key theme. The plot follows the story of three generations of women in the same family who survive wind, fire, and even death. The film is an ode to female resilience
Psychological resilience
Resilience in psychology refers to the idea of an individual's tendency to cope with stress and adversity. This coping may result in the individual “bouncing back” to a previous state of normal functioning, or using the experience of exposure to adversity to produce a “steeling effect” and function...
, where men are literally disposable.
Many of Almodóvar's stylistic hallmarks are present: the stand-alone song (a rendition of the Argentinian tango
Tango music
Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...
song "Volver"), references to reality TV, and an homage to classic film (in this case Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard and Death in Venice .-Life:...
's Bellissima).
Volver started as a story of la España negra, or 'black Spain'--the rural, superstitious and conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
part of the country still often associated, the director says, with violence, tragedy, even backwardness: "It looks like they are living a century before. But I tried to demonstrate that the same Spain, in the same local places with the same local characters, could be called 'white Spain', because the neighbors are in complete solidarity, all the women join together and create a kind of family. The movie really talks about women who survive, women who fight fiercely.
The storyline of Volver appears as both a novel and movie script in Almodóvar's earlier film, The Flower of My Secret.
The film reunited Almodóvar with Carmen Maura, who had appeared in several of his early films.
Los Abrazos Rotos (2009)
Almodóvar’s next film Broken Embraces (Los Abrazos Rotos), was released in SpainSpain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
on 18 March 2009, is the director’s longest and most expensive feature. The plot follows the tragic fate of a former film director, who was blinded in a car accident fourteen years before. The film has a fractured puzzling structure, mixing past and present and film within a film that Almodóvar explored previously in both Talk to Her
Talk to Her
Talk to Her is a 2002 Spanish comedy-drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Geraldine Chaplin, and Rosario Flores...
and Bad Education
Bad Education
Bad Education is a 2004 Spanish drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar and starring Gael García Bernal, Fele Martínez, Daniel Giménez Cacho and Lluís Homar. The plot is about two reunited childhood friends in the vein of a murder mystery...
. Broken Embraces is built up as homage to the craft of film making and takes some cues from Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Rossellini was one of the directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing films such as Roma città aperta to the movement.-Early life:Born in Rome, Roberto Rossellini lived on the Via Ludovisi, where Benito Mussolini had...
’s Journey to Italy
Journey to Italy
Journey to Italy is a 1954 Italian drama film directed by Roberto Rossellini, starring Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders. The film has English dialogue; the Italian version was originally cut...
and Almodóvar’s own Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is a 1988 Spanish black comedy film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Carmen Maura and Antonio Banderas...
.
La Piel que Habito (2011)
On 5 May 2010 Almodóvar cast Antonio BanderasAntonio Banderas
José Antonio Domínguez Banderas , better known as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish film actor, film director, film producer and singer...
for the male lead role in his thriller film The Skin I Live In
The Skin I Live In
The Skin I Live In is a 2011 Spanish film directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet, Roberto Álamo and Blanca Suárez, and is loosely based on Thierry Jonquet's novel Tarantula. The film was the first collaboration in 21 years between Almodóvar...
. The film was first published as a novel in France as Mygale
Mygale (novel)
Mygale is a novel by Thierry Jonquet first published in France by Editions Gallimard in 1995, and then published in the US in 2003 by City Lights. It was also published in the UK as Tarantula in 2005 ....
(Editions Gallimard
Éditions Gallimard
Éditions Gallimard is one of the leading French publishers of books. The Guardian has described it as having "the best backlist in the world". In 2003 it and its subsidiaries published 1418 titles....
, 1995), and then published in the US in 2003 by City Lights
City Lights Bookstore
City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected titles related to San Francisco culture. It was founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence...
. It was also published in the UK as Tarantula in 2005 (Serpent's Tail
Serpent's Tail
Serpent's Tail is a British independent publishing firm founded in 1986 by Pete Ayrton. It is notable for its translated works, particularly European crime fiction, and is the British publisher of Elfriede Jelinek and Lionel Shriver...
). Filming started on 23 August and lasted 11 weeks. It premiered in Competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival
2011 Cannes Film Festival
The 64th annual Cannes Film Festival was held from May 11 to May 22, 2011. American actor Robert De Niro served as the president of the jury for the main competition and French filmmaker Michel Gondry headed the jury for the short film competition...
.
