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Pedro Almodovar

Pedro Almodovar Books

Film director

Pedro Almodóvar is a renowned Spanish film director, born on September 25, 1949. His films are known for their unique style and profound social criticism, making him a representative figure of the Spanish New Wave in cinema.

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Related Quotes

“All my movies have an autobiographical dimension, but that is indirectly, through the characters. In fact I am behind everything that happens and that is said, but I am never talking about myself in first person. Something in me - probably a dislike of cheap exhibitionism- stops me from approaching a project too autobiographically.”

Firsts Persons Said Character Facts Happens Behinds Talking Projects Dimensions Dislike First Person Exhibitionism

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“Both sex and death are eternal themes. You could make thousands of movies on this theme, and whether you have a human being who is painting, singing, making a film, writing, these are the themes that you will come back to and return to. If you don't have any of these artistic expressions, sex is one of the only gifts that nature gave you for free, so it is very important to celebrate it. And then, with death, we are condemned to that. This is absolutely present in our lives.”

Ifs Writing Humans Important Film Sex Human Beings Our Lives Painting Expression Return Eternal Singing Celebrate Artistic Theme Artistic Expression Sex And Death Film Writing

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“I tried to think about these two issues very freely. With sex, I think I can manage with that. With death, this is a more difficult theme for me. I'm not a believer, even though I'm baptized. I don't practice. I don't believe in God, so I feel very alone facing death. What I discovered is that the only way to recognize death is if you are part of life, if you are part of sexual pleasure, if you link it with sexual pleasure.”

Ifs Thinking Way Feels Believe I Can Two Sex Difficult Pleasure Practice Issues Don't Believe Believer Manage Theme Links Believe In God Parts Of Life Baptized Facing Death

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“As a woman, she [Penelope Cruz] obviously has changed as she has become an adult. But, as an actress, I actually might say that she has not changed that much. And she has something great, especially in comedy, and she hasn't been exploited as much as she could be in comedy, but particularly in that mix between comedy and drama. She's got a very special quality about her. You can place her in very extreme situations, especially very painful situations, in terms of how her character interprets it. And sometimes, the deeper and more human that pain is, the better she is at it.”

Humans Sometimes Character Pain Term Quality Situation Comedy Special Changed Drama Adults Painful Deeper Extremes Actresses Cruz Painful Situations

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“I'm a very dull passenger. I don't speak. I don't have sex. No alcohol. I don't do drugs. The thing that I like about flying is that I feel like I can really concentrate. I used to write many things, and many ideas for my movies belong to this moment where I'm not anywhere specifically in terms of time and space and geography. I am suspended, and this suspension fits me very well.”

Feels Writing Wells I Can Ideas Moments Used Speak Sex Term Space Fit Drug Alcohol Flying Dull Time And Space Geography Passengers Suspended Suspension

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“When I'm writing, I don't put faces on the characters. When I finish the first draft of the script, I start visualizing, and sometimes then I think about one actor.”

Thinking Writing Firsts Sometimes Character Faces Actors Scripts Visualizing

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“I'm really a nightmare for the fashion designer because I take away all of his authority, and I become the authority, and I turn him into my assistant. You could say I intervene, and I intervene in a very determining way in all the aspects that have to do with the visual construction of the film.”

Way Film Turns Fashion Authority Aspect Designer Visuals Nightmare Construction Assistants Fashion Designer

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“Once we actually have the production script after many rewrites, at that point is when I start to decide what the look and colors will be. I work like a painter, even though I'm working in three dimensions. I'm working with chairs. I'm working with walls. But even things like the floor or the walls that people might think are not important, they actually do influence the visual look of the film. These are also things that I have to think about.”

People Thinking Looks Important Might Film Three Influence Color Wall Scripts Productions Painter Visuals Dimensions Chairs Three Dimensions

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“An ample arse helps you to be weighed down and be grounded.”

Helping Down And Grounded Arses

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“I'm more interested to show the darkest places of myself, and I don't joke about it.”

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“Maybe it's the culture, maybe it's the cliché of Latino machismo, but the Mediterranean male character is more dull than the female character. Women are more surprising and they have fewer prejudices.”

Character Culture Female Prejudice Males Dull Fewer Surprising Latino Female Characters Machismo

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“Each actor is a very different person, and each one has to be directed very differently.”

Persons Different Actors

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“When I was very young, I was already a fabulador. I loved to give my own version of stories that everybody already knew. When I got out of a movie with my sisters, I retold them the whole story. In general they liked my version better than the one they had seen.”

Giving Whole Stories Young Actors My Own Versions Movie My Sister

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“I was always storytelling, since I was a child. I remember myself at 10 years old telling stories to my sisters and brother. This is something I did through my adolescence and even through my twenties.”

Years Children Stories Remember Brother Twenties Storytelling My Sister Adolescence Brothers And Sisters Telling Stories

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“If I had not been successful as a director, then I'm sure I would still be telling stories. I would have continued on 16mm or found a different medium through which to tell them. Maybe they would have been less glamorous than films, but I would continue to tell stories.”

Ifs Has Beens Stills Different Stories Film Found Successful Directors Mediums Glamorous Telling Stories

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“When I start writing, the first line might come from reality, but the second and the third one, I have to write it. So this is the genesis of my creation. If I want to know what happens, if I want to find out the secret, I have to write it.”

Ifs Knows Want Writing Firsts Reality Might Happens Lines Secret Creation Thirds Genesis

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“A dead love never dies.”

Dies Love Never Dies

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“Never again work in the same conditions in whichyou made your first film. It's good to take risks, but not thatmuch risk.”

