November 5, 2013 (XXVII:11) Pedro Almodóvar, HABLE CON ELLA/ (2002, 112 min)

Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay (Pedro Almodóvar)

Directed by Pedro Almodóvar Original Music by Cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe

Javier Cámara...Benigno Martín Darío Grandinetti...Marco Zuluaga Leonor Watling...Alicia Rosario Flores...Lydia González Mariola Fuentes...Rosa Geraldine Chaplin...Katerina Bilova Pina Bausch...Herself Malou Airaudo...Herself Caetano Veloso...Himself

PEDRO ALMODÓVAR (director) (b. Pedro Almodóvar Caballero, September 24, 1949 in Calzada de Calatrava, Ciudad Real, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain) has directed and written 33 films: Other Girls Like Mom, 1980 Rapture, 1979 Times of the 2013 I'm So Excited!, 2011 , 2009 Broken Constitution, and 1978 ¿Qué hace una chica como tú en un sitio Embraces, 2009 The Cannibalistic Councillor (Short), 2006 como éste?. , 2004 Bad Education, 2002 Talk to Her, 1999 , 1997 Live Flesh, 1995 , ALBERTO IGLESIAS (Original Music) (b. Alberto Iglesias 1993 Kika, 1991 High Heels, 1990 Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Fernández-Berridi, 1955 in Donostia-San Sebastián, Guipúzcoa, 1988 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, 1987 Law of País Vasco, Spain) has composed music for 52 films, including Desire, 1986 Matador, 1985 “Tráiler para amantes de lo 2013 I'm So Excited!, 2011 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, 2011 The prohibido” (TV Short), 1984 What Have I Done to Deserve Monk, 2011 The Skin I Live In, 2010 Even the Rain, 2009 Broken This?, 1983 Dark Habits, 1982 , 1980 Pepi, Embraces, 2008 Che: Part One, 2008 Che: Part Two, 2007 The Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom, 1978 Folle... folle... Kite Runner, 2006 Volver, 2005 The Constant Gardener, 2004 fólleme Tim!, 1978 Salomé (Short), 1977 Sexo va, sexo viene Bad Education, 2003 , 2002 Talk to Her, 2002 The (Short), 1976 Muerte en la carretera (Short), 1976 Sea caritativo Dancer Upstairs, 2001 Sex and Lucia, 1999 All About My (Short), 1976 Tráiler de 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' Mother, 1997 The Chambermaid on the Titanic, 1997 Live Flesh, (Short), 1975 Blancor (Short), 1975 El sueño, o la estrella 1995 The Flower of My Secret, 1993 Outrage, 1989 Autumn (Short), 1975 Homenaje (Short), 1975 La caída de Sódoma Rain, 1986 Bilbao Blues, 1985 Luces de bohemia, 1984 La (Short), 1974 Dos putas, o historia de amor que termina en boda muerte de Mikel, and 1984 La conquista de Albania. (Short), and 1974 Film politico (Short). He also produced 13 films and had small acting parts in 11: 2004 Bad Education, 1989 JAVIER AGUIRRESAROBE (Cinematographer) (b. October 10, “Delirios de amor” (TV Series), 1987 , 1986 1948 in Éibar, Guipúzcoa, País Vasco, Spain) has been the Matador, 1984 What Have I Done to Deserve This?, 1983 Dark cinematographer for 94 films, including 2013 Blue Jasmine, Habits, 1982 Labyrinth of Passion, 1980 Pepi, Luci, Bom and 2013 Identity Thief, 2013 Warm Bodies, 2012 The Five-Year

