Pedro Almadovar

This name uses Spanish naming customs; the first or paternal family name is Almodóvar and the second or maternal family name is Caballero.

Pedro Almodóvar

Pedro-Almodovar-Madrid2008.jpg

Pedro Almodóvar (2008)

Born Pedro Almodóvar Caballero

25 September 1949 (age 64)

Calzada de Calatrava, Ciudad Real, Spain

Nationality Spanish

Occupation Filmmaker

Years active 1974–present

Website

pedroalmodovar.es

Pedro Almodóvar Caballero (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈpeðɾo almoˈðoβar kaβaˈʎeɾo]; born 25 September 1949)[1][2] is a Spanish film director, screenwriter, producer and former actor.

Almodóvar is a successful and internationally known filmmaker. His films, marked by complex narratives, employ the codes of melodrama and use elements of pop culture, popular songs, irreverent humor, strong colors and glossy décor. Desire, passion, family and identity are among Almodóvar’s most prevalent themes. His films enjoy a worldwide following and he has become a major figure on the stage of world cinema.

He founded the Spanish film production company El Deseo with his younger brother Agustín Almodóvar who has produced almost all of Pedro’s films. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001 [2] and received an honorary doctoral degree in 2009 from Harvard University for his contribution to the arts.[3]

Contents [hide]

1 Early life

2 Beginnings

3 Short films

4 Film career

4.1 Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (1980)

4.2 Laberinto de Pasiones (1982)

4.3 Entre Tinieblas (1983)

4.4 ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? (1984)

4.5 Matador (1986)

4.6 La Ley del Deseo (1987)

4.7 Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1988)

4.8 ¡Átame! (1990)

4.9 Tacones Lejanos (1991)

4.10 Kika (1993)

4.11 La flor de mi secreto (1995)

4.12 Carne trémula (1997)

4.13 Todo sobre mi madre (1999)

4.14 Hable con ella (2002)

4.15 La mala educación (2004)

4.16 Volver (2006)

4.17 Los Abrazos Rotos (2009)

4.18 La Piel que Habito (2011)

4.19 Los amantes pasajeros (2013)

5 Filmography

6 Notes

7 References

8 External links

Early life[edit]

Pedro Almodóvar Caballero was born in Calzada de Calatrava, Spain, a rural small town of Ciudad Real, a province of Castile-La Mancha in the administrative district of Almagro. La Mancha is the windswept region of flat lands made famous by Don Quixote. He was born as one of four children (two boys, two girls) in a large and impoverished family of peasant stock. His father, Antonio Almodóvar, who could barely read or write, worked most of his life hauling barrels of wine by mule. Almodóvar's mother, Francisca Caballero, turned her son into a part-time teacher of literacy in the village and also a letter reader and transcriber for the neighbors. When Pedro was eight years old, the family sent him to study at a religious boarding school in the city of Cáceres, Extremadura, in the west of the country, with the hope that he might someday become a priest. His family eventually joined him in Cáceres, where his father opened a gas station and his mother opened a bodega where she sold her own wine.[4]

While Calzada did not have a cinema, the streets where he lived in Cáceres contained not only the school, but also a movie theater.[5] "Cinema became my real education, much more than the one I received from the priest," he said later in an interview.[6] Almodóvar was influenced by such directors as Luis Buñuel, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Alfred Hitchcock, John Waters, Ingmar Bergman, Edgar Neville, Federico Fellini, George Cukor, Luis García Berlanga and neorealist Marco Ferreri.

Against his parents' wishes, Pedro Almodóvar moved to Madrid in 1967. His goal was to be a film director, but he lacked the economic means to do it and Franco had just closed the National School of Cinema so he had to be completely self-taught. To support himself, Almodóvar worked a number of odd jobs, including a stint selling used items in the famous Madrid flea market El Rastro. He eventually found full-time employment with Spain's national phone company, Telefónica, where he worked for twelve years as an administrative assistant. Since he worked only until three in the afternoon, he had the rest of the day to pursue his own interests.

Beginnings[edit]

In the early seventies, Almodóvar grew interested in experimental cinema and theatre. He collaborated with the vanguard theatrical group, Los Goliardos, where he played his first professional roles and met Carmen Maura. He was also writing comics and contributing articles and stories to a number of counterculture magazines, such as Star, Víbora and Vibraciones.

Madrid’s flourishing alternative cultural scene became the perfect scenario for Almodóvar's social talents. He was a crucial figure in La Movida Madrileña (Madrilenian