Published at 2:38 am. Updated at 6:00 am.
(Toronto) White, full hair, tired facial features – Pedro Almodóvar is in a good mood on this late September afternoon. Despite the time difference and the chain interviews.
The filmmaker welcomes La Presse to his suite at the Fairmont Royal York. Our interview will be conducted half in English and half in Spanish with an interpreter. “I can read French, but I can’t speak it. “My French lessons were too long ago,” apologizes the director, who turned 74 on September 25th.
He is accompanied by his team, including his inseparable brother Agustín, with whom he founded the production company El Deseo in 1985. From the name of his company to the title of his first success in Europe, including this new story of his love between two cowboys played by Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke, desire – satisfied or sublimated, hetero or homosexual – has always been at the heart of Almodóvar’s cinema .
It’s impossible not to question him right from the start: “Desire is a driving force in my art and a reason to celebrate life,” he explains. But desire is also a source of pain and suffering. My vision of desire therefore has two facets: something that is both very hard and very beautiful. »
In Strange Way of Life, the Volver director explores the dark side of desire: homoeroticism in classic American Westerns. A fan of the genre, he has seen several old westerns, from Johnny Guitar to El Dorado. But it was the film Warlock that inspired him to create this cheerful western, produced in collaboration with fashion house Saint Laurent. He ventured into film production for the first time with the auteur film star.
PHOTO VIANNEY LE CAER, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
George Steane, Jason Fernández, Ethan Hawke, Pedro Almodóvar, José Condessa and Manu Ríos at the premiere of Strange Way of Life in Cannes last May
“In Warlock today, the homoerotic side of the relationship between Anthony Quinn and Henry Fonda becomes clear, especially at the end,” says the filmmaker. However, the word “homosexuality” never appears in the film. However, if the two cowboys are not in love, the film makes no sense! »
Puritanism at the time prevented cinema from speaking openly about love between two men. And even in 2023, the Western remains an exclusively heterosexual genre.
Pedro Almodovar
Following 2020’s The Human Voice, this is his second English-language film starring Tilda Swinton (the latter will be released in cinemas as a double bill with Strange Way of Life). In the film, Hawke plays Jake, a sheriff who sees a cowboy arrive at his home, Silva (Pascal), who has crossed the desert on horseback to see him again. The two men had a brief romantic relationship 25 years ago. These reunions awaken longings… But in the imagination of the Wild West, things are even more complicated.
PROVIDED BY MÉTROPOLE FILMS
Actors Manu Ríos, Ethan Hawke, Pedro Pascal and José Condessa surround director Pedro Almodóvar.
The director had no trouble convincing these two stars to star in Strange Way of Life. “They are two fantastic actors with opposite but complementary characters. » He met Hawke 15 years ago when he was playing The Cherry Orchard theater on tour in Madrid, directed by Sam Mendes. He wanted to work with Pascal long before he became famous with The Last of Us.
Although there is nudity on screen, the film remains fairly modest.
Surprisingly, what journalists talk to me most often about is the scene where Pedro gets into bed with Ethan when he gets up. When I turned it over, I didn’t know it would get people talking. I answer them: “Yes, homosexuals make their bed in the morning too!”
Pedro Almodovar
His next American film
“What can two men living together on a ranch do? asks Silva at the end of the film – a reference to a line from Ennis (played by Heath Ledger) in Brokeback Mountain. At the premiere of Strange Way of Life in Cannes last May, Almodóvar rightly said it was his “answer to Brokeback Mountain.” Recall that the Spanish director was hired by Hollywood in the early 2000s to take on the project, which was eventually entrusted to Ang Lee. With the immense success we know.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY MÉTROPOLE FILMS
Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke in Strange Way of Life
“I didn’t feel comfortable making a film in English, so I declined. But now I feel capable of doing it,” he says 20 years later. In addition, the director will sign his first feature film in the Shakespearean language, The Room Next Door, which is scheduled to begin filming in March 2024 in New York. The script focuses on the friendship between three women, played by two British actresses and an American. But Agustín, sitting in the living room, breaks his silence by waving his arms in our direction to signal his brother not to say anything more!
Chica Almodovar
Which brings us to talk to him about his never-ending love for actresses in his cinema. Can he define his muses? What is a Chica Almodóvar on screen? “I like expressive, eccentric actresses with character. You have to be able to be funny and dramatic at the same time. My actors are beautiful, but the spectrum of beauty is broad in my eyes. They are sophisticated and natural. You must have a sense of humor and not take yourself seriously. In the United States, Bette Midler and Shirley MacLaine are Almodóvar-Chicas. »
Like Michel Tremblay, who as a child hid under the kitchen table to listen to the conversations of the women in the house on Rue Fabre, little Almodóvar, aged 4 or 5, watched his mother, his sisters and his neighbors. “The women were chatting on the terrace where I spent my days. They faced the difficulties of life: incest, unmarried mothers and other very difficult things. It was these strong and overshadowed women of my mother’s generation who saved Spain from poverty and misery after the war. »
In cinemas from October 20th