News and Events => Arts & Entertainment News => Topic started by: LostInTime on September 01, 2006, 08:29:06 AM Return to Full Version
Title: All about Almodóvar -- Passion for women of any gender
Post by: LostInTime on September 01, 2006, 08:29:06 AM
Post by: LostInTime on September 01, 2006, 08:29:06 AM
Article (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/01/DDG3BKS8Q61.DTL)
At 56, Pedro Almodóvar is many things: a Spaniard; a gay man; a connoisseur of the absurd; a prolific writer and director; and one of the few auteurs still standing. But most of all, Pedro Almodóvar is a man who loves women. He loves women of all ages and temperaments and in every shape and size; he loves the very concept of womanhood.
[...]
"I don't know another filmmaker who so dramatizes sexual mobility," says Marsha Kinder, a professor of cinema, comparative literature and Spanish at the University of Southern California and a longtime Almodóvar scholar. "In his films, being a woman isn't determined biologically, but culturally. It means identifying with a set of characteristics that anyone can choose. To borrow from (gender theorist) Judith Butler here, for the women in his films -- whether they're male, female or transsexual -- gender is a performance."
Performance is perhaps an understatement. Almodóvar's women take gender between their teeth and chew it to a pulp.
At 56, Pedro Almodóvar is many things: a Spaniard; a gay man; a connoisseur of the absurd; a prolific writer and director; and one of the few auteurs still standing. But most of all, Pedro Almodóvar is a man who loves women. He loves women of all ages and temperaments and in every shape and size; he loves the very concept of womanhood.
[...]
"I don't know another filmmaker who so dramatizes sexual mobility," says Marsha Kinder, a professor of cinema, comparative literature and Spanish at the University of Southern California and a longtime Almodóvar scholar. "In his films, being a woman isn't determined biologically, but culturally. It means identifying with a set of characteristics that anyone can choose. To borrow from (gender theorist) Judith Butler here, for the women in his films -- whether they're male, female or transsexual -- gender is a performance."
Performance is perhaps an understatement. Almodóvar's women take gender between their teeth and chew it to a pulp.