All that Almodóvar Allows

Abstract

The links between Almodóvar and Sirk have been noted by many. Reference is made to the career of Douglas Sirk (1897–1987), the emigré German film director whose 1950s melodramas are striking landmarks of the Hollywood cinema. Following general comments on the overlaps of form by two of the cinema’s greatest stylists, attention is paid to one of the pivotal mechanisms in the narrative structures of their films, the sacrifice of one character as the price of survival for another. This key element of some of Sirk’s melodramas, raising questions about irony, circularity, gender and selfhood, also features in various Almodóvar films such as Todo sobre mi madre, Hable con ella, Los abrazos rotos, and La piel que habito.