Background
Pedro Almodóvar was born on 25 September 1951 in Calzada De Calatrava.
director producer screenwriter
Pedro Almodóvar was born on 25 September 1951 in Calzada De Calatrava.
A frustrated provincial (he came from the area of La Mancha), he moved to Madrid in 1967 and worked for the telephone company. He joined an experimental theatre group, he wrote comicstrips, and he was active in rock music. He began making short films on Super-8 at the time of Franco’s death.
Almodovar must mean more in Spain than anywhere else, his generation has been insistent on throwing out the country’s past. Still, he has preferred to work in Spain, with a striking band of actors—notably Carmen Maura and Antonio Banderas. Women on the Verge is his most successful film, the one in which gaiety, violence, and tragedy jostle together most dangerously. Tie Me Up. Tie Me Down! was a relative disappointment. An energy like Almodovar’s needs to keep expanding or risk becoming mannered.
So he may need to take on fresh, dangerous territory. America could prove a very fruitful inspiration, for he knows American culture, and he is ideally placed to smash our old, fixed dreams about what it is to be Hispanic. But All About My Mother was his largest and warmest film a sweeping tribute to women, and one of those films to make you wonder if God didn’t mean the movies to be gay.
His works include: La Caida de Sodoma (s); Dos Putas, o Historia de Amor que Termina en Boda (s). 1975: Hom- enaje (s); El Sueno (s). 1976: El Estrella (s). 1977: Complements (s); Sexo Va (s). 1978: Folle, Folic, Fblleme, Tim; Salome (s). 1980: Pepi, Luci, Bom y Otras Chicas del Monton/Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom. 1982: Laberinto de Pasiones/Labyrinth of Passion. 1983: Entre Tinieblas/Dark Habits. 1984: Que He Hecho Yo Para Merecer Esto?/What Have I Done to Deserve This?. 1985: Trayler para Amantes de lo Prohibido (s). 1986: Matador. 1987: La Ley del Deseo/Law of Desire. 1988: Mujeres al Borcle de un Ataque de Nervios/Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. 1990: Tie Me Up. Tie Me Doiad. 1991: High Heels 1993: Kika 1995: La Florde Mi Secreto/The Flower of My Secret. 1997: Came Tremula/Live Flesh. 1999: Todo Sobre Mi Madre/All About My Mother 2002: Hablecon Ella/Talk to Her.
He is openly gay, devoted to sexual confusion, and eternally committed to the chance of love. His mode is satiric yet generous and free from moralizing. He has remarked on his debt not just to Hitchcock, Wilder, and Buñuel, but to Frank Tashlin. Indeed, there is a cartoonlike abandon and delirium in his best films and a complete faith in the torrential subconscious. But his generous, affectionate nature is all his own.