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Pedro Almodóvar: The Man From La Mancha
Pedro Almodóvar Returns with Talk to Her
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Pedro Almodóvar is back. The free-spirited iconoclast of Spanish cinema has a new film, Talk To Her, the story of a unique and endearing friendship between two men, each of whom is in love with a woman who has lost all ability to hear or be heard. It is a film about communication, non-communication and the fine line between love and madness.
When Pedro Almodóvar left his family home in sleepy, provincial La Mancha for the big city, he was a boy of 16. Already a confirmed cinephile, he entered Madrid just as the government of Spanish dictator Franco was closing down the National Film School. Spared the mixed blessings of a good education, he went on to create his own. As the days of dictatorship came to a close, and the doors to a new democracy were thrown open, Pedro was busy scripting a colorful life for himself: he wrote for underground magazines, performed in a local punk band, did a bit of acting and, above all, made movies. His philosophy was straightforward: "You become a director the moment you pick up a camera and try to narrate a story or a sensation. Between 1973 and 1979, I shot loads of Super8 films. I tried all sorts of different genres. But whatever the format, they were always narrative films. That was my school—and it didn't cost much, either."
Working as a clerk for the phone company Telefonica (a gig which lasted 12 years) ,Pedro had plenty of time to observe and digest the mores and secret codes of every class of person. Eventually, the fledgling moviemaker was able take what he had learned and pull together a production that got noticed. "My first great chance in Spain came with Pepi, Luci, Bom. I shot it in 16mm, with a budget of half a million pesetas ($3,000); it was probably the cheapest film in our history."
Shot on the weekends or whenever they could scare up a few feet of film, Pepi, Luci, Bom was eventually blown up to 35mm, and had its premiere in 1980. The rest, as they say, is history. As Almodóvar himself puts it: "It became a cult film and I became the new agitator of Spanish cinema."
His second feature, Dark Habits, was selected for the Venice Film Festival in 1983. What Have I Done to Deserve This?, Matador and Law of Desire all served to solidify his international standing. Then came the outrageous farce Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, a breakout hit which confirmed Almodóvar as the reigning poster child of Spanish cinema. After the release of Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! in 1989, he made five films in the 1990s: High Heels, Kika, The Flower of My Secret, Live Flesh and All About My Mother. While some of these pictures revealed the director falling prey to a certain amount of repetition—containing, as they did, their fair share of sexual hijinks and predictably eccentric characters—Almodóvar has always been more than a mere provocateur.
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| Rosario Flores as Lydia. |
In Talk To Her, Marco (Darío Grandinetti), a travel writer in his 40s, and Benigno (Javier Cámara), a young male nurse, meet at a private clinic where Benigno works. Marco's girlfriend, Lydia (Rosario Flores), a bullfighter, has been gored by a bull and is in a coma; Benigno, meanwhile, is caring for Alicia (Leonor Watling), a beautiful young ballet student who is also trapped in unconsciousness, having suffered her own debilitating accident. As the two men bond, sharing their respective stories of love and loss, the narrative goes out in all directions—past, present and future. Featuring top-notch cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe, an appearance by Brazilian singer/songwriter Caetano Veloso and a cameo by Geraldine Chaplin—a frequent contributor to Spanish cinema—Talk to Her represents one of Almodóvar's most solid outings to date.
In an interview with MM, Pedro Almodóvar reveals his thoughts on the creative process, the development of this latest crop of characters and his personal moviemaking dos and don'ts.
Phillip Williams (MM): People are sure to comment on the fact that Talk to Her deals with two fully-realized male leads—a departure from your usual focus on females. What struck me most was how real Benigno and Marco are; how unusual it is to see sensitive, somewhat lost, male characters carrying a story. Did you intend to give audiences a fresh slant on what makes men tick?
Pedro Almodóvar (PA): Right from the beginning, Talk to Her was intended to be a story about men. It may seem very new because many of my films have starred female characters, but it is not at all new. In Law of Desire, the protagonists were men; even the girl had been a man. Live Flesh is a story about three men who compete for the same woman. They think, act and kill for strictly testicular reasons. As opposed to Live Flesh, I wanted Talk to Her to portray sentimental, lonely, melancholic, non-violent, fragile male characters. The man-who-cries and the man-who-talks become soulmates, despite the fact that they are so different.
The friendship between the two is one of the main themes of the film. I have always believed that friendship is a great cinematic theme; nearly as important as love. I feel really moved when John Wayne helps his alcoholic buddy, Robert Mitchum, the sheriff who has been humiliated by alcohol in Howard Hawks' El Dorado. Or when Alida Valli loses her head (and her dignity) amongst the beautiful yet fetid streets of Venice in Senso by Visconti, for the love of an insensitive and foolish Farley Granger.
MM: Talk to Her is slanted toward its male characters, but the women show up strongly—even when they cannot speak. How do the women help to create the men at the center of the story?
PA: I wanted two inert women to be as strong and active as if they were standing up and talking non-stop; passiveness and silence are sometimes as expressive as the opposite.
