Time, history and memory in the cinema of Pedro Almod{u00F3}var

Abstract

This thesis analyses the films of Pedro Almod{u00F3}var to identify what they express about time, history and memory. It situates Almod{u00F3}var's films in their historical and cultural context in order to detect traces of and breaks with the past within the films. It identifies a trajectory in Almod{u00F3}var's attitude towards the past: from disinterest and disavowal of the relevance of history in his earliest films that encapsulate the spirit of the movida, to a growing preoccupation with time and memory in the films from Live Flesh onwards. The thesis demonstrates that this trajectory reflects broader changes in Spain's attitude to its historical past, from the 'pact of oblivion' in the 1980s that sought to erase memories of the Franco period, to the Historical Memory Law that was enacted in the Spanish Parliament in 2007. Since Almod{u00F3}var's films reflect on the past more often through personal stories than direct reference to historical events, this thesis identifies where these personal stories can be read as allegories or at least allusions to historical circumstances, but also what the films are saying about the human experience oftime. To do this it draws on the work of Paul Ricoeur who, in Time and Narrative, elaborated on fiction's potential for ruminating on lived time. In particular, the thesis shows how in Almod{u00F3}var's recent cinema the past and future coincide with the present through memory and anticipation. Gilles Deleuze's Cinema books and relevant scholarship on Deleuze are also drawn on to argue that Bad Education and Talk to Her incorporate aspects of both the time-and movement-images, employing non-linear narrative structures that foreground time and at first confound understanding, but that ultimately work to restore coherence. Bad Education, in particular, fits within a cycle of films identified by David Martin-Jones: hybrid time-/movement-images that employ variations of non-linearity to produce, comment on or criticise national narratives. The thesis identifies interplay between the agency of characters and coincidence and chance events that undermines simplistic causal relationships in many of Almod{u00F3}var's films, arguing that this suggests a model of agency that underscores the crisis of the movement-image, yet ultimately seeks to retain it. It also demonstrates how repetition, music, colour and visual techniques contribute to the films' explorations of time, history and memory. Show more