Synopses & Reviews
Review
"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
Review
"[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
Synopsis
Perhaps the best-known Spanish filmmaker to international audiences, Pedro Almod var gained the widespread attention of English-speaking critics and fans with the Oscar-nominated
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and the celebrated dark comedy
Tie Me Up Tie Me Down .
Marvin D'Lugo offers a concise, informed, and insightful commentary on a preeminent force in modern cinema. D'Lugo follows Almod var's career chronologically, tracing the director's works and their increasing complexity in terms of theme and the Spanish film tradition. Drawing on a wide range of critical sources, D'Lugo explores Almod var's use of melodrama and Hollywood genre film, his self-invention as a filmmaker, and his on-screen sexual politics. D'Lugo also discusses what he calls "geocultural positioning," that is, Almod var's paradoxical ability to use his marginal positions--in terms of his class, geographical origin, and identity--to develop an expressive language that is emotionally recognizable by audiences worldwide. Two fascinating interviews with the director round out the volume.
An exciting consideration of an arthouse giant, Pedro Almod var mixes original interpretations into an analysis sure to reward film students and specialists alike.