![]() Just with holsters slung over the bed post. He wanted to make a more full-fledged Western, with gunfights. Almodóvar also turned down “Brokeback Mountain,” which Ang Lee made in 2005. In the early ‘90s, he sought the rights to adapt Tom Spanbauer’s “The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon,” but says a Western with gay cowboys and Native Americans was a tough sell. I thought that if there were that many men, some of them could desire each other.”Īlmodóvar has come closer before. They created a style which was completely American and also a completely male genre. “But their reality was very dusty and very ugly. What Hollywood did was create the American epic and also stylize their reality,” says Almodóvar, speaking alongside Hawke. “The Western was born at the beginning of the century with cinema. (“And I was so afraid that he couldn’t,” he says.) He remembers his father trying to teach him as a boy how to ride a horse. I say this because when I woke up I could hear Ethan in his room play 'Happy Birthday' on his guitar. But I have a feeling thats not going to happen. “John Ford is unlimited,” he says.īut the genre goes even deeper than that for Almodóvar. Todays my 18th birthday and all Im wishing for is no one to remember and as middle kid thats a wish granted. He lists John Sturges, Henry Hathaway, Anthony Mann and Howard Hawks among his favorites. They briefly rekindle their love for another, but one’s stubborn insistence that a life together is an impossibility leads to a violent climax.Īlmodóvar, a deeply knowledgeable film buff who has consciously worked in melodrama, noir and screwball genres before, discovered his love of Westerns in his early 20s. Pascal (who had to miss the film’s premiere) and Hawke play a pair of former gunslingers who meet up 25 years years after a torrid affair. “Strange Way of Life” again suggests Almodóvar works just as effortlessly in English as he does in Spanish. He’s done it now in two shorts - “The Human Voice,” with Tilda Swinton, and “Strange Way of Life,” sponsored by Saint Laurent - and is preparing to make his first English-language feature after abandoning “A Manual for Cleaning Women,” a film he had prepared to make with Cate Blanchett. The 73-year-old Spanish auteur has been edging closer to working in English. “I was not sure that I’d make a Western in my life but at least I made a short,” Almodóvar said smiling the next day in an interview on a hotel terrace overlooking the Croisette. Reilly, president of this year’s Un Certain regard jury, kindly reached across the aisle with his hat to fan one excited moviegoer. When Almodóvar introduced his all-male cast on stage at the film’s Cannes Film Festival premiere, some in the audience had to cool themselves. So frenzied was the scene that many ticketholders never got in. ![]() But that may have been doubly so for “Strange Way of Life” even though it’s a quarter the length of his usual output. ![]() ![]() There’s nothing quite like the fervor that greets a new film from Almodóvar, one of the world’s most beloved filmmakers. CANNES, France (AP) - “Pedro! Pedro!” shouted the Cannes crowd before Pedro Almodóvar unveiled his latest film, “Strange Way of Life,” a 31-minute Western starring Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke as cowboys and former lovers. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |