THE WORLD, AND ITS INSANE RACKET

I wasn’t intending to throw myself into the madding crowd so soon, we only finished shooting a week ago! I was intending to hold back for a while, but I was persuaded by fidelity to a friend I haven’t seen much recently, Antonio Banderas. I’m writing at 9:00 a.m., after having taken a walk around the neighborhood, bought the newspaper and breathed the fresh air. For me, this means I was awake all last night. It always happens to me when I travel.
While I’m writing this, I’m listening to “A ship of wine”, by Leonard Cohen, recreated by Philip Glass. In the last few weeks I’ve been obsessed with this theme. I may have to put it in the film.

Before going to bed I wrote a draft of what will be my speech when presenting Antonio with the Donostia prize he’s been awarded (by the way, the computer has rejected that word and instead it writes “Donosita”, I have to type it several times for the computer to realize that it’s Donostia), but the last words with which I take my leave of the day aren’t those in the speech. They belong to “Dietario voluble” (that could be translated as “Changeable Engagement Book”), by Enrique Vila-Matas. This last week it’s Enrique Vila-Matas who seals my eyes each night. I really like his book, which is unclassifiable. (It reminds me of another novel of auto-fiction, “Automoribundia”, by Ramón Gómez de la Serna).

Fortunately quite a few unclassifiable books are written and published. There should be a genre which classifies them as such, that is, “unclassifiable”, a genre, like science fiction, romantic novels or historical novels.
I’m reading Vila-Matas’ book like a novel, a very good novel in which the narrator gives us exhaustive information about the protagonist who happens to be himself. I don’t know him personally, nor am I planning to meet him, I prefer to read him and let his literature pervade me. When the author becomes the subject of the book, I prefer to know the book and not the person sustaining it, because fiction shouldn’t be mixed with reality. I don’t know if you understand me. For me, Vila-Matas is a fictional character. My only problem with “Dietario voluble” is that my memory is infected by the second word in the Spanish title. The narrative deals with such a quantity of subjects that I forget everything instantly. My problem. It’s called amnesia.

EGOTRIPTIC

We are in full effervescence of Ego literature. (Of course I’m in favor of it, I’m also in favor of unclassifiable books and of Judge Garzón’s demand to draw up lists of all the “defeated” in the war and to open all the ditches and unmarked graves that have to be opened so that the families can bury their dead properly).
I’ve got no choice but to be in favor of Ego literature, there is nothing more “egoist” than writing a blog. It’s also true that, as that is its nature, no one can accuse you of being egotriptic.

I like that word, egotriptic, I’ve just invented it. That reminds me of the last Pulitzer Prize winner, “The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”, by the Dominican writer Junot Diaz. There really is a wealth of “talk” in that novel. It’s the novel that best represents, positively, the new linguistic fruits born from the living, legitimate mixture of the Caribbean language with American English. I’m not talking about Spanglish.
In the Dominican’s award winning book, there’s nothing like “Llámame pa’ ‘trás” (Call me back) instead of “Devuélveme la llamada” or simply “Llámame tú”, or “controversial” with a stress on the final a, instead of “controvertido”. Maybe I’m wrong, but many of the typical Spanglish expressions are the result of a colossal laziness.

In “Oscar Wao” the words are the spectacle. The language that Junot Díaz uses is plagued with new terms, Dominicanized English, which sound wonderful. My God, what exuberance!


Party watcher – Pariguayo

For example, “pariguayo” (my rebellious computer insists on putting “paraguayo”). It comes from the English, “party watcher” and refers to those guys with as many pounds as complexes, who at parties have to settle for watching everyone else dancing and enjoying themselves, while they are sunk in melancholy and frustration. Isn’t “pariguyao” a wonderful word? And, on top of that, it sounds like what it means.

PARTIES
Unlike the “pariguayo”, as soon as shooting finished there were several inevitable festive events, all very satisfying, which I couldn’t refuse. Unlike the unfortunate “pariguayo”, I felt I was at the center of all the parties, enjoying their extremes.

