Pedro Almodóvar: World Directors

The book provides a detailed introduction to the essential themes, style, and aesthetics of Pedro Almodóvar's films, put in the context of Spain's profound cultural transitions since 1980. With precise and close analysis, the book covers the major concerns of the most successful of all Spanish film directors and makes direct, clear connections to the logic of Almodóvar's aesthetic and stylistic choices. By spanning the entirety of Pedro Almodóvar's feature-making career, the book emphasizes the director's sensibility to make the outrageous believable and to always give a unique spin to the issues of Spanish history, culture and identity.

A detailed and comprehensive approach to all of Pedro Almodóvar's feature films from the outrageous 1980 Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls on the Heapto the sophisticated 2004 Bad Education, this book provides more than an introduction and intimate look at the topics, style, aesthetics, and cultural sensibilities of Spain's most distinguished and celebrated film director since Luis Buñuel. By focusing on a film-by-film, and often scene-by-scene analysis, this book offers a meticulous interpretation of characters, situations, allusions, and cultural intersections as well as emphasizes the meaning and weight of cultural, historical and social contexts. The book traces the evolution of Almodóvar's career, from the perspective of aesthetic, narrative and stylistic concerns, and places those changes in the logical context of Spain's historical trajectory from the end of Franco's dictatorship to the transition to democracy, exploring Almodóvar's interest on issues of identity, sexuality, and nationalism.