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Engagement, 2011 Fright Night, 2011 A Better Life, 2010 The Maidens' Conspiracy, 2005 , 2004 Twilight Saga: Eclipse, 2009 The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Unconscious, 2004 Bad Education, 2003 Mean Spirit, 2002 2009 The Road, 2008 Vicky Cristina Barcelona, 2004 The Bridge Desire, 2002 Talk to Her, 2002 My Mother Likes Women, 2001 of San Luis Rey, 2003 Eric Clapton and Friends (Documentary), Sound of the Sea, 2001 Behind God's Back, 2000 “Raquel busca 2002 Desire, 2002 Talk to Her, 2001 The Others, 2000 Salsa, su sitio” (TV Series, 25 episodes), 1998 La hora de los valientes, 1997 Secrets of the Heart, 1996 The Dog in the Manger, 1995 1997-1998 “Querido maestro” (TV Series, 15 episodes), 1992- Fiesta, 1993 On the Edge of the Horizon, 1993 Outrage, 1991 1993 “Farmacia de guardia” (TV Series), and 1993 Jardines Prince of Shadows, 1987 Laura, del cielo llega la noche, 1986 27 colgantes. horas, 1985 The Basque Whalers of Labrador (Documentary), 1984 El jardín secreto, 1984 La muerte de Mikel, 1981 La fuga ROSARIO FLORES...Lydia González (b. Rosario González de Segovia, 1974 Lola, Paz y yo (Short), and 1973 Escena Flores, November 4, 1963 in Madrid, Spain) has appeared in 19 (Short). films and television shows: 2003 “Gipsy Love” (TV Series), 2002 Hypnotized and Hysterical (Hairstylist Wanted), 2002 Talk JAVIER CÁMARA...Benigno Martín (b. January 19, 1967 in to Her, 1994 “La mujer de tu vida 2” (TV Series), 1993 “Cuentos Albelda de Iregua, La de Borges” (TV Rioja, Spain) has Series),1991 Chatarra, appeared in 43 films and 1991 Danzón, 1990 TV shows, including Contra el viento, 1990 El 2013 La vida mejor de los tiempos, inesperada, 2013 Living 1989-1990 “Brigada Is Easy with Eyes central” (TV Series, 14 Closed, 2012 A Gun in episodes), 1989 Each Hand, 2011 Los Entreacte, 1988 Winter Quién (TV Series, 13 Diary, 1987 Calé, 1986 episodes), 2010 To Hell Delirios de amor, 1984 with the Ugly, 2008 Moraleja (Short), 1984 “Lex” (TV Series, 16 “Proceso a Mariana episodes), 2008 The Pineda” (TV Mini- Blind Sunflowers, 2006 Series), 1982 Colegas, Fiction, 1999-2006 “7 1977 Al fin solos, pero..., vidas” (TV Series, 88 and 1969 El taxi de los episodes), 2005 Malas temporadas, 2005 The Secret Life of conflictos. Words, 2004 Bad Education, 2003 With George Bush on My Mind, 2002 Talk to Her, 2001 Sex and Lucia, 1999 “Pepe GERALDINE CHAPLIN...Katerina Bilova (b. Geraldine Leigh Carvalho” (TV Series), 1996-1997 “Hostal Royal Manzanares” Chaplin, July 31, 1944 in Santa Monica, California) has appeared (TV Series, 10 episodes), 1996-1997 “Éste es mi barrio” (TV in 135 films and television shows, including 2013 Amapola, Series, 31 episodes), 1997 Eso, 1996 Pon un hombre en tu vida, 2013 Panzer Chocolate, 2013 Wax, 2013 Another Me, 2013 1994-1995 “¡Ay, Señor, Señor!” (TV Series, 23 episodes), and Three-60, 2012 The Impossible, 2012 The Apostle, 2011 The 1994 Alegre ma non troppo. Monk, 2010 The Mosquito Net, 2010 The Wolfman, 2008 Diary of a Nymphomaniac, 2008 Tell Me About Love, 2007 Theresa: DARÍO GRANDINETTI...Marco Zuluaga (b. March 5, 1959 in The Body of Christ, 2005 Heidi, 2004 The Bridge of San Luis Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina) has appeared in 62 films and TV Rey, 2002 “Dinotopia” (TV Mini-Series), 2002 Talk to Her, 2002 shows, among them 2014 Relatos salvajes, 2013 Inevitable, 2010 The Faces of the Moon, 2002 En la ciudad sin límites, 2001 Just Neon Flesh, 2009 Horizontal/Vertical, 2008 Days of May, 2008 Run!, 1999 To Walk with Lions, 1997 “The Odyssey” (TV Sleeping Around, 2007 The Nautical Chart, 2007 A Wrecked Series), 1996 “Gulliver's Travels” (TV Movie), 1996 Jane Eyre, Filmmaker, 2005 The Good Boy, 2003 Stormy Weather, 2002 1993 The Age of Innocence, 1992 Chaplin, 1991 Buster's Talk to Her, 2001 La casa de Tourner, 1999 The Day Silence Bedroom, 1989 The Return of the Musketeers, 1987 White Died, 1999 El amateur, 1996 Wake Up Love, 1996 The Salt in Mischief, 1985 “The Corsican Brothers” (TV Movie), 1983 Life the Wound, 1995 Don't Die Without Telling Me Where You're Is a Bed of Roses, 1981 “The House of Mirth” (TV Movie), 1980 Going, 1992 The Dark Side of the Heart, 1985 Waiting for the The Mirror Crack'd, 1979 Adoption, 1978 A Wedding, 1978 Hearse, 1980 “Señorita Andrea” (TV Series), and 1980 “Dónde Remember My Name, 1976 Welcome to L.A., 1976 Buffalo Bill pueda quererte” (TV Series). and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, 1975 Nashville, 1974 The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge, 1973 The Three LEONOR WATLING...Alicia (b. Leonor Elizabeth Ceballos Musketeers, 1970 The Hawaiians, 1967 Rasputin, 1967 Casino Watling, July 28, 1975 in Madrid, Spain) has appeared in 46 Royale, 1967 A Countess from Hong Kong, 1965 Doctor films and television shows, among them 2013 Another Me, 2013 Zhivago, and 1952 Limelight. The Food Guide to Love, 2012 A Gun in Each Hand, 2012 If I Were You, 2010 The Outlaw, 2008 The Oxford Murders, 2007 PINA BAUSCH...Herself (b. Josephine Bausch, July 27, 1940 in Theresa: The Body of Christ, 2006 Paris, je t'aime, 2006 The Solingen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany—d. June 30, 2009 Almodovar—TALK TO HER—3

