Almodóvarology is the art of making creative and excellent movies. This analysis deals with the way Almodóvar usually sees and interprets the world in his Movies.
»I think that if all directors would make the movies, they want to make, the movies would be much more witty.«
(Pedro Almodóvar)
But how can the work of a director be analysed, who makes so unique films? Every film is new and unique, because Almodóvar wants to surprise his fans every time when they watch one of his films ... but throughout the work of Almodóvar some principal characteristics can be detected that make his fans love his films.
- The scripts of his movies are highly imaginative and can hardly be resumed in just one sentence.
- His direction can only develop itself in a perfect way in a production full of roundabout ways and confusions.
- The principal actors are more than just remedies to bring forward the main story. Every principal character has his or her own story that influences the way how he interacts in the main story and till the end of the movie the spectator learns why the whole thing developed in the way it developed.
- When he writes the script of a movie he usually starts with one central scene. Around this scene he constructs the plot of the movie.
- In a movie one has to avoid open room in the story. One has to connect things. Due to this each movie needs at least a triangle of relationships. The script has to be geometric.
- He usually rewrites and improves the script several times in order to get a consistent story. (e.g. for shooting his movie Kika he used the seventh version of the script ...)
- Before he starts shooting a movie he studies the script thoroughly to know the characters in depth, as if they where real persons. So he is able to give his actors detailed instructions on how to play the character of their role well.
- He usually never needs a co-scriptwriter to be able to canalize his ideas. (the only exception is Matador)
- One has to choose a good »casting« because according to John Ford 90% of the quality of a movie depend on a well done »casting«.
- Even when shooting has already started he is still open for new ideas to perfect the scenes of his movies. So he often changes some details of the scenes spontaneously during the shooting and instructs his actors about the changes. But the only person that is allowed to improvise is the director.
- The director has to be with a whip behind his actors in order that they pronounce well all the words and that they do not change anything compared to the original script. One has to consider always the difference between the natural tempo and the tempo of the movies. The actors should not use useless words.
- Almodóvar likes to be innovative. Everything he does shall be like an experiment and he likes to start working on something new, that he does no know yet and about that he does not know yet if he is able to do it.
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