Tenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

This paper charts the discursive shifts in Pedro Almodóvar’s persona from emissary of the gay underground, to symbol of Spanish national identity in the post-Franco environment, to international art film auteur. Where many commentators claim that this trajectory reflects the director’s maturation, and that this maturation is expressed through his films, I instead draw from reviews, trade press documents, and interviews to demonstrate the particular ways that critics, audiences, academics, film festivals, and studios positioned Almodóvar’s identity according to their own agendas, as well as Almodóvar’s own intervention within this process. When Almodóvar’s films began to circulate in American independent film festivals, gay audiences and critics embraced the director as a champion of gay cinema, while the straight press labeled him a “Spanish director.” However, since establishing himself as an international auteur, audiences have tended to align the homosexual associations with Almodóvar’s brand with a preexisting discourse that considers the films of gay art cinema directors to be addressing universal, social themes through their form, rather than satiating the pleasures of gay audiences with their content. Profiling the multiple, often over-lapping meanings of Almodóvar’s identity demonstrates how gay art cinema directors operating in a commercial context have a particular agency in guiding the reception of their films, and the interpretation of their brands.