From the Publisher
In full command of both Hollywood stylistics and camp aesthetics, Spain's Pedro Almodovar (b. 1951) has become a master of the audacious and the unorthodox, of the permissive and the polemical. This collection of interviews documents the cinematic career of this internationally celebrated Spanish art-film director. Many are from French, Italian, and Spanish periodicals and appear for the first time in English. For all its taboo-breaking plots, eccentric characterizations, and explosive palettes, Almodovar's cinema of excess has matured into one of tender compassion. All About My Mother, winner of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and of Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, and Talk to Her, his fourteenth feature to date and winner of the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, 2003, cement Almodovar's commitment to characters on the margins and to social critique. These conversations disclose much about Almodovar's personal biography, his thematic universe, his directorial personality, and his maturing style.
