Igler, S. (2007) –‘Lo que quedó enterrado: transgresiones de tabúes sociales en La mala educación (Pedro Almodóvar, 2004) y Mar adentro (Alejandro Amenábar, 2004), in Miradas glocales: Cine español en el cambio de milenio, edited by B. Pohl and J. Türschmann, Madrid: Iberoamericana, pp.235-248. ISBN: 9788484893028
Looks at the representations of social taboos in Bad Education and Amenábar’s The Sea Inside.
Indiana, G. (2004) –‘Internal Affairs’, Film Comment, Nov/Dec, pp.22-24.
(Bad Education).
Jones, K. (2002) –‘Pedro Almodóvar creates another lush, bittersweet object of beauty’, Film Comment, May/June, p.13.
(Talk to Her).
Kinder, M. (2004) –‘Reinventing the Motherland: Almodóvar’s Brain-Dead Trilogy’, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 5:3, pp.245-260.
Focuses on The Flower of My Secret, All About My Mother, and Talk to Her.
(2007) –‘Review: Volver’, Film Quarterly, 60:3, pp.4-9.
Levy, S. (1994) –‘You Can’t Keep A Good Woman Down’, Film Comment, May / June, pp.59-62.
(Kika).
Macnab, G. (2009) –‘The Special Relationship’, The Independent, Arts, 31st July, pp.4-6.
On the subject of Penélope Cruz’s relationship with Almodóvar and the BFI season of her films.
Marcantonio, C. (2008) –‘The transvestite figure and film noir: Pedro Almodóvar’s transnational imaginary’, in Contemporary Spanish cinema and genre, edited by J. Beck and V. Rodríguez Ortega, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, pp.157-178. ISBN: 9780719077753
Focuses on High Heels and Bad Education.
Marsh, S. (2004) – ‘Masculinity, Monuments and Movement: Gender and the City of Madrid in Pedro Almodóvar’s Carne trémula (1997)’, in Gender and Spanish Cinema, edited by S. Marsh and P. Nair, Oxford & New York: Berg, pp.53-70. ISBN: 9781859737910
[Taken from the intro to the book] ‘[E]xplores the connections between gender and urban geography in his analysis of Almodóvar’s Carne trémula. Arguing that the critical tendency to label Almodóvar’s cinematic output as ahistorical is more complex than has been depicted, Marsh suggests that this film marks a pivotal moment in the director’s career, given its close engagement with recent Spanish political history. It also constitutes Almodóvar’s most serious exploration of heterosexual masculinity. The urban space of Madrid serves as a means of interpreting such historically constructed and conflicting masculine identities. To this end, the film hinges on the corporeal interface of public and private spheres, connecting the teleological narrative of the city’s space with the individual human body.’
A really interesting article.
Martín Garzo, G. (2009) –‘Una casa de lava’, El País, 19th March, p.29.
(Broken Embraces).
Moix, T. (1997) –‘Carne de nuestra carne’, Fotogramas, November, pp.13-14.
(Live Flesh).
Molina Foix, V. (1999) –‘Todo sobre mi madre’, Cinemanía, May, pp.20-21.
(All About My Mother).
(2004) –‘La ley del deseo’, El País, 16th October.
A review written when Law of Desire featured in El País’s DVD range (in a series that focused on Almodóvar’s films).
Morgan, R. (1992) –‘Dressed to Kill’, Sight & Sound, April, pp.28-29.
(Review of High Heels).
Morgan-Tamosunas, R. (2002) – ‘Narrative, Desire and Critical Discourse in Pedro Almodóvar’s Carne trémula (1997)’, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 8:2, pp.185-199.
[Taken from the article itself] ‘This [article] is particularly concerned with exploring [an] apparent contradiction through an examination of the relationship in the film between narrative and form, the hermeneutics of desire, and the gendered and socially-constructed expectations of patriarchy. It will examine some of the ways in which the film activates a critical discourse that deconstructs the operation of these gender binaries, especially in relation to concepts of masculinity’ (p.187).
Murcia, C. (2007) –‘Cine e identidad nacional. El caso de Almodóvar’, in Cine, nación y nacionalidades en España, edited by N. Berthier and J.C. Seguin, Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, pp.271-278. ISBN: 9788496820050
Looks at Almodóvar’s work through the concept of ‘national cinema’.
Pally, M. (1990) –‘The Politics of Passion: Pedro Almodóvar and the Camp Esthetic’, Cineaste, Vol. XVIII, no.1, pp.32-39.
Written around the time of the release of Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
Pastor, B.M. (2006) –‘Screening sexual and gendered otherness in Almodóvar’s Law of Desire (1987) –The real ‘sexual revolution’’, Studies in European Cinema, 3:1, pp.7-24.
Pavlovic, T. (2006) –‘Allegorising the body politic: Masculinity and history in Saura’s El jardín de las delicias (1970) and Almodóvar’s Carne trémula’, Studies in Hispanic Cinemas, 3:3, pp.149-167.