WRAP PARTY
After fifteen consecutive weeks of work, we finished shooting, safe and sound! For weeks, the crew, the model crew, had been bellowing for an intense collective catharsis.
And that’s what the wrap party became. The thing had started a few hours earlier, while we were taking the typical photo of the crew (without the stars who were already working on other projects). Given the circumstances, I had suggested taking a photo inspired by the recent Olympic Games in Beijing. In the photo I took as reference, there were several runners, around the finishing line, at the end of the 1500 meter race, in a state of terminal weariness, lying on the ground, some face down. Exhausted. Shattered. An impressive and very comical photo.
The reference was very clear, but I couldn’t get the crew to take my directions seriously. I said to myself, “Pedro, you’ve finished the film, stop directing people”. I took my own advice. And I gave up.

Photo of the crew. Wrapping the shooting. © PAOLA ARDIZZONI and EMILIO PEREDA

At the party at night I also tried to be a simple spectator of what was happening, and boy, did things happen! A selection of the younger and more attractive male members of the production, direction and camera crews decided to cross-dress for the first time in their lives and give us a choreographed version of “Sálvame”, the ineffable hit by our Bibiana Fernández. Most of them weren’t very feminine, they looked more like a group of Sioux indians who had got into the dressing rooms of a variety company and, after raping the cabaret stars, had stolen wigs and costumes and, wearing them, were dancing to the ironic rhythm of “Sálvame”. They were all barefoot because they hadn’t found high heeled shoes in their sizes. I’ve got neither photos nor words to describe that. I swear that with the exception of 0.10% they were young heterosexual men, unostentatiously masculine and without any doubts about their sexuality.
It was so unusual and hilarious!
I think there’s something in me that draws the males who come into my life towards cross-dressing.

The female members of the crew also dazzled us with a spectacle which they’d been rehearsing secretly for days in the canteen during lunch hour. The selfless girls had eaten in half an hour and spent the other half rehearsing choreographies. Their routine had, perhaps, a higher level of execution than that of the boys. They had chosen an anthology of classics by Rafaella Carrá, with a varied and complex choreography, and were dressed in outfits that were also indescribable, a kind of rural glitter that was hilarious.

All that made me think of the parties that usually follow premieres, occasions when the artists usually sing. It’s much more fun when the performers are the members of the crew who made the film. They’re more enthusiastic, for them it’s more exceptional and the result has got infinitely more charm, more humor and more kinkiness. I’ll bear it in mind for the next premiere.

13.09.08
But that doesn’t mean that I discount “artists” when the party has to be a real spectacle, for the whole public and not just for the captive audience of the shooting crew.
When the El Deseo office received the proposal from the Department of Culture of Madrid City Council, saying that they wanted to pay tribute to the music in my films, given that in almost all of them Madrid was one of the characters, I agreed without hesitation. My only condition was that, with regard to the songs that fill my films, they should be sung by Concha Buika and Miguel Poveda, in their own way, accompanied by the dancer Eva la Yerbabuena. And that’s how it was done throughout the third edition of Madrid’s “White Night”.

There were more things. The National Orchestra of Spain played a selection of themes by Alberto Iglesias, including the long fragment that accompanied the little silent film “The Shrinking Lover” (included in “Talk to Her”) and which I saw for the first time in that way, as a silent film accompanied by a live orchestra.
A thrilling experience. But the best part by far was to see and hear Concha Buika and Miguel Poveda singing what was a new repertoire for them, the songs that are an essential part of my films and which I distributed between the two artists.
For all of us who were present (more than three thousand souls), the show was an electrifying experience.

Buika and Poveda. Final apotheosis with La Yerbabuena. © L.M. LOMBARDÍA

I’m a great believer in versions, when they’re performed by inspired, independent artists who consider them as new creations and adapt the original song to their own gut feelings. All the songs that appear in my films are versions. So Buika and Poveda managed to give a further turn of the screw to songs that had already been renewed by people of such enormous talent as Caetano Veloso, Chavela Vargas or Bambino.

Miguel Poveda and Concha Buika rehearsing 1. © Pedro Almodóvar.

Concha Buika and Miguel Poveda rehearsing 2. © Pedro Almodóvar.

