Pedro Almodvar

Perhaps the best-known Spanish filmmaker to international audiences, Pedro Almodvar gained the widespread attention of English-speaking critics and fans with the Oscar-nominated Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and the celebrated dark comedy Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!. Marvin D'Lugo offers a concise, informed, and insightful commentary on a preeminent force in modern cinema. D'Lugo follows Almodvar's career chronologically, tracing the director's works and their increasing complexity in terms of theme and the Spanish film tradition. Drawing on a wide range of critical sources, D'Lugo explores Almodvar's use of melodrama and Hollywood genre film, his self-invention as a filmmaker, and his on-screen sexual politics. D'Lugo also discusses what he calls "geocultural positioning," that is, Almodvar's paradoxical ability to use his marginal positionsin terms of his class, geographical origin, and identityto develop an expressive language that is emotionally recognizable by audiences worldwide. Two fascinating interviews with the director round out the volume. An exciting consideration of an arthouse giant, Pedro Almodvar mixes original interpretations into an analysis sure to reward film students and specialists alike.