Pedro Almodovar

Pedro Almodóvar

In this small biography of Pedro Almodóvar will try shortly but in a concise way its childhood and youth, its maturity, its managerial activity, its film works, filmography and negotiated prizes along its career as well as some of its performances.

Pedro Almodóvar Gentleman (1951), cinema director, writer and Spanish guionista.

Childhood and youth (1951-1984)

He/she was born September 24 1951 in Roadway of Calatrava, a small town in the county of Real City, in a humble family of peasants. To the 8 years it emigrated to Extremadura; he/she studied the high school with the parents Salesianos and Franciscans in Cáceres; in this city he/she became fond to the cinema in a compulsive way. To the 16 years he/she left to Madrid with the purpose of studying cinema. The school of Cinema had been closed by Franco and it could not enroll. He/she worked in multiple and sporadic employments, but their first camera of Súper could not be bought 8 until it didn't get administrative assistant's employment in the Telefónica where it was 12 years, and he/she began to be interested in the cinema and the theater of vanguard like member of the theatrical group The Goliardos in which knew the deceased Félix Rotaeta and to the one that would be one of its muses: Carmen Maura.

At the end of the 70 he/she wrote cómic scripts and it collaborated in countercultural magazines as Star, Viper and Vibrations with stories and articles even creating a character own call Pathy Dhyfusa. In 1972 it began to rotate their first ones short in Super 8 and it takes them from Madrid to Barcelona making in a homemade way him same the dubbing. He/she became one of the main characters of the moved call from Madrid; in her it participated as singer next to Fabio McNamara in a duet of parodical punk-glam-rock in an atmosphere local. It published then and later, among other things, a short novel (Fire in the bowels), some fotonovela pron (All Yours) and multiple collaborations in newspapers and magazines: The Country, Newspaper 16 and The Moon. Their first movie was Pepi, Luci, Bom and other girls of the heap, elaborated with half million of pesetas (approx. 3000 €) thanks to Félix's collaboration Rotaeta and Carmen Maura and to bush jump with a fotonovela script written by Pedro soon after a responsibility of the magazine The Viper, «General Erections».

Maturity (1985-)

After the success inside the one Moved, he/she made several more movies and, fed up with begging financing, he/she was founded next to their brother Agustín the company producer «The Desire» in 1985 to take place with independence their scripts; the first of this time is that of The law of the desire, 1986. Carried out with big difficulties, this movie became one of the more transgressors of the Spanish cinema. From then on, apart from Almodóvar's movies, The Desire has produced directors' films as Álex of the Church, Guillermo of the Bull, Daniel Calparsoro, Mónica Lagoon and recently to Isabel Coixet and to the couple formed by Dunia Ayaso and Flavorful Félix.

In the 2003, he/she manifested that the Academy of the Arts and the Film Sciences of Spain had made a mistake when not selecting to he/she Speaks with her for the category of better foreign movie. This presage was corroborated when the Academy of Cinema that the Oscars grants discarded On Mondays in the sun as finalist in the category of better foreign movie, and it rewarded with the Óscar to the best script to he/she Speaks with her, also nominating it in better director's section, something tremendously unusual. Dos years later, Pedro Almodóvar and their brother abandoned the Academy of the Arts and the Film Sciences of Spain, alleging their disagreement with the effective system of votings of the Goya for the one that, with very few votes, a movie can become winner of a prize, besides manifesting its annoyance before a place in which doesn't want them to him.

One year before, in the 2004, during the presentation of the movie "the bad education" had already given sample from its impulsive character when declaring that "the PP was to point, on Saturday at twelve in the night, of causing a Blow of State", although then it rectified [Terra].

In the last edition of the prizes, these had gone in their biggest part to Alejandro Amenábar with their movie Sea inside, leaving without none to the The bad education, which had obtained 4 nominations. Its mother's death supposed a certain turn in its trajectory that made him return toward its origins, recently represented in Returning (2006).

