Pedro Almodóvar, international cinema's most celebrated modern director who has long resisted the calls from Hollywood, revealed some tidbits about his next film. And that he turned down the opportunity to direct Brokeback Mountain.
The Spanish-melodrama maestro was in London to see a preview of a Soho musical adaptation of his breakout film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Over tea with The Financial Times, Almodóvar said that his next film will be titled Silencio, "because that's the principal element that drives the worst things that happen to the main female protagonist." In exciting reveal for Almodóvar fans (who, even before he won Oscars for All About My Mother and Talk to Her, has become so well known in international cinema that he's often credited with just his last name), Almodóvar said that Silencio will be "a return to the cinema of women, of great female protagonists, and it's a hard-hitting drama." ¡hurra!
Almodóvar, who has not directed a film in English, also revealed to FT that he was offered a hard-hitting American drama, that perhaps didn't hit hard enough. “They offered me Brokeback Mountain but I had many doubts. Thinking about it, I don’t know if I made a mistake or not [in turning it down]. They promised me total artistic freedom and final cut but it was a story that was so physical — it’s not just that the characters sleep together once — and that has to be there," the director said, referring to Hollywood's flagpole-saluted/most-mainstream gay film, which also happens to feature more heterosexual scenes than homosexual scenes. "I think Ang Lee went as far as he could and I like his version very much. But I always imagined it differently and I don’t think I would have been able to make it the way I wanted. They wouldn’t have let me.” And Almodóvar has turned down a few more Hollywood opportunities since.
The director said that Silencio will begin filming in April, so a 2016 release date looks most likely for the auteur. But, though returning to the female narrative might make fans wonder if a Penelope Cruz-reunion is in the cards (Cruz starred in All About My Mother, Volver, and Broken Embraces), it seems that he may be looking for a new collaborator. "We are involved in casting at the moment, which is complicated because what I've written doesn't quite work with my actores amigos," he said. So if Cruz does end up being cast, does that mean that they're frenemies?
[via Financial Times]
