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"TALK
TO HER"
Pedro Almodovar interviews
Pedro Almodovar
 Q:
From now on, we'll have to say that as well as being a good director
of actresses you're also a good director of actors. The leading
characters in "Talk to Her" are two men and the actors who play
them are splendid.
A: I'm delighted it's you who's said that. Yes, Javier Cámara and
Darío Grandinetti are superb in very complicated roles. In any case,
"Talk to Her" isn't my first film with male leads. "Live Flesh"
is a testicular story. "Matador" and "Law of Desire" were also stories
in which men determined the action. In "Law of Desire" even the
girl (Carmen Maura) was a man.
Q: Which do you find more enjoyable?
A: What do you mean?
Q: When it comes to working, actors or actresses?
A: When they're wonderful and can make me forget that I'm the director
and the writer, I enjoy both equally and very much. Over the course
of fourteen feature films I admit that I've found more good actresses
than good actors, but it's also true that I've written more female
roles than male or neuter roles.
Q: That's obvious...
A: In another field, that of writing, and as a general rule, I believe
that women inspire me to write comedies, and men, tragedies.
Q: Why don't you do more comedies?
A: The scripts done come out easily. But I'm going to force it.
Q: Can you force a script, the elements that make it up, the tone?
A: No. Or you shouldn't, with the exception of documentaries and
biographic films.
A. I don't know. All I know is that it isn't a western, or a film
about CIA agents. Nor is it a James Bond film or a period piece.
Q: It does have an element of that...
A: That's true, seven minutes to be precise, which take place in
1924.
Q: Those seven minutes are giving rise to a lot of talk.
A: Even though they're silent... In the middle of the film, the
nurse, Benigno (Javier Cámara) uses one of his few free nights to
go to the Cinematheque to see a silent Spanish film: "Amante Menguante"
("Shrinking Lover"). I show about seven minutes of that film.
Q: Isn't it a bit risky to interrupt the general narrative with
a very different piece, or is it a flashback involving the same
characters?
A: No, it isn't a flashback, it's a separate story... and yes, it's
risky, very risky...
Q: Aren't you afraid the spectator will be confused, or lose his
concentration?
A: Now that I've finished it, no, but while I was filming it I was
terrified. I couldn't sleep until I had the two stories edited together.
Spoken Cinema
A: The part that runs from when Javier goes to the Cinematheque
until he finishes telling the film to the recumbent, remote Alicia
(about ten minutes running time) is one of my favorites.
Q: What's the reason for this "detour" from the central story?
A: It only seems like a detour, because the nurse's story doesn't
actually stop during those seven minutes, rather it overlaps and
merges with that of "Shrinking Lover." In any case, the original
reason (when I was working on the script) was so that I could use
the silent film as a front.
Q: To hide what?
A: What is really happening in Alicia's room. I don't want to show
it to the spectator and I invented "Shrinking Lover" as a kind of
blindfold. In any case, the spectator will discover what has happened
at the same time as the other characters. It's a secret which I'd
like no one to reveal.
Q: That's called manipulation.
A: It's a narrative option, and not exactly a simple one. That's
why I'm so proud of the result.
Q: In any case, it isn't the first time that your characters explain
themselves through another film. For example, in "High Heels"...
A: Yes. Victoria Abril shouted a scene from "Autumn Sonata" at her
mother, Marisa Paredes, in order to explain the love and hate that
she felt for her, a love and hate so great they'd even driven her
to kill. In "Matador," the protagonists hurry into a cinema (she's
running away from him) where they are showing "Duel In The Sun."
On the screen they can see what their own end will be. In "Live
Flesh," while Liberto Rabal and Francesca Neri are fighting, the
television is showing Buñuel's "Rehearsal For a Crime" (aka "The
Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz"). Buñuel's film could well
provide the title for this section of "Live Flesh." And its images
anticipate two elements which will later appear in my film, a legless
man (after this scene Javier Bardem's character ends up in a wheelchair,
in "The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz" it was a dummy which
had its leg removed) and the fire which would trap Angela Molina's
character when Liberto breaks off with her (in "The Criminal Life..."
it was the oven in which Archibaldo de la Cruz was burning a dummy
identical to the character played by Miroslava. By coincidence,
years later, the actress really did die in a burning car).
For me, the films I see become part of my own experiences, and I
use them as such.
There's no intention of paying homage to their directors or of imitating
them. They're elements which are absorbed into the script and become
part of it. "Telling films" is something that has to do with my
biography. And I'm not talking about a film forum or the typical
discussion about cinema (I hate those). I remember that when I was
little I would tell films to my sisters, films that we'd seen together.
I'd get carried away by the memory and while I was telling them
I'd reinvent them. Really, I was making my own adaptation, and my
sisters preferred my inaccurate, delirious versions to the original
film.
I remember that during those hours when time slowed down (sitting
in the patio while they sewed, or gathered around the table with
the brazier underneath), they would say:
Pedro, tell us the film we saw yesterday...
Q: Can you see yourself telling films to your grandchildren?
A: I don't know. It's getting late for me to have grandchildren...
In any case, I don't think I'd do it. I don't tell films anymore,
I've lost that skill and I only talk about them when I'm forced
to do so in interviews.
 Words
and Loneliness
Q: When the psychiatrist asks Javier Cámara's character what his
problem is, he replies: "Loneliness, I guess."
A: Marco (Darío Grandinetti) also tells the two women in the film
on two very different occasions that he's lonely. In both cases,
neither Benigno nor Marco gets melodramatic about it, they're simply
stating a fact. Loneliness is something which all the characters
in the film have in common. Alicia and Lydia are lonely too. And
Katerina, the ballet mistress. And Alicia's father, although it's
likely that after a while he'll have an affair with the receptionist
in his consultancy. And the nurse played by Mariola Fuentes, secretly
in love with her fellow worker Benigno. And the housekeeper in Benigno's
building. Even the only unpleasant character, the despicable interviewer
played by Loles León, ends up alone on the set, talking to the camera
because Lydia (quite rightly) has stormed off in the middle of the
interview. And the bull is left alone in the huge ring when Lydia
is taken to the infirmary, fatally injured... "Loneliness,
I guess" is another possible title for this film.
Q: In a self interview, a genre with which you're familiar, how
does the loneliness affect you? What do you feel at the absence
of an interlocutor... nostalgia... or contempt?
A: I don't feel contempt for anything, not even for things I hate.
The reason I interview myself is for practical rather than endogamic
reasons. I say what I want to say and in the fastest way possible.
In any case, a self interview is a written
piece and writing is always done in solitude.
Q: Have you ever realized that you were talking to yourself?
A: Right now.
Q: I mean in your life, without whatever you say necessarily appearing
in print.
A: Yes. A few months ago. I caught myself doing it on several days.
I did it either in the morning, when I'd just got up, or at night.
(I've been told that Buñuel also talked to himself in the morning,
to check on how his deafness was progressing). I was doing it to
check the sound and power of my voice. I lost my voice during the
shoot and for a few weeks when I got up after the long nocturnal
silence, I'd talk to myself in bed or in front of the mirror. "How's
my voice today?" I'd ask myself. "Much better. If I don't force
it, I may make it through to the evening." I've
always believed in words, even when you've got no voice... or no
one to talk to.
Q: Is that the message in "Talk to Her?"
A: As in any film, the message is "Go see it;" then, in a subliminal
way, "and tell your friends about it."
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