Pedro Almodóvar on the set of “Strange Way of Life” (El Deseo DASLU Iglesias Mas)
If Pedro Almodovar I didn’t play cowboys and Indians as a kid. He liked melodramas and musicals more. It had been a long time since he approached that Western film, when he saw Howard Hawkes’ Red River (Red River, 1948), which made a big impression on him. Could this genre delve into deeper themes? Some time later he read a novel that shaped him forever: The man in love who fell in love with the moon, by Tom Spanbauer (published in our country by Random House). There he found a Western that lived up to his expectations, one that broke the rules of the genre, which was about a man who was forced to work as a prostitute in the West because he was beautiful and unleashed passion.
That’s how it all started. He drafted a screenplay and sent it to Larry McMurthry, a specialist in this genre and who had worked on the screenplay for Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Movie. “He told me that there was even a town called Boy’s where cowboys went to fuck men, but that the western had never addressed those issues because it was one gender of men‘ says Pedro Almodóvar at a round table in his office in El Deseo. In fact, it was something no one wanted to tell. Soon after, he was offered the direction of Brokeback Mountain, but the project eventually fell into the hands of Ang Lee.
However, Almodóvar wrote a kind of theatrical production about two cowboys contemplating what could and could not have been. As the creative director of Yves St LaurentAntony Vaccarello suggested starting a project after producing Lux Æterna by Gaspar Noé. He didn’t think twice and decided to win back this lost project.
Almodóvar’s cinema is nourished by his communicating vessels. One always leads to the other. He’s constantly writing stories that feed into his fiction, almost as if they’re parallel stories that create some sort of meaningful magma. Do we remember a poster in Bad Education called “The Ghost Grandma”? Well, that became Back. And all the references to Jacques Cocteau’s The Human Voice, which ended up being made into a short film starring Tilda Swinton?
Ethan Hawke (left) and director Pedro Almodóvar pose to promote the short film ‘Strange Way of Life’ at the 76th Cannes International Film Festival on Thursday, May 18, 2023 in the south of France. (Photo Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)
And here comes the real question. why is there so much Print for Pedro Almodóvar to direct a film speak English? So far, his approaches have been precise in short film format, in The Human Voice and in Extraña forma de vida. He himself explained that this duo could become a trilogy, which would be complemented by another piece of the same dimensions. That would be the idea.
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But now he is preparing what appears to be his first feature film in a non-Spanish language. Last but not least. Recently, the producer of Cate Blanchett had announced that Pedro Almodóvar would take over the adaptation of Cleaning manual for women, by Lucía Berlin, but eventually the director dropped out of the project. “I’m sorry to have let down Cate Blanchett, she’s an amazing woman, but I didn’t feel ready to tackle this project, especially as I realized it was growing and I was Don’t want to direct blockbusters when I’m back It hurts so much that I’m more comfortable with it small films that he can control,” Pedro Almodóvar clarifies the matter.
He’s no longer afraid to film in a language that isn’t his own. These short films helped him get to know the actors. “Will they understand me and I them?” The issue seems settled after seeing Tilda Swinton on The Human Voice and Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal on Strange Life. What tells us is that it belongs to him next movie It will star two women and that the actresses who will play them will be an American and an English woman and that they are the ones he wanted… and that they accepted the challenge. Oh, and also that none of them meet Hollywood standards.
The filmmaker himself marvels at something that no one has captured the explicit homage to which he pays Sam Peckinpah in Strange way of life, when the two young protagonists shoot and smash the wine glasses. Peckimpah, who revolutionized the genre with Wild Group, already did the same as he wanted to reinterpret the western. From then on, he confirms that this was the case Women those responsible for different perspectives, like Chloé Zhao in The Rider, Kelly Reichardt in First Cow, or Jane Campion in The Power of the Dog.
As for Vaccarello’s wardrobe, he admits that he carried out a thorough investigation and that even items of clothing that might seem anachronistic to us were present in the cinema of the time, such as Pedro Pascal’s green denim jacket, which James Stewart already wore distant horizonsby Anthony Mann in 1952.
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There is an implicit issue that runs through and has to do with Strange Life pastime. Almodóvar is getting older and he knows it. “I was in a hurry, I’m celebrating my birthday and I never asked myself How many more films do I have to make? And I’ve realized that I want to do a lot, but I don’t know if I have the time,” comments the filmmaker. At the same time, he realizes that his cinema has evolved with his age and that he has made enough mistakes when it comes to sex at a young age. “I didn’t want to show Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal frolicking around like they were kids, it wasn’t what interested me, I wanted to direct.” the desire through the word, which is another kind of more subtle nudity. At the moment I’m more interested in what the characters can convey the look than the physical act itself,” says the director of the non-sex scenes in Strange Way of Life. “I’ve already vented In that sense, it’s enough, I dared then, but now I want to capture other things beyond the act itself.” “That’s what Sam Levinson is here for now,” he says, referring to the creator of Euphoria, its premiere The Idolm just premiered in Cannes and can be seen on HBO Max.
Ethan Hawke (left) and Pedro Pascal in a scene from Strange Way of Life in this image from Sony Pictures Classics. (Sony Pictures Classics via AP)
For those who think “Strange Way of Life” is still unfinished due to its short duration, Almodóvar himself recounts how it would end: Ethan Hawke’s character would pursue Pedro Pascal’s fugitive son-turned-outlaw in Mexico, and the The film would end with another three-way duel as in the short film, ending with the two protagonists pointing their pistols at each other.
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As for that upcoming elections In our country, Almodóvar has never been in hiding, he is a left-wing voter, and because of this and his statements, there have occasionally been clashes with ladies from the Salamanca neighborhood of Madrid, who rebuked him for his ideology. “When something like this happens to me, I always say: We have to live together. You may not like the way I am or I may not like the way you are, but it’s up to us to respect one another.” Because of this, he realizes that we are entering a darker place each time loss of freedomsdespite what we have achieved in terms of equality, especially with regard to feminism and LGTBIQ+ groups.
We don’t know where the next Almodóvar will take us. And that’s what’s exciting, because few directors dare to challenge the establishment and the status quo while offering a controversial and personal perspective. iconoclastic all over the world around us.
At 73 he might feel older, but the truth is he’s at the peak of his career. In addition to his short film Extraña forma de vida, he has just published the collection of short stories the last dream (Reservoir Books), in which he shows that the passion for writing and filming never ends.
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