Managerial activity

As he/she affirms the weekly publication of tendency ultraconservative Time ([1]), Almodóvar prepares of:

* The producer The Desire, of which possesses the 84,99 of the stocks. This company obtained some benefits of 3,1 million Eurus in the 2002; of 212.206 in the 2003; of 294.117 in the 2004 and of 52.594 in the 2005. In the 2005 their own funds were already calculated in 20 million Eurus.
* The homonymous distribuidora The Desire GIVES whose funds ascend to 13,2 million Eurus.
* A homonymous real estate society, constituted in the 2001 in Madrid, and whose patrimony ascends to 5,7 million Eurus.
* Dock investments, a mutual fund, of which The Desire possesses the 99,97 of the stocks and whose capital ascends to 4,3 million Eurus. In the 2005 it changed their name for Oyster investments.
* The money of the State received in concept of film grants that in 2005 2006, it ascended to 2,3 million Eurus for their movies, and to 1,5 millions for their distribuidora.

However, any independent source that corroborates this figures doesn't exist.

 

It works film

Almodóvar's cinema, next in technique and aesthetics to that of Eloy of the Church, it cultivates a naturalism that destroys the usual bourgeois literature of manners of the Spanish cinema. It usually represents, on the contrary, a marginal reality or of the urban subproletariado and it is plentiful in scandalous and provocative elements: corrupt policemen, I consummate of drugs, abuse, prostitution, precocious children, philosophical yokels, desperate marujas, torn homosexuality, etc., everything it without giving up their irreverent humor and without avoiding the explicit sex, as the long golden rain of their first in 35 mm Pepi, Luci, Bom and other girls of the heap (1980).

The function of the occasional scandalous element in poor taste incorporate to their movies it is, like in the case of the surrealists, épater them bourgeois («to perturb the bourgeoises»), but also to the intellectuals that think that they are too much talluditos like to play to such a game. With the time, however, he/she goes developing more and more sophisticated and colorist and near soap operas to the classic melodrama inspired by Douglas Sirk and he/she goes polishing their writing until becoming a formidable guionista, owner of the rhythm and of the structure. Was their success forged starting from the What a film I have made to deserve this? (1984), also played by the actress fetish of their first films, Carmen Maura.

In later movies as you Tie me!, classified initially as cinema X in United States, a woman ends up falling in love with her kidnapper and in Kika you/he/she even ends up trivializing the violation. They are also plentiful, among their inspiration sources, almost always autobiographical, the elements buñuelescos and anticlerical, as the black humor or the priest pederast of The bad education, or belonging to the culture «gypsy» of masses and the art of vanguard. It is characteristic their liking to the boleros, to Chavela Vargas, to Caetano Veloso, and in general to the aesthetics more punk, Stingy Lux and transgressor, based on the use of vulgar and degraded very alive and strongly contrasted, external colors and the violent disproportions between the human interpreters and the physical environments of the buildings.

Their experience like actor and singer has made him become a great director of actors and I eat guionista you/he/she arranges the feminine characters and the histories loaded with dramatismo specially well. With the time he/she has ended up becoming a formidable guionista. he/she is also an original writer. and it has arrived visually to a stylistic purification that doesn't do without of occasional and brilliant formal discoveries.

Although the expert analysts in the work almodovariana don't seem to put on according to 100%, we could classify their artistic work in five stages, although their cinema possesses a such coherence that could only be spoken of one:

1. Stage «punk»: Pepi, Luci, Bom and other girls of the heap and Labyrinth of passions.
2. Stage with white influence of Berlanga-Fellini: Among darkness and What have I made to deserve this?.
3. Stage classic-teacher: Killer, The law of the desire, Women on the edge of an attack of nerves, Get tied up! and distant Heels.
4. Experimental stage: Kika, The flower of my secret and trembling Meat.
5. Refined-avant-garde stage: All envelope my mother, Speak with her and The bad education.

