FILM DIRECTORS: ALMODOVAR: QUEER ICON in Spring 2024 (FM2800)

Aesthetic genius, provocateur, queer icon: Pedro Almodóvar is Spain’s most well-known and influential film director. In this course, we will examine the singular artistic and political vision that characterizes Almodóvar’s filmography of the past forty years as well as his extraordinary influence on cinema and popular culture in Spain and abroad. From his first low-budget punk experiments that shook Spain out of its post-dictatorship daze to the luscious masterworks that brought him huge international success, we will follow Almodóvar into his bold narrative and visual exploration of melodrama and other genres; mothers, maternity, and feminine identity; homoeroticism, queer outcasts, and alternative kinship; Catholic iconography and Spanish cultural mythology; and his obsession with powerful actresses. We will sip this intoxicating cocktail against the backdrop of social, cultural, and political movements in late twentieth and early twenty-first century Spain and transformations in its film industry.