Pedro Almodovar: Living Under the 'X' : Celebrated Spanish director finds 'hypocrisy' in MPAA system as Miramax releases his 'Tie Me Up!' uncut and unrated

May 06, 1990|STEVE WEINSTEIN

A: It's something magical. To me it has become an obsession that sort of parallels a great love story. When you start a love story, you're moved by something very concrete. Perhaps a physical attraction. And then with time you discover the reasons why you are with that person. And a great love story begins to happen as the years pass. As if you have a disease that finally ends up consuming you entirely. Film has become something like that for me. At first it was a love story with a very immediate pleasure. And it has become something much more painful as time passes, but also something much more complete. Something I couldn't live without. I wonder where that need to make films and to narrate stories comes from. I don't know. Perhaps it is a fight against death, a fight against all the limitations we face.

Q: What's next?

A: I'm writing a new movie that I will make in Spain. It's a story about revenge and again it's the story of women--three or four women. And it's the first time that I've tried to write a very evil part. The main protagonist is really a bad girl in the sense that Bette Davis could be bad girl in "The Little Foxes."

Q: And the American version of "Women on the Verge," what happened with that?

A: I'm trying to call Jane Fonda to see. Columbia/Tri Star changed so much when (Sony) bought it that I'm afraid this project is not so urgent for them now. That's the problem with the big studios. They are so slow, many projects just disappear.

Q: Are you involved with the remake?

A: No. I refused that. If I pay for the rights to something, I would not like to be saddled with the author looking over my shoulder and criticizing things. So they have complete freedom. I don't mind if I'm distorted. It will be someone else's adaptation of something I did and I'm very curious about how it will be in the end.

Q: Aren't you afraid of what they'll do to it?

A: Well, a little, but my curiousity is bigger than my fear.

Q: Actually, that could be your epitaph, don't you think?

Almodovar only smiles.