Firsts Made Film Risk Conditions

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“I think that there is always a part of utopia in any romantic relationship.”

Thinking Utopia Romantic Relationship

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“When I was young I thought: when I am 60 my necessities will be very different. As I get near that age, I realise they are similar to what they were when I was 25.”

Different Age Young Realising

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“I don't want the director to have to make any decisions except to say "action" and "cut."”

Action Decision Cutting

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“I think that the consciousness of passion makes you act very differently.”

Thinking Passion Consciousness

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“I don't want to imitate life in movies; I want to represent it. And in that representation, you use the colors you feel, and sometimes they are fake colors. But always it's to show one emotion.”

Want Feels Sometimes Use Shows Emotion Color Fake Representation Fake People

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“Yes, women are stronger than us. They face more directly the problems that confront them, and for that reason they are much more spectacular to talk about. I don't know why I am more interested in women, because I don't go to any psychiatrists, and I don't want to know why.”

Knows Want Reason Problem Faces Stronger Spectacular Psychiatrist

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“Hospitals are places that you have to stay in for a long time, even if you are a visitor. Time doesn't seem to pass in the same way in hospitals as it does in other places. Time seems to almost not exist in the same way as it does in other places.”

Ifs Way Long Doe Seems Long Time Hospitals Visitors

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“I also wanted to express the strength of cinema to hide reality, while being entertaining. Cinema can fill in the empty spaces of your life and your loneliness.”

Reality Wanted Space Loneliness Lonely Empty Cinema Entertaining Being Alone Empty Space

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“I think décor says a lot about someone's social position, their taste, their sensibility, their work - and also about the aesthetic way I have chosen to tell their story.”

Thinking Way Stories Social Position Taste Chosen Aesthetic Sensibility Decor

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“All my movies are difficult to classify because they are very eclectic in mixing genres.”

Difficult Genre Mixing Eclectic Eclectic Style

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“My mother was an extremely creative woman, despite the fact that she lived the life of a rural housewife.”

Facts Mother Creative Despite Housewife

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“Whenever I arrive on a real location, I have to move around and work out what the best angles are going to be.”

Real Moving Work Out Location Angle

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“Cinema can fill in the empty spaces of your life and your loneliness.”

Space Loneliness Empty Cinema Empty Space

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“Anything that is not autobiography is plagiarism.”

Autobiography Plagiarism

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“Cinema has become my life. I dont mean a parallel world, I mean my life itself. I sometimes have the impression that the daily reality is simply there to provide material for my next film.”

World Inspirational Mean Sometimes Reality Motivational Film Next Materials Impression Cinema Filmmaker Parallels

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“The Flower of My Secret is definitely more based in true emotions. I also wanted to make something more realistic, but not naturalistic or simple.”

Wanted Simple Secret Emotion Flower Realistic True Emotions

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“The silent film has a lot of meanings. The first part of the film is comic. It represents the burlesque feel of those silent films. But I think that the second part of the film is full of tenderness and emotion.”

Thinking Feels Firsts Film Emotion Silent Comic Tenderness Burlesque Silent Movies Silent Films

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“There is a mysterious stillness and intimacy of a woman doing her hair and make-up which attracts me.”

Hair Mysterious Intimacy Stillness

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“The challenge to me as a director was for the audience to see the film as going on in a straight line, so that they did not sense all of these break-ups. I did not want a film to be a collage of all these images.”

Want Film Challenges Lines Break Audience Directors Straight Lines Collages

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“Cukor is one of my favorite directors. He was a master at directing women.”

Masters Directors My Favorite Owners

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“I am partly not conscious of structure with my movies, but this is when I am writing. I leave my mind very free, and then I correct it after.”

Writing Mind Conscious Structure

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“I make movies for my needs. My goal has never, never, never been to make shocking movie.”

Needs Goal Shocking

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“After the enormous success of All About my Mother, all the awards and everything, I wanted to start a movie in exactly the same place that I used to be before. I wanted to show that all of the success had not changed my perception.”

Shows Wanted Used Mother Changed Perception Enormous Used To Be Awards

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“Even though I love my mother, I didn't want to make an idealized portrait of her. I'm fascinated more by her defects - they are funnier than her other qualities.”

Want Mother Quality Fascinated Portraits Defects I Love My Mother

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“I used this line to demonstrate how important colors are in movies: It's not a caprice.”

Important Used Lines Color Caprice

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“It's a pity that I can never really enjoy my movies because, after the mixing, your capacity as a spectator just disappears. I have to think about what I felt just before the mixing.”

Thinking I Can Felt Enjoy Capacity Disappear Pity Spectators Mixing

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“The 1980s really ended for me in 1992 with the film Kika.”

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“I was born at a bad time for Spain, but a really good one for cinema.”

Born Cinema Spain Bad Times

Author:Pedro Almodovar

“When I make a film, I never stop uncovering mysteries, making discoveries. When I'm writing, filming, editing, even doing promotional work, I discover new things about the film, about myself, and about others. That is what I'm subconsciously looking for when shooting a film: to glimpse the enigmas of life, even if I don't resolve them, but at least to uncover them. Cinema is curiosity in the most intense meaning of the word.”

Ifs Writing Film Mystery Discovery Curiosity Intense Shooting Cinema Movie Resolve New Things Editing Glimpse Enigma Cinematic Film Directors Uncovering Relay Races

Author:Pedro Almodovar

About the Author

Born: September 25, 1949
Known for: Film director
Quotes: 47

Related Topics

Film Thinking Ifs Writing Cinema Firsts Want Character Feels Sometimes

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People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

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