The characters of Alicia and Lydia help to define the two male characters: Marco is attracted to desperate women and Lydia is not only desperate, but she constantly dices with death in her professional life also. This, and her rebellious beauty when she is discovered on TV, are what make her attractive to Marco. The relationship between Marco and Lydia is based on the pain of previous, frustrated, amorous adventures. They both feel hurt. This is why they draw support from each other.
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| Leonor Watling as Alicia and Geraldine Chaplin as Katerina in Pedro Almodóvar’s Talk to Her. |
Alicia is a young dancer who, in her only meeting with Benigno, says the two or three things that will fill the nurse's life. Benigno is an inexperienced person who has spent 20 years [taking care of his mother]. When Alicia is in bed at the clinic, she takes the place of his mother. It's as if the time Benigno spent looking after his mother was just a dress rehearsal so that he would be able to take better care of Alicia. Alicia blossoms under the nurse's words. Benigno spends his free time doing all the things she liked to do before the accident. He goes to the ballet, he goes to the cinema to watch silent films... Benigno's love story goes beyond any limitations.
MM: Is the Pedro Almodóvar of today self-made, or a product of his education?
PA: I'm the result of the things that
I have struggled and fought for—my mistakes and triumphs. Most importantly,
I am the result of being faithful to my vocation as a storyteller,
a vocation that I have had ever since I was very small. Human beings
are far too limited to create themselves in absolute terms. I am
as
I am. And Talk to Her is what it is because the 13 films
that came before it were the films that they were and not different
ones.
MM: Do you write in a disciplined manner, or do you wait for inspiration?
PA: As Picasso said, the best thing
is that inspiration finds you while you are working.
I am always taking notes, small ideas, some lines from a book that
have impacted me, an extraordinary incident I've read in the newspaper,
my own thoughts and worries, anything that draws my attention. At
some point, two or three of these notes join together with an unexpected
logic. There may be a story in them, but you have to write it to
find out.
The only change that I have noticed since I first started writing for the cinema is that nowadays I am much more patient about waiting for the story to come together. Sometimes it takes years, other times a couple of months. It is a good thing to constantly be writing.
MM: The tone of your recent works like Talk to Her and All About My Mother is very different from earlier films such as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Do you see yourself on a path toward realism?
PA: I would not exactly call it 'realism.' In my films there is always some element of artifice. I see the cinema as a representation of reality. I try to distill feelings into purer forms, so that they reach the spectator like a breeze. People recognize them, but are also surprised at the same time. I look for some sort of emotional complicity from the spectator—emotions that become ever more realistic.
The change in tone from Women on the Verge to Talk to Her is very clear: I think it is something to do with maturity, but I don't really like to use that word. It's true that, with the march of time, I have become more restrained: I am less baroque, my sense of humor has less presence and the palette of colors has become more dramatic. However the humor and color will never disappear from my films.
MM: Once you have chosen your actors, how much freedom do they have to develop their characters?
PA: I expect everything from my actors
and I will try in a thousand ways to help them achieve it. I don't
believe in the idea of the actor working alone. Acting is a two-person
job [between] the actor and the director.
The director is the only mirror in which an actor can see himself.
I give the actor lots of information about the character and, when
the actor has digested it all, I let the actor fly solo. But I am
always watching the actor, vigilant and at the actor's service.
MM: The soundtrack of Talk to Her is great. What effects were you looking for in the music? How do you work with your composers?
PA: The most important thing is that the musician who is working with you knows what you want and feels the film in the same way as you do. You also need a talented composer who is able to record a soundtrack in no time flat. This is because it is the last job to be done and everyone is desperate to do the mixing and finish the final, definitive version of the film. I have never had a better understanding with a composer than the one I had with Alberto Iglesias. I think Talk to Her is his best work to date.
MM: When Marco talks to his lover, he quotes a line from singer Tom Jobim: "Love is the saddest thing in the world when it ends." Do you think you're able to include certain poetical and philosophical elements in your films that might cause giggles in an American film? Do you think that working in the Spanish film industry gives you extra freedoms or limitations?
PA: There is freedom in the creative sense (this is essential for me) and there are limitations at an economic level (this is less important to me). In answer to your comment that quotes like Jobim's could cause giggles in an American film, this is only a question of culture, not a question of freedom. American cinema is perpetually quoting from its own culture. They don't only quote American artists, but also the brands of food they eat, what they drink, what they wear, etc. These things are also culture.
Jobim is a composer as important as Cole Porter or Gershwin. He may not be popular amongst the American public, but the rest of the world knows who he is. And if they don't, it's time they did.
MM: Why do you direct films?
PA: I don't know if I do it out of obsession,
madness, vocation, boundless artistic ambition, presumption, fear
of being alone, or the inability to face my own problems—and as
an escape from them. Maybe it's the frustration that I don't dare
do anything else, or perhaps it's an addiction to that wonderful,
indescribable sensation that I receive when an actor manages to
get me to forget that I wrote their words. I suppose it's a bit
of everything. Or maybe it is that writing and directing films continues
to be the only thing that turns me on. MM
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This story was published in the Fall 2002 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
The Man From La Mancha / Pedro Almodóvar Returns with Talk to Her
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