The Body of Love in Almodóvar's Cinema: Metaphor and Metonymy of the Body and Body Parts

Abstract

This article focuses on how the human body and body parts such as the legs, abdomen, and torso are conceptualized in Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar's films. The comparative analysis follows a qualitative methodology in which instances of the use of body parts are analyzed within their multimodal, sociocultural, and cinematic contexts. Through camera work and mise-en-scène, the actors' bodies and bodily functions are mapped onto complex cultural, social, and filmic targets within the narrative structure. Ultimately, the author shows how artistic creativity is an activity whose purpose is a reembodiment of the emotion by visual and physical alteration. The new body is an environment onto which traditional views of the body based on folk theories are mapped, and body parts and functions are metonymically highlighted.