[age 68] in Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany) was a Minha” (Video), 2001 “Acústico MTV: Gal Costa” (Video), German performer of modern dance, choreographer, dance 1999 Orfeu, 1996 Tieta do Agreste, 1995 O Quatrilho, 1994 “Gal teacher and ballet director. In 1955 at the age of 15 she entered Costa: Programa Ensaio” (TV Movie), 1994 Veja Esta Canção, the Folkwangschule in Essen, then directed by Germany's most 1993 Les yeux au plafond (Short), 1983 King of Candle, 1982 influential choreographer Kurt Jooss, one of the founders of Tabu, 1982 India, Daughter of the Sun, 1978 A Dama do German Expressionist dance. After graduation in 1959, Bausch Lotação, 1975 Toques (Short), 1972 São Bernardo, 1968 Brasil left Germany with a scholarship to continue her studies at the Verdade (Documentary), 1968 The Outsiders, 1967 Proêzas de Juilliard School in New York City in 1960. In 1962, Bausch Satanás na Vila de Leva-e-Traz. joined Jooss' new Folkwang Ballett Company as a soloist and He appears in 11 TV programs and films: 2003 “Sob Nova assisted Jooss on many of the pieces, before choreographing her Direção” (TV Series), 2002 Talk to Her, 1989 Sermões - A first piece in 1968, Fragment, to music by Béla Bartók. In 1969, História de Antônio Vieira, 1983 King of Candle, 1982 Tabu, she succeeded Jooss as artistic director. She was known for her 1981 Brasil (Short), 1981 Corações a Mil, 1974 Mito e unique style, blend of movement, sound, and prominent stage Contramito da Família Pernambucobaiana (Short), 1972 O sets, and with her elaborate cooperation with performers during Demiurgo, 1970 Os Herdeiros, and 1967 Don Quixote (Short). the composition of a piece (a style now known as Tanztheater). She was a leading influence in the world of modern dance from the 1970s on. In addition to her career in the world of ballet, Bausch appeared in 2 films—2002 Talk to Her and 1983 And the Ship Sails On. She choreographed 7 pieces for film and TV: 2011 Pina (Documentary), 2010 Dancing Dreams (Documentary), 2008 “Orphée et Eurydice de Christoph W. Gluck” (TV Movie), 2002 Talk to Her, 2002 “Pina Bausch - A Portrait by Peter Lindbergh based on 'Der Fensterputzer'” (TV Short), 1990 The Complaint of an Empress, and 1983 “On Tour with Pina Bausch” (TV Movie documentary). She also wrote and directed 1990 The Complaint of an Empress.

Malou Airaudo...Herself began dancing at the Marseille Opera in 1956. In 1970 she moved to New York to join the Manuel Alum Dance Company, where Alum created the solo Woman of Mystic Body to showcase her dance. Through Paul Sanasardo she met Pina Bausch, who invited her to join the Tanztheater from Desire Unlimited The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar. Wuppertal in 1973. Since 1984, Airaudo has taught at the Second Edition. Paul Julian Smith. Verso. London, NY, 2000. Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, where she also choreographs performances featuring ballet dancers, modern dancers, Hip Hop From an interview w/ Almodóvar, 1995: dancers and a Flatland BMX rider. In addition to dancing in Europe and New York, Airaudo appeared in 1 film—2002 Talk Paul Julian Smith: You’ve told the Spanish press that this [The to Her—was the rehearsal director for 2011 Pina (Documentary), Flower of My Secret, 1995] is your most La Manchan and assistant choreographer for 2008 “Orphée et Eurydice de [Almodóvar was born in the village of La Mancha] and most Christoph W. Gluck” (TV Movie). traditional film. But it strikes me that with its references to NATO and Bosnia, to the newspaper El Pais and Prime Minister Caetano Veloso...Himself (b. Caetano Emanuel Viana Telles Felipe Gonzalez, this is your most European and most Veloso, August 7, 1942 in Santo Amaro da Purificação, Bahia, contemporary film. Brazil) is a Brazilian composer, singer, guitarist, writer, and political activist. He became known for his participation in the Pedro Almodóvar: When I say the film’s La Manchan I mean it’s Brazilian musical movement Tropicalismo, which encompassed my most realistic film yet. Of course I’m not interested in theatre, poetry and music in the 1960s, at the beginning of the naturalism: even if I made a documentary it would turn out to be Brazilian military dictatorship. He has remained a constant a fictional work on that subject. Between what inspires me and creative influence and best-selling performing artist and what I actually make, there is always the element of distance, of composer ever since. He has 88 music writer and/or performer representation. Even when you decide where to place the camera, credits. In addition, he has 28 film composer credits: 2011 you’re manipulating reality. So this is my most realist film, but “Arquivo Para Uma Obra-Acontecimento - Caetano Veloso” with the proviso that my realism is very personal and that there is (Video documentary), 2010 The Well Beloved One, 2008 always a touch of artifice there. It’s also my most contemporary Romance, 2007 “Caetano Veloso - Cê ao Vivo” (Video), 2007 Ó film, with references to political demonstrations and to the Paí, Ó, 2006 “Tempo Tempo Tempo Tempo” (Video), 2005 O tension that people now feel on the street. It’s based on the place Coronel e o Lobisomem, 2005 2 Filhos De Francisco - A where I was born: La Mancha; and the place where I now live: História De Zezé Di Camargo & Luciano, 2004 Meu Tio Matou Madrid at this particular historical moment. um Cara, 2004 Welcome to São Paulo (Documentary), 2004 Miracle of Candeal (Documentary), 2001 “Caetano - Prenda PJS: You’ve said that it’s your most personal film. Almodovar—TALK TO HER—4