Filmography
| Year | English title | Original title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Pepi, Luci, Bom | Pepi, Luci, Bom y Otras Chicas del Montón | * Original Script |
| 1982 | Labyrinth of Passion Labyrinth of Passion Labyrinth of Passion is a 1982 Spanish screwball comedy written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Starring Cecilia Roth, Imanol Arias and Antonio Banderas. The plot follows a nymphomaniac pop star who falls in love with a gay Middle-Eastern prince. Their unlikely destiny is to find one another,... |
Laberinto de Pasiones | * Original Script |
| 1983 | Dark Habits | Entre Tinieblas | * Original Script |
| 1984 | What Have I Done to Deserve This? | Que he hecho yo para merecer esto | * Original Script |
| 1986 | Matador Matador (film) Matador is a 1986 film by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar about a student matador, Ángel Jimenez , who confesses to murders he didn't commit. Themes include sex, death, and religion.- Plot :... |
Matador | * Original script with Jesús Ferrero |
| 1987 | Law of Desire | La Ley del Deseo | * Original Script
|
| 1988 | Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is a 1988 Spanish black comedy film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Carmen Maura and Antonio Banderas... |
Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios | * Original Script
Goya Award for Best Picture The Goya Award for Best Picture is one of the Goya Awards, Spain's principal national film awards.In the list below the winner of the award for each year is shown first, followed by the other nominees.-1980s:... Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences... |
| 1990 | Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! is a 1990 Spanish film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, a dark romantic comedy starring Antonio Banderas and Victoria Abril. The plot follows a recently released psychiatric patient who kidnaps an actress in order to make her fall in love with him... |
¡Átame! | * Original Script. Entered into the 40th Berlin International Film Festival 40th Berlin International Film Festival The 40th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from February 9 to 20, 1990.-Jury:* Michael Ballhaus * Margaret Ménégoz * Vadim Abdrashitov* Suzana Amaral* Steven Bach* Roberto Benigni* Lívia Gyarmathy... |
| 1991 | High Heels | Tacones Lejanos | * Original Script
César Award The César Award is the national film award of France, first given out in 1975. The nominations are selected by the members of the Académie des arts et techniques du cinéma.... : Best Foreign Film César Award for Best Foreign Film This is the list of winners and nominees of the César Award for Best Foreign Film .-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:... |
| 1993 | Kika Kika Kika is a 1993 Spanish language Pedro Almodóvar film starring Verónica Forqué as the title character.-Plot:Kika , a young, bubbly aspiring actress turned cosmetologist, is called to the cottage of Nicholas Pierce , an American freelance writer who has moved to Spain to write about game hunting, to... |
Kika | * Original Script |
| 1995 | The Flower of My Secret | La Flor de Mi Secreto | * Original Script |
| 1997 | Live Flesh | Carne Trémula | * Script with Ray Loriga and Jorge Guerricaechevarría, loosely based on Ruth Rendell Ruth Rendell Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, , who also writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, is an English crime writer, author of psychological thrillers and murder mysteries.... ’s novel |
| 1999 | All About My Mother All About My Mother All About My Mother is a 1999 Spanish drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. The film deals with complex issues such as AIDS, transvestitism, faith, and existentialism.... |
Todo Sobre Mi Madre | * Original Script
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences... 1999 Cannes Film Festival The 52nd Cannes Film Festival was held on May 12-23, 1999. The Palme d'Or went to the French-Belgian film Rosetta by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.-Jury:* David Cronenberg * André Téchiné * Barbara Hendricks... : Award for Best Director Best Director Award (Cannes Film Festival) The Best Director Award is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the 'official section' of movies at the festival. It was first awarded in 1946.... 1999 Cannes Film Festival The 52nd Cannes Film Festival was held on May 12-23, 1999. The Palme d'Or went to the French-Belgian film Rosetta by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.-Jury:* David Cronenberg * André Téchiné * Barbara Hendricks... : Audience Award BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay The BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay is the British Academy Film Award for the best script not based upon previously published material. It has been awarded since 1984, when the original category was split into two awards, the other being the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted... César Award The César Award is the national film award of France, first given out in 1975. The nominations are selected by the members of the Académie des arts et techniques du cinéma.... : Best Foreign Film César Award for Best Foreign Film This is the list of winners and nominees of the César Award for Best Foreign Film .-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:... Goya Awards The Goya Awards, known in Spanish as los Premios Goya, are Spain's main national film awards, considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards.... (including Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Director) |
