The cinema of Pedro Almodóvar

Ana María Sánchez-Arce, Nuria Triana-Toribio, Andy Willis, Nuria Triana-Toribio, Andy Willis

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781526167125
  9780719074424
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526151018
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

This book offers a comprehensive film-by-film analysis of Spain's most famous living director, Pedro Almodóvar. It shows how Almodóvar's films draw on various national cinemas and genres, including Spanish cinema of the dictatorship, European art cinema, Hollywood melodrama and film noir. It also argues that Almodóvar's work is a form of social critique, his films consistently engaging with and challenging stereotypes about traditional and contemporary Spain in order to address Spain's traumatic historical past and how it continues to inform the present. Drawing on scholarship in both English and Spanish, the book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students of film studies and Hispanic studies, scholars of contemporary cinema and general readers with a passion for the films of Pedro Almodóvar.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: All about Almodóvar, or how to become a Spanish auteur
• 1 The early films: Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón and Laberinto de pasiones
• 2 Kicking the habit: Entre tinieblas
• 3 High windows and ugly aesthetics: ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto?
• 4 Faking Spain: Matador
• 5 Other voices, other stories: La ley del deseo
• 6 Pure theatre: Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios
• 7 On the verge of a genre breakdown: ¡Átame!, Tacones lejanos, and Kika
• 8 The end of romance: La flor de mi secreto
• 9 Circle lines and memory work: Carne trémula
• 10 Remembering children: Todo sobre mi madre
• 11 Still lives: Hable con ella
• 12 Faking memory: La mala educación
• 13 Motherlands: Volver
• 14 Archaeology in the dark: Los abrazos rotos
• 15 Visual seduction: La piel que habito
• 16 ‘Crisis cinema’: Los amantes pasajeros and Julieta
• Afterword: Dolor y gloria
• Filmography
• References
• Index