PA: Normally I’m very embarrassed to speak about my roots production with the French company Ciby 2000. Is this a model and my mother, and of myself in the first person. This time the for European film-making? film turned out like that in spite of myself. However, all of my films are absolutely personal; it’s just that normally the things PA: My relation with Ciby is absolutely free. It’s not just that affect me personally are hidden behind the characters. For that they don’t bother me when I’m shooting; they don’t even see example, people often say to me: ‘Your films are full of mothers, the film until it’s subtitled in French. It’s the ideal model because it’s as if you didn’t have a father.’ But it’s not true. In High it means that co-production doesn’t become hybrid and Heels, for example, my father is the model for elements of the deracinated. With us the money doesn’t affect the idiosyncrasy of mother played by : my father had cancer and the project and the decisions are artistic, not financial. The film is returned to die in the room in which he had been born, just like still Spanish, although the funding is French. Moreover, my films the mother in the film. I haven’t spoken about this before. are cheap and Ciby knows they sell all over the world. So it’s . . . good business for them. That’s why I have so much freedom. If I PA: All my films are literary in the sense that there is a lot got involved with a film like Little Buddha that cost forty of dialogue. But Rohmer’s cinema is literary and colloquial at the millions dollars I’d have more problems. same time. For me a literary cinema is one in which language is centre stage and is the motive force for the action. This film talks PJS: But your films are expensive by Spanish standards. about literature as a means of self-understanding: Leo’s writing becomes darker, just as her life does. PA: A normal Spanish film costs less than mine, that’s true. I spend a lot of money on set design. I won’t settle for things you PJS: When you start to write a film you begin with the can buy in shops. I have things brought in from all over. This dialogue. stylization is expensive. I also rehearse the actors a lot, which is costly. These things are essential for my films. PA: That’s right: dialogue is action for me. I’ve often said and it seems like a joke PJS: What about but it’s not: in Europe we postproduction? You’ve make films about people made all eleven features because it’s cheaper to put with editor José Salcedo. two people in a living room talking than to make PA: I’m very fast with a film full of special editing. I cut every day effects. For me two girls after shooting and I and some good dialogue continue refining the are as effective as all the rough-cut as I go. It makes FX in Terminator. things cheaper, because after we finish shooting we PJS: Godard said that have a cut of the whole all you need for a film is a film and ten days later we girl and a gun. But you’d always have the final rather have two girls? version. I can’t shoot and wait until the end to edit. The film is alive and if you cut as you PA: Maybe they’re carrying a gun in their handbag, and you shoot you know what rhythm it’s taking on and how the can’t see it. Or maybe they use their tongues as guns. characters are really turning out. You can also sort out problems as you see them coming up in the editing process. PJS: Can we talk about your first experience of film? You’ve compared it to the opening of Erice’s The Spirit of the Beehive, PJS: Critics in the UK and US have often asked you to take when the traveling cinema comes to the village. up a clearer political position in your films.

PA: My relationship with cinema started as a child in the PA: My political position is perfectly clear. I’ve never been village when I’d go with a tin canfull of glowing pieces of cheap a member of a political party because I need to keep my charcoal: it was right in the middle of the post-War period and to independence. But I’m very much on the left. In films it’s not keep warm in the cold you took a tin can with you. I seem to necessary for characters to talk about politics. The politics is remember that in The Spirit of the Beehive, the characters went to implicit in the film. just this kind of improvised cinema. My conception of cinema is still that it’s something that gives me warmth, that comforts me, PJS: To finish: this may strike you as crazy, but there seems like that tin can. to be a connection between two characters called Angel: the one who comes to the aid of Leo in The Flower of My Secret and the PJS: If this is an image of the past of Spanish cinema, what Angel (played by ) who plays a similar role in of its future? You’ve now made three successful features in co- Matador. They are both creatures without sex.