| 2002 | Talk to Her Talk to Her Talk to Her is a 2002 Spanish comedy-drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Geraldine Chaplin, and Rosario Flores... |
Hable Con Ella | * Original Script
Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best script not based upon previously published material. Before 1940, there was an Academy Award for Best Story for writing. For 1940, it and the award in this article were separated into two awards. Beginning with the... BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay The BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay is the British Academy Film Award for the best script not based upon previously published material. It has been awarded since 1984, when the original category was split into two awards, the other being the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted... (Pedro Almodóvar) Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the awards presented at the Golden Globes, an American film awards ceremony.Until 1986, it was known as the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film, meaning that any non-American film could be honoured... Goya Awards The Goya Awards, known in Spanish as los Premios Goya, are Spain's main national film awards, considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards.... (Spain): Best Original Score (Alberto Iglesias) Los Angeles Film Critics Association The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January... : Best Director (Pedro Almodóvar |
| 2004 | Bad Education Bad Education Bad Education is a 2004 Spanish drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar and starring Gael García Bernal, Fele Martínez, Daniel Giménez Cacho and Lluís Homar. The plot is about two reunited childhood friends in the vein of a murder mystery... |
La Mala Educación | * Original Script
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| 2006 | Volver Volver Volver is a 2006 Spanish dramatic comedy film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Headed by actress Penélope Cruz, the film features an ensemble cast starring Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, and Chus Lampreave... |
Volver | * Original Script
2006 Cannes Film Festival The 2006 Cannes Film Festival ran from May 17, 2006 to May 28, 2006. Twenty films from eleven countries were in competition for the Palme d'Or. The President of the Official Jury was Wong Kar-wai, the first Chinese director to preside over the jury.... Award for Best Screenplay Best Screenplay Award (Cannes Film Festival) The Best Screenplay Award is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the 'official section' of movies at the festival... 2006 Cannes Film Festival The 2006 Cannes Film Festival ran from May 17, 2006 to May 28, 2006. Twenty films from eleven countries were in competition for the Palme d'Or. The President of the Official Jury was Wong Kar-wai, the first Chinese director to preside over the jury.... Award for Best Actress Best Actress Award (Cannes Film Festival) The Best Actress Award is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the 'official section' of films at the festival. It was first awarded in 1946.-Award Winners:-External links:* * .... (for the whole female cast) Goya Awards The Goya Awards, known in Spanish as los Premios Goya, are Spain's main national film awards, considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards.... : Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress in Leading Role, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Music |
| 2009 | Broken Embraces | Los Abrazos Rotos | * Original Script
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the awards presented at the Golden Globes, an American film awards ceremony.Until 1986, it was known as the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film, meaning that any non-American film could be honoured... |
| 2011 | The Skin I Live In The Skin I Live In The Skin I Live In is a 2011 Spanish film directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet, Roberto Álamo and Blanca Suárez, and is loosely based on Thierry Jonquet's novel Tarantula. The film was the first collaboration in 21 years between Almodóvar... |
La piel que habito | * Based on Tarantula by Thierry Jonquet Thierry Jonquet Thierry Jonquet was a French writer who specialised in crime novels with political themes. He was born in Paris; his most recent and best known novel outside of France was Mygale , then published in the US in 2003 by City Lights. Mygale was also published in the UK as Tarantula in 2005... |
Bibliography
- Allinson, Mark: A Spanish Labyrinth : The Films of Pedro Almodóvar, I.B Tauris Publishers, 2001, ISBN 1-86064-507 - 0
- Bergan, Ronald Film, D.K Publishing, 2006, ISBN 0756622034
- Cobos, Juan and Miguel Marias: Almodóvar Secreto, Nickel Odeon, 1995
- D’ Lugo, Marvin: Pedro Almodóvar, University of Illinois Press, 2006, ISBN 0-252-073614 - 4
- Edwards, Gwyne : Almodóvar: labyrinths of Passion. London: Peter Owen. 2001, ISBN 0720611210
- Strauss, Frederick Almodóvar on Almodóvar, Faber and Faber, 2006, ISBN 0-57123-192-6
External links
- Viva Pedro Official website of the Viva Pedro series, featuring the theatrical re-release of 8 of the celebrated auteur's films.
- Almodóvar Bibliography (via UC Berkeley)