Pedro Almodóvar

Marvin D'Lugo is a professor of Spanish and adjunct professor of screen studies at Clark University. He is the author of The Films of Carlos Saura: The Practice of Seeing, and Guide to Cinema in Spain and coeditor of A Companion to Pedro Almodóvar.

• Acknowledgments ixPEDRO ALMÓDOVAR AND HIS CINEMA 1Low-Level Melodrama 1Pepi, Luci, Bom, and Other Friends of Pedro 16Migration and Melodrama 29Thrillers 45Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown59Transnational Repositioning after Women on the Verge 67The Flower of My Secret 85Live Flesh 93All about My Mother 99Talk to Her and Bad Education 105INTERVIEW WITH PEDRO ALMODÓVAR 131SELF-INTERVIEW 145Filmography 153Bibliography 159Index 165

"For fans and film students alike, D'Lugo's contribution to the Contemporary Film Directors series celebrates the director's camp aesthetic and artistic sensibilities with insight and elan."--Publishers Weekly   "[D'Lugo] significantly extends the critical discourse on Almodovar's work by focusing on the cluster of ambiguities and polarities that sustain the most controversial aspects of Almodovar's authorship."--Screening The Past"Providing a thoroughly researched synthesis of the many years of study of Almodovar's work by other scholars in both Spanish and English, D'Lugo nevertheless makes the narrative his own through contrasting Almodovar's early films to the films that inspired the director and the ones he seemed to revile and react to, and by emphasizing the auteur's own role in the creation of his personality as a celebrity-author ... With such a thorough and well-written book as D'Lugo's, a full appreciation of ... the genius of its creator has become a lot easier and more enjoyable."--European-films.net