A Companion to Pedro Almodóvar

Once the enfant terrible of Spain’s youth culture explosion, la Movida , Pedro Almodóvar’s distinctive film style and career longevity have made him one of the most successful and internationally known filmmakers of his generation. Offering a state–of–the–art appraisal of Almodóvar’s work, this original collection is a searching analysis of his technique and cultural significance that includes work by leading authorities on Almodóvar as well as talented young scholars. Crucially included here are contributions from film historians Almodóvar’s native Spain, where he has been undervalued by the academic and critical establishment. With a balance between textual and contextual approaches, the book expands the scope of previous work on the director to explore his fruitful collaborations with fellow professionals in the areas of art design, fashion and music as well as the growing reach of a global Almodóvar brand beyond Europe and the U.S. to Latin America and Asia. It also proposes a reevaluation of the political meanings and engagement of his cinema from the perspective of the profound cultural and historical upheavals that have transformed Spain since 1970s.

Notes on Contributors viii Acknowledgments xv Introduction: The Skin He Lives In 1 Marvin D’Lugo and Kathleen M. Vernon Part I Bio–Filmography 19 1 Almodóvar’s Self–Fashioning: The Economics and Aesthetics of Deconstructive Autobiography 21 Paul Julian Smith 2 Creative Beginnings in Almodóvar’s Work 39 Francisco A. Zurian 3 Almodóvar and Hitchcock: A Sorcerer’s Apprenticeship 59 Dona Kercher 4 A Life, Imagined and Otherwise: The Limits and Uses of Autobiography in Almodóvar’s Films 88 Alberto Mira Part II Spanish Contexts 105 5 El Deseo’s “Itinerary”: Almodóvar and the Spanish Film Industry 107 Marina Díaz López 6 Almodóvar and Spanish Patterns of Film Reception 129 Josetxo Cerdán and Miguel Fernández Labayen 7 Memory, Politics, and the Post–Transition in Almodóvar’s Cinema 153 Juan Carlos Ibáñez 8 The Ethics of Oblivion: Personal, National, and Cultural Memories in the Films of Pedro Almodóvar 176 Adrián Pérez Melgosa Part III At the Limits of Gender 201 9 Our Rapists, Ourselves: Women and the Staging of Rape in the Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar 203 Leora Lev 10 Paternity and Pathogens: Mourning Men and the Crises of Masculinity in Todo Sobre Mi Madre and Hable Con Ella 225 Dean Allbritton 11 Domesticating Violence in the Films of Pedro Almodóvar 244 Noelia Saenz 12 La piel que habito: A Story of Imposed Gender and the Struggle for Identity 262 Francisco A. Zurian Part IV Re–readings 279 13 Re–envoicements and Reverberations in Almodóvar’s Macro–Melodrama 281 Marsha Kinder 14 The Flower of His Secret: Carne trémula and the Mise en Scène of Desire 304 Celestino Deleyto 15 Scratching the Past on the Surface of the Skin: Embodied Intersubjectivity, Prosthetic Memory, and Witnessing in Almodóvar’s La mala educación 322 Julián Daniel Gutiérrez–Albilla 16 Almodóvar’s Stolen Images 345 Javier Herrera Part V Global Almodóvar 365 17 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: From Madrid (1988) to New York (2010) 367 Isolina Ballesteros 18 Almodóvar’s Global Musical Marketplace 387 Kathleen M. Vernon 19 Almodóvar and Latin America: The Making of a Transnational Aesthetic in Volver 412 Marvin D’Lugo 20 Is there a French Almodóvar? 432 Jean–Claude Seguin 21 Almodóvar in Asia: Hong Kong, Taiwan, and LGBT Film Culture 453 E. K. Tan Part VI Art and Commerce 469 22 To the Health of the Author: Art Direction in Los abrazos rotos 471 John D. Sanderson 23 Making Spain Fashionable: Fashion and Design in Pedro Almodóvar’s Cinema 495 Gerard Dapena 24 Almodóvar, Cyberfandom, and Participatory Culture 524 Vicente Rodríguez Ortega Index 551

Marvin D′Lugo is Professor of Spanish and Adjunct Professor of Screen Studies at Clark University, Massachusetts where he teaches courses on Spanish and Latin–American cinema. He has published a number of books including Pedro Almodóvar (2006) in the University of Illinois Press’ Contemporary Film Directors series. Kathleen M. Vernon is Associate Professor of Hispanic Languages and Literatures at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She is author and editor of numerous studies on Spanish cinema and culture including Post–Franco, Postmodern: The Films of Pedro Almodóvar (1995).

“Well researched and clearly organized, the volume boasts a helpful scholarly apparatus.  Almodovar scholars will want to keep this companion handy, and all advanced students of film will appreciate it.  Summing Up: Recommended.  Graduate students, researchers, faculty.”  ( Choice , 1 December 2013)