Promotional Information

Understanding Almodovar's increasing complexity through an investigation of his central themes and the Spanish film tradition

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
PEDRO ALMÓDOVAR AND HIS CINEMA 1
Low-Level Melodrama 1
Pepi, Luci, Bom, and Other Friends of Pedro 16
Migration and Melodrama 29
Thrillers 45
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown59
Transnational Repositioning after Women on the Verge 67
The Flower of My Secret 85
Live Flesh 93
All about My Mother 99
Talk to Her and Bad Education 105
INTERVIEW WITH PEDRO ALMODÓVAR 131
SELF-INTERVIEW 145
Filmography 153
Bibliography 159
Index 165

About the Author

Marvin D'Lugo is a professor of Spanish and adjunct professor of screen studies at Clark University. He is the author of The Films of Carlos Saura: The Practice of Seeing, and Guide to Cinema in Spain and coeditor of A Companion to Pedro Almodóvar.

Reviews

"For fans and film students alike, D'Lugo's contribution to the Contemporary Film Directors series celebrates the director's camp aesthetic and artistic sensibilities with insight and elan."--Publishers Weekly   
"[D'Lugo] significantly extends the critical discourse on Almodovar's work by focusing on the cluster of ambiguities and polarities that sustain the most controversial aspects of Almodovar's authorship."--Screening The Past
"Providing a thoroughly researched synthesis of the many years of study of Almodovar's work by other scholars in both Spanish and English, D'Lugo nevertheless makes the narrative his own through contrasting Almodovar's early films to the films that inspired the director and the ones he seemed to revile and react to, and by emphasizing the auteur's own role in the creation of his personality as a celebrity-author ... With such a thorough and well-written book as D'Lugo's, a full appreciation of ... the genius of its creator has become a lot easier and more enjoyable."--European-films.net