Film, for me, is representation, and so are the songs that I use as a narrative tool. Life isn’t as it’s seen in my films, nor is Madrid, nor La Mancha, nor the foolish, over-the-top women. My films tell my personal, unconscious, profound version of the life that surrounds me and is my inspiration. The same thing happens with songs.

Songs travel an oblique, fortuitous road until they fit into my films. At times they’ve had to become the opposite of what they originally were in order for me to connect with them. That’s the case with “Tonada de luna llena”. “Tonada” is a Venezuelan cowboy song, a kind of indigenous country music, by Simón Díaz, which would never have had any connection with my stories had it not been for the arrangements by Morelembaum and the voice of Caetano Veloso transmuted the original (with all my respects for Simón Diaz), making it into a kind of dark, surreal lullaby. Starting from Caetano’s cover, the same song performed by Miguel Poveda and danced by the great Eva la Yerbabuena was a new recreation of the song.
Giving things an extra twist with talent and inspiration.
It happened with all the songs that Buika and Poveda sang separately (“Luz de Luna”, “Soy infeliz”, “Puro Teatro”, “Voy”… etc.) and together. Could Manuel Alejandro ever have imagined that the song he wrote for Rocío Jurado, “Se nos rompió el amor”, was going to ignite the stage of the theatre with the voices of Buika and Poveda! They did a cathartic, breathtaking version. Truly, there was such a concentration of energy, talent and gut feeling that, at times, from the sheer pleasure, it was unbearable to listen to them. It’s been a very long road from when Rocío sang the song to when Buika and Poveda took it over (and how!), without forgetting the previous reinvention by Fernanda de Utrera.

You must follow these two artists, especially in their live performances. Recordings don’t do them justice. They are two brilliant heterodox artists at the height of their talent. Miguel has got the best of Caracol, Rafael Farina, Mairena and Bambino, mixed with something personal that belongs only to him. He is gifted with an exquisite instinct for going deep into areas far removed from flamenco, such as the bolero, the tango and the copla. Eclectic, highly gifted and full of curiosity, Miguel’s exquisite voice can accommodate all styles.

Buika and Poveda singing together 'En el último trago'. © Pedro Almodóvar.

Buika singing 'Luz de luna'. © Pedro Almodóvar.

Concha Buika, whose last disc, “La niña de fuego”, is nominated for Best Album in the Latin Grammys, is also a case apart. Buika belongs to a lineage of artists that is found very rarely. I’m talking about the lineage of Chavela, Niña de los Peines, Edith Piaf, Judy Garland, Bola de Nieve… Her voice has an unusual color and a very wide tessitura, gifted for the most intimate caress and for the deafening shriek. Buika only knows how to sing “with her heart ripped apart”. So young, she makes me tremble because she gives the impression that each performance is the definitive one, the last one. While being totally original and following other paths, she reminds me very much of Chavela at her greatest.
I never enjoyed a tribute so much.

San Sebastian was wonderful. Being with Antonio again, before, during and after the presentation. And with Melanie…

Antonio, Melanie and Pedro together for the Donostia Award for Antonio. © Pedro Almodóvar.

It was my birthday two days ago. I received lots of congratulations, some unexpected and original. For example, Meryl Streep sang Happy Christmas in Spanish to me over a friend’s cell phone, from San Sebastian, where she was receiving a tribute. Our mutual friend Chema Prado told her it was Happy Birthday, not Happy Christmas. Was she mistaken? I wouldn’t say that much. She was Meryl Streep and she could sing what she wanted. In the few words she sang in Spanish, you won’t believe it, she didn’t have the slightest accent.
What a great actress and what a delightful person!
Penelope also wished me happy birthday with a voice message. She was taking a break from rehearsals for the musical “Nine”, which she will start shooting shortly with director Rob Marshall. In the message she told me that Sophia Loren was beside her and she wanted to congratulate me too. (Loren is playing the mother of the character played by Daniel Day-Lewis). Penélope Cruz and Sophia Loren together! I’m no mythomaniac, but I want to see them and have my photo taken with them.