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PA: This is something that hadn’t occurred to me. But it’s would be difficult to underestimate the role of such a true that this Angel undergoes a process of feminization collaborative enterprise in the success of films identified, perhaps throughout the film. By the ends he and Leo have become two improperly, by the single name ‘Almodóvar’. One specific female writers toasting each other by the fireside, like Candice advantage of is Almodóvar’s ability to shoot each film Bergen and Jacqueline Bisset in Rich and Famous. So the man in sequence, thus following the natural development of character ends up as the woman’s best girlfriend. It’s a very positive and narrative, an expensive option which would be denied him process. by other production companies. El Deseo has produced three of the top five grossing Spanish films of all time; and it has been the most profitable production company in Spain (often by a considerable margin) in the last four years for which figures are available. And this achievement has to be seen in the context of a Spanish cinema in perpetual crisis, with the eighties marking a steep decline in the industry, in all three sectors of production (the falling numbers of domestic features), distribution, (the increasing stranglehold of US-controlled multinationals), and exhibition (the collapse in the number of functioning theatres).

One secret of Almodóvar’s success has been determination from the very beginning to devote as much time to promotion as to production. I shall argue that in his love of fantasy and cross-gender identification, Almodóvar coincides with recent psychoanalytically inspired feminist film theorists. Both he and they pose a challenge to an earlier view which read narrative cinema primarily as the sadistic or voyeuristic gaze which the male exercises over a passive female object. If desire is unlimited (if spectator positioning is mobile and labile), then opportunities Sight and Sound (February 1996) for visual pleasure proliferate. Foreigners cannot expect Almodóvar to subscribe to To juxtapose Almodóvar with US gender studies is forms of resistance which evolved in response to the triumph of perhaps incongruous; for his films have often been criticized by the British and North American Right in the eighties; and if they foreign feminists, or men claiming to speak on their behalf. My are serious about respecting cultural difference they must pay own position is that images can never be inherently transgressive more attention to a nation whose understanding of such issues as or hegemonic, and must always be placed in historical debates gender, nationality, and homosexuality may well be more around cinema, censorship, and sexuality. sophisticated than their own. In his celebration of fluidity and performance, in his hostility to fixed positions of all kinds, One favorite technique of Almodóvar is cross- Almodóvar anticipates that critique of identity and essence that cutting….Cross-cutting can lead….to confusion, to discontinuity. was later to become familiar in academic feminist, minority, and But it also promises the spectator access to simultaneous action queer theory. in discrete locales and significant juxtapositions in montage. [It is] a key to a privileged understanding of a complex and The discontinuities of Almodóvar’s technique are not to contradictory cinematic phenomenon. By naming his production be dismissed as the result of chance or incompetence; rather they company El Deseo, S.A. Almodóvar hints with typically sly form part of a critique of representation (of the relationship irony at the intersection of the psychic and the commercial. His between film as presence and film as language) which is also practice of cinema will also prove to be a model of libidinal manifest in a love of the reflexive ironies reminiscent of Sirk (a economy, unprecedented in film history. frequent point of reference), or even Godard. Epigraph The offices of El Deseo, S.A. are situated in an “In North American films friendship is generally undistinguished residential street outside central Madrid.... Their between men, but I enjoy the complicity which exists between anonymity, even invisibility (there is no identifying sign on the women, , , ,Women have been able to give themselves up street or in the building itself) seem somewhat uncharacteristic unashamedly to friendship for cultural reasons, because they when contrasted with the all-pervasiveness of the Almodóvar have been condemned to live out their private life [intimidad] in ‘trademark’ and the flagrant visibility of the director and his secret and that private life has only been revealed to female films. Few visitors could fail to be impressed by the loyalty and friends. . . . Men deserve to be deceived by women. I love the industry of Almodóvar’s ‘family’ of co-workers (most idea of a girl deceiving her husband with a girlfriend. It’s an particularly his producer-brother Augustin) and by their image which I find attractive and which forms part of the secret determination to protect him from unsympathetic critics (known autonomy of women. . . ..Now I’m aware that the fact that I like as ‘detractors’) who have dogged him since the beginning. It the private life of women may still be a reflection of machismo. Almodovar—TALK TO HER—6