Pingree, G. (2004) –‘Pedro Almodóvar and the New Politics of Spain’, Cineaste, Vol. XXX, no.1, Winter, pp.4-8.
(Bad Education).
Quiroga, J. (2009) –Law of Desire: A Queer Film Classic, Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press. ISBN: 9781551522623
Similar to the BFI film classic monographs, but from a series on Queer Cinema.
Rodríguez Ortega, V. (2008) –‘Trailing the Spanish auteur: Almodóvar’s, Amenábar’s and de la Iglesia’s generic routes in the US markets’, in Contemporary Spanish cinema and genre, edited by J. Beck and V. Rodríguez Ortega, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, pp.44-64. ISBN: 9780719077753
This article ‘takes the genrification of the Almodóvar brand in the US media and cinematic imaginary as a point of departure to tackle how the concepts of genre, authorship and Spanish cinema itself acquire different meanings when transposed into a foreign film market. By scrutinising the marketing strategies deployed by the successive US distributors of three of the most economically and critically successful Spanish directors of the last decade and a half –Pedro Almodóvar, Alejandro Amenábar, Alex de la Iglesia – [this article] analyses the relationship between genre and Spanish cinema within a foreign film market.’
Sastre, L. (2006) –‘La vida en cartel’, Citizen K España, No.5 (Spring –March/April/May), pp.306-308.
An article about the designer Juan Gatti & his work with Almodóvar.
Shaw, D. (2000) –‘Men in High Heels: The Feminine Man and Performances of Femininity in Tacones lejanos by Pedro Almodóvar’, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 6:1, pp.55-62.
[Taken from the introduction, p.55] ‘In this article, [Shaw] explain[s] how the film represents gender identity as performances that men and women have access to regardless of sex. [She] use[s] Butler’s theories of performance to provide a framework in which to view Almodóvar’s representation of gender, and to demonstrate the ways in which male adoption of the feminine is empowering for the women in the film, and contributes to resolution where there was conflict. Abusive forms of power associated with patriarchal masculinity are destroyed in the film and replaced by feminised law’.
Smith, P.J. (1994) –‘Future Chic’, Sight & Sound, January, p.6-10.
(Kika)
(1996) –‘Almodóvar and the tin can’, Sight & Sound, February, pp.24-28.
(The Flower of My Secret).
(1998) – ‘Absolute Precision’, Sight & Sound, April, pp.6-9.
(Live Flesh).
(1999) –‘Silicone and Sentiment’, Sight & Sound, 9:9 (September), pp.28-30.
(All About My Mother).
(2000) –Desire Unlimited: The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar (Second Edition), London: Verso. ISBN: 9781859843048
Includes the four Sight & Sound articles listed above, and also has a chapter apiece on each of the films that predate Kika (the subject of the first of the S&S pieces). One of the best books on Almodóvar and his films.
(2002) –‘Only Connect’, Sight & Sound, 12:7 (July), pp.24-27.
(Talk to Her).
(2004) –‘All I Desire’, Sight & Sound, 14:6 (June), pp.14-18.
(Bad Education).
(2006) –‘Women, Windmills and Wedge Heels’, Sight & Sound, 16:6 (June), pp.16-18.
(Volver).
Sotinel, T. (2010) –Masters of Cinema: Pedro Almodóvar, Paris: Cahiers du cinéma Sarl. [Revised English edition –originally published in French in 2007]
Strauss, F. (ed.) ([1994] 2006) –Almodóvar on Almodóvar (Revised Edition), London: Faber & Faber. ISBN: 0571231926.
As with all of the Faber X on X series, it takes the format of a series of interviews about each of his films (up to, and including, Bad Education). Almodóvar being the raconteur that he is, it makes for entertaining reading.
Thompson, D. (1992) –‘Review: Tacones lejanos / High Heels’, Sight & Sound, April, pp.61-62.
Torreiro, M. (2006a) –‘Un bello retorno’, El País, 17th March, p.63.
Review of Volver.
Triana-Toribio, N. (1996) –‘Almodóvar’s Melodramatic Mise-en-scène: Madrid as a Setting for Melodrama’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies [BHS], LXXIII, pp.179-189.
Looks at the use of Madrid in Almodóvar’s early and mid-period films (up to, and including, Kika).
(1999) –‘¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? (Almodóvar, 1984)’, in Spanish Cinema: The Auteurist Tradition, edited by P.W. Evans, Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN: 019818414X.
(2007) –‘Journeys of El Deseo between the nation and the transnational in Spanish cinema’, Studies in Hispanic Cinemas, 4:3, pp.151-164.
Willoquet-Maricondi, P. (ed.) (2004) –Pedro Almodóvar: Interviews, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN: 1578065690.
Another book of Almodóvar interviews, collected from a range of sources.