In their film, to Return, the reencuentro takes place with its 'muse' par excellence, Carmen Maura, which embodies the paper of a «dummy grandmother» (movie of Enrique Goded, in The bad education: blink-hint on the next movie that would rotate). In Returning, Pedro Almodóvar surrenders homage to the persevering and suffocating mourning that incited to the managing manchego to capture, in a completely maximized and exuberant way, a color universe whose roots are intimately bound to the Pop movement Art promoted by the controversial Andy Warhol. Sobrexponer the day-to-dayness of excluded characters and displaced it is one of the characteristics of Pedro Almodóvar cinema.

 

Filmography

Year Movie
2006 to return (DG)
2004 the bad education (DG)
2001 speak with her (DG)
1999 all envelope my mother (DG)
1997 trembling meat (DG)
1995 the flower of my secret (DG)
1993 Kika (DG)
1991 distant heels (DG)
1990 tie me! (DG)
1988 women on the edge of an attack of nerves (DG)
1987 the law of the desire (DGAM)
1986 killer (DG)
1984 what I have made to deserve this? (DG)
1983 among darkness (DG)
1982 labyrinth of passions (DGAM)
1980 Pepi, Luci, Bom and other girls of the heap (DG)

* (DG) Director and guionista
* (DGAM) Director, guionista, actor and music.

Prizes

Festival of Cannes
Year Category............... Movie
2006 prize to the best script to Return Winner
1999 prize to the best director All envelope my mother Winner

 

Oscars

Year Category.............................. Movie
2002 Oscar to the best director Speaks with her Candidate
2002 Oscar to the best original script Speaks with her Winner
1998 Oscar to the best foreign movie All envelope my mother Winner
1989 Oscar to the best movie foreign Women on the edge of an attack of nerves Candidate

 

Globes of Gold

Year Category................................................................ Movie
2002 globe of Gold to the best movie in language non Englishwoman Speaks with her Winner
1998 globe of Gold to the best movie in language non Englishwoman All envelope my mother Winner

 

Prizes Goya

Year Category..... Movie...... Result
2003 better movie Speaks with her Candidate
2003 better director Speaks with her Candidate
2003 better original script Speaks with her Candidate
1999 better movie All envelope my mother Winner
2000 better director All envelope my mother Winner
2000 better original script All envelope my mother Candidate
1991 better movie Ties me! Candidate
1991 better director Ties me! Candidate
1991 better original script Ties me! Candidate
1989 better movie Women on the edge of a Winning attack of nerves
1989 better managing Women on the edge of an attack of nerves Candidate
1989 better script original Women on the edge of a Winning attack of nerves

 

Prizes Caesar

Year Category........................................ Movie............ Result
2000 better movie of the European Union All envelope my mother Winner
2000 better foreign movie All envelope my mother Winner
1992 better movie foreign Heels distant Winner
1991 better foreign movie Ties me! Candidate

 

BAFTA (United Kingdom)

Year Category....................................... Movie..................................................... Result
2003 better movie in speech non Englishwoman Speaks with her.................................................... Winner
1989 better movie in speech non English Women on the edge of an attack of nerves Candidate

 

Prizes Prince of Asturias

Year Category................................................... Result
2006 reward Prince of Asturias of the Arts Winner

Performances

Pedro Almodóvar has made small appearances like actor in several movies. Among them they highlight:

* The bad education, of Pedro Almodóvar (2004)
* Tattoo, of Gregori Baquet (1999)
* In the bed with Madonna, of Alek Keshishian (1991)
* The law of the desire, of Pedro Almodóvar (1987)
* What have I made to deserve this?, of Pedro Almodóvar (1984)
* Labyrinth of passions, of Pedro Almodóvar (1982)
* Pepi, Luci, Bom and other girls of the heap, of Pedro Almodóvar (1980)
* A man called Flower of Autumn, of Pedro Surges (1978)