But I hope not, because I’m interested in women and their world, I want to stress that human actions are often not just when they go to gossip in the bathroom, but at all times. I contradictory because of people’s own nature. The problem is believe I’m one of the least machista men in the world, one of the that a man of law looks at them from a very dry and specific most authentically feminist.” [ interview given in 1987] perspective while Marco looks at them from his heart and his feelings of friendship. So he sees the acts and the contradictions Revisions to the censors’ code as late as 1975 (shortly very differently. before the death of Franco) included amongst a list of forbidden topics: suicide; the use of violence as a means of solving social Marco for me represents the audience point of view. or human problems; prostitution, sexual perversions, adultery and illicit sexual relations; abortion and anything tending to The last line is “Nothing is simple.” undermine the institution of marriage and the family; drug abuse and alcoholism. . . . From All About Almodóvar A Passion for Cinema. Editors It may be more than a coincidence, then, that Brad Epps & Despina Kakoudaki. University of Minnesota Almodóvar’s first film should consist of a string of vignettes Press, Minneapolis & London, 2009. devoted almost exclusively to topics banned from cinema screens only a few years earlier. “Intimate Strangers Melodrama and Coincidence in Talk to Her” Despina Kakoudaki As a consummate female impersonator, Almodóvar has clearly placed himself on that side of the cinematic gender Almodóvar’s subtle narrative and visual strategies construct division which is coded as feminine. Thus he posed cheekily for immediate and dense relationships between strangers, to such a Spain’s best-selling daily El Pais peeking out from behind a pair degree that true strangers rarely exist in his films. I propose that of curtains, an oversize polka-dotted bow in his bushy hair. The this stylistic tendency, which has narrative, political, and same paper carried pictures of the director in costume for all the philosophical implications, pivots on Almodóvar’s deft handling principal roles of the film, male and female. of coincide, which in itself can be considered a signature element in the work of this constantly evolving and increasingly self- At a deeper level, the threat of Almodóvar’s professions assured auteur. … of performance is in their hints of subjective merger and fluidity. Just as his films are full of characters unable to separate from In contrast to Benigno, Almodóvar goes to some length their parents or lovers, so Almodóvar’s over-identification with to show Alicia as a separate person, in the process developing a his creations, his compulsion to repeat and act out their dilemmas subtle discourse on the perils of projection and narcissism, but both on and off the set, puts fixed individual boundaries into also on the ethics of looking. He uses Alicia’s representation to crisis and throws the rigid divisions or gender binaries into assure that the audience is guilty of looking at her nude form, as confusion. are Benigno, Marco, and the other characters that observe her in the hospital and witness Benigno and Alicia’s interactions. But, from a commentary discussion between Pedro Almodóvar over the course of the film Almodóvar also insists on providing and Geraldine Chaplin about Hable con ella / Talk to Her subtle clues in order to create a distinction between the comatose Alicia and the awakened Alicia—a necessary gesture, in my view, and one that ensures that at the end of the film the real, live woman could be recognized as a person outside of Benigno’s projective point of view….

By utilizing the workings of coincidence as a narrative force, Almodóvar engages in a sustained exploration of a kind of causation that lies between accidental and willed actions, a hybridity in the representation of causation that leads to the complex moral landscape of the film. When we recognize coincidences in everyday life, we are recognizing the effect of our sustained contact with others, the fact that we have already met people elsewhere or before, that we are not strangers. Coincidence can thus function as an alternative to the structures of alienation that affect contemporary life, and, in Almodóvar’s emotionally saturated narrative style, also as an alternative to the insistence on ironic distantiation that affects our critical Almodóvar: approaches to melodrama. But desiring a merger of points of The film is about words. view is a dangerous dream, as Benigno’s actions remind us. Almodóvar’s artistic and political allegory here manages to To speak naturally in the film means to love that person. represent the need for utopian desires while respecting the fact It’s one of the codes in this movie. Whoever speaks, loves. that social and political unifications can only occur when we also recognize the difference of other people, their distance and Almodovar—TALK TO HER—7

separateness. Inevitably connected by the forces of accident and Bausch’s work as choreographer and director of the change that surround us, and inevitably separated by the very fact Tanztheater Wuppertal has transformed contemporary modern of difference, we remain both intimate and strange to each other. dance in the German-speaking world and beyond. She has And that, I think Almodóvar proposes, is how it should be. challenged the boundaries between dance and theatre, as her dancers are also simultaneously actors, singers, and comedians, and, by using different media at her disposal, she has transformed Anette Guse; “Talk to Her! Look at her! Pina Bausch in dance craft into a unique form of visually strong performance art. Pedro Almodóvar’s Hable con ella.” She is internationally acclaimed by critics and dance practitioners, and she enjoys immense popularity with dance When Pina Bausch’s work appeared in two brief excerpts in aficionados. She has become one of Germany’s most renowned Pedro Almodóvar’s film Hable con ella (‘Talk to Her’; 2002), it modern cultural icons. Now in the third decade of its existence, was very likely seen by a much wider, not specifically dance- the Tanztheater Wuppertal boasts a repertoire of over thirty oriented audience than previously. Café Müller, one of her earlier works. Each year the company produces a new work, frequently pieces (1978), and Masurca Fogo (‘Mazurka of Fire’;1986) were commissioned by public institutions for special occasions, and it used by Almodóvar to frame his narrative about two women in a continues to tour the world. With her creative selection of music, coma, one a dancer, the other a bullfighter, and their relationship often drawing on world music, her signature choreography, and to two very different men who form a special friendship as a her inventive staging, Bausch has an undiminished power to result of their care of these women. According to Almodóvar, impress, entertain, puzzle, provoke, and annoy. The subjects that Bausch’s ballet Café Müller served as a perfect way of she represents on stage – fear, loneliness, frustration, age, communicating the limbo in which the story’s protagonists relationship between men and women, the exploitation of lived–the limbo between life and death (Talk to Her. Press Book humans – all resonate with her audience…. 13). Conversely, the final scenes from Masurca Fogo convey the hope that follows loss. On an aesthetic level, the dance segments In Hable con ella (2002) he included the aforementioned two reflect the musical rhythm and language of the film, and at the excerpts from her dance pieces. In addition, the central female same time become part of the film’s language (Strauss 222–23). character is a young ballet student who has decorated her room Both Bausch and Almodóvar are linked to artistic with pictures of her idol, Pina Bausch. transgression in regard to genres and subjects, and both reflect on Almodóvar is known for his treatment of controversial performance as such in their work. In addition, both invoke subjects such as homosexuality, transsexuality, sadomasochism, themes such as solitude, drugs, rape, and incest, loss, gender identity, the particularly in his early, “impossibility” of mostly black-and-white relationships between man films. Critics have also and woman, and the commented on his existential need for preference for communication and love. melodrama, which, as he Taking Almodóvar’s explains, allows him to comment as a point of “talk naturally about departure, this article’s strong sentiments intention is twofold: it without a sense of the investigates stylistic ridiculous” (Willoquet- affinities between his work and Bausch’s dance theatre, and it Maricondi viii). Apart from these subversive themes and his sheds light on the strategies at work in her use of visual critical insights into the social construction of norms around language. It stresses the visual element to argue that both Bausch gender and sexuality, his penchant for women and their stories is and Almodóvar point to perception and questions about also of interest in this context: perception as the crucial factor in their critique of cultural norms When it comes time to write and direct, women attract me much and conventions with regard to gender and gender relationships. more. I’ve always liked feminine sensitivity and when I create a Furthermore, the intersection of gender issues and universal character it’s much easier for me to do a feminine one, and I issues about the human condition not only offers a social manage to shape it in a more solid and interesting way. On the commentary on modern society but also probes facilely other hand, women have more facets, they seem more like conceived victim-perpetrator constellations and thus constitutes protagonist types. […] We, men, are cut from the same cloth, the philosophical common ground between the two artists. This while women hold a greater mystery inside, they have more collaboration between them in Hable con ella has received little nuances and a sensitivity that is more authentic. (Willoquet- scholarly attention. Drawing on this film makes it possible to go Maricondi x) beyond a discussion of general characteristics of Bausch’s The film begins where Todo sobre mi madre ended: the same theatrical language, and it affords readers unfamiliar with her theatre curtain of salmon-coloured roses and heavy gold fringing work an insight into dance performance through the medium of that had revealed a darkened stage in the earlier film now opens film—a medium that conveys a far better impression of to reveal the Bausch spectacle Café Müller. In fact, Almodóvar performance than photographs alone. credits Bausch, who appears in the Café Müller excerpt, together with Malou Airaudo, an original dancer from the Tanztheater Almodovar—TALK TO HER—8

Wuppertal, as providing both a starting point and a conclusion to we see a woman in a long flower dress, lying and being passed Hable con ella through her works Café Müller and Masurca on the supporting hands of men who lie next to each other Fogo: shoulder to shoulder with outstretched arms functioning like a human conveyer belt or, as the dance mistress excitingly explains When I finished writing “Talk to Her” and looked at Pina’s face to Alicia during the intermission, “like a wave” carrying the again, with her eyes closed, and at how she was dressed in a female dancer. All the while the woman breathes into a flimsy slip, her arms and hands outstretched, surrounded by seventies style microphone, and her amplified sighs are a strange, obstacles (wooden tables and chairs), I had no doubt that it was disparate sound accompanied by k. d. lang’s song “Hain’t that the image which best represented the limbo in which my story’s funny,” which, with its line “It slowly dawned on me that my protagonists lived. Two women in a coma who, despite their baby is gone/ My baby’s gone,” echoes the bereaved, lost-love apparent passivity, provoke the same solace, the same tension, mood of the Purcell passage. After being lifted to an extreme passion, jealousy, desire and disillusion in men as if they were elevated and open position with arms stretched out to the side, upright, eyes wide open and talking a mile a minute. (Talk to she lets herself fall down in the waiting net of arms of the male Her. Press Book 13) dancers. The particular moment of the free falling forward of the The performances of these two pieces are an integral Masurca Fogo woman’s body is breathtakingly beautiful, for it part of the plot development, as they enable the encounter of the displays complete openness and trust and the moment of catching protagonists. Moreover, the dance segments frame the film and the body represents a moment of perfect interplay between the thus function as a poetic symbol for the themes of love, loss, woman and the men. The camera zooms in on the female dancer, communication, and friendship. Finally, they represent tracking her movement and revealing her safe landing only at performativity and the act of that very moment. Again, the watching, and both are clearly theme of the song is that of loss, an important part of life and of alienation and sudden become prominent themes in disillusionment, and the song their own right. enhances the emotion of The two main male characters mourning. of the film, Benigno and Marco, The very last dance sit next to each other in the sequence shows an organized auditorium during a and oddly stylized pair dance, in performance of Café Müller – which only a small sway of the the first chance encounter that hip and the lush stage setting of leads to an unusual friendship a bucolic idyll hints at its erotic between the two men. Two nature. Yet it is unmistakably a sleep-walking women wander sexually charged atmosphere. Pina Bausch in Pedro Almodóvar’s Hable con ella around in a The couples dance in a very orderly manner in harmony to the reeling motion running into chairs and tables and against walls, sounds of an instrumentally upbeat Cabo Verde Mazurka while a man attempts to clear the way for them by pushing away (“Raquel,” by Bau) – until finally one couple breaks away from the chairs and table. The atmosphere is one of chaotic loss. In the the formation. Choosing this idyllic scene for the end of the film play there is no explanation for the state in which the women corresponds with the miraculous recovery of Alicia, the young appear on stage – it is described only through portrayal. The dancer, and the allusion to the blossoming romance between her accompanying music of this sequence underlines the sense of and Marco. Almodóvar elaborates in an interview the chosen disorientation and sadness. It is the elegiac “O Let Me Weep, For scene from Masurca Fogo: “[It] begins with the sadness of the Ever Weep” from Henry Purcell’s Fairy Queen (1698 and 1702), absent Benigno (the sighs) and unites the surviving couple its words lamenting lost love. During the dance sequence, the (Marco and Alicia) through a shared bucolic emotion: [...] If I camera cuts twice very briefly to the auditorium of the theatre had asked for it specifically I couldn’t have got anything better. and shows two male spectators in medium closeup. The second Pina Bausch had unknowingly created the best doors through time, we realize that one of them (Marco) is weeping, moved to which to enter and leave Talk to Her” (Talk to Her. Press Book tears by emotion. After this dance sequence lasting about three 13)…. minutes, the camera cuts to a shot in a hospital room, as is soon What enabled the organic melting of Bausch’s dance apparent from the blue nurse uniform the younger man of the two theatre into Almodóvar’s film may be precisely the fact that both (Benigno) is wearing. He tells Alicia, a patient not visible in the artists embrace the image, the visual and sensual, in ways that frame, that the performance he witnessed was so beautiful that speak to faculties beyond the intellect, yet are supported by this man cried. In the opening scene in the hospital that strategies that enhance critical awareness. These strategies strive introduces Benigno’s relationship to Alicia, he presents to her an to show and transgress limitations, norms, and convention and, in autographed photo by Bausch that the latter has signed with the consequence, also venture into the surreal, the absurd, the words “I hope you overcome all your obstacles and start childlike, or the power of nature. What is demonstrated, finally, dancing!” This scene containing this foreboding message can be is an understanding of performance and of witnessing considered part of the prologue of the dance sequence…. performance that appears as a natural response to, or The excerpt from Masurca Fogo that we see near the refuge from, reality – and is therefore an integral part of life end of Hable con ella opens with a midrange shot of the stage: itself.. November 5, 2013 (XXVII:11) Pedro Almodóvar, HABLE CON ELLA/TALK TO HER (2002, 112 min)

ONLY THREE MORE IN THE FALL 2013 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXVII: November 12 Charlie Kaufman Synecdoche, New York 2008 November 19 Wim Wenders Pina 2011 November 26 Baz Luhrmann The Great Gatsby 2013

The online PDF files of these handouts have color images

COMING UP IN THE SPRING 2014 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXVIII: January 28 Josef von Sternberg, Underworld, 1927, 81 minutes February 4 Jean Cocteau, Orpheus, 1950, 95min February 11 Kenji Mizoguchi, The Life of Oharu, 1952, 136 min February 18 Satyajit Ray, Charulata/The Lonely Wife, 1964, 119 minutes February 25 Metin Erksan, Dry Summer, 1964, 90 min March 4 Monte Hellman, Two-Lane Blacktop, 1971, 103 min March 11 John Cassavetes, Killing of a Chinese Bookie, 1976, 135 min Spring break March 17-22 March 25 Agnes Varda, Vagabond, 1985, 105 min April 1 Gabriell Axel, Babette’s Feast, 1987, 104min April 8 Louis Malle, Vanya on 42nd Street, 1994, 119 min April 15 Wes Anderson, The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001, 110 min April 22 Tommy Lee Jones, The Three Burials of Melquaides Estrada, 2005, 120 min April 29 José Padilha, Elite Squad, 2007, 115 min May 6 John Huston, The Dead, 1987 83 min

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