La teatralidad en el cineuna aproximación polisistémica al cine de Pedro Almodóvar

Abstract

ABSTRACT The main goal of this doctoral dissertation is to face the notion of theatricality using, from a methodological point of view, the Polysystem Theory and, as corpus, the cinema by Pedro Almodóvar. It supposes a theoretical reflection about the applicability of the ideas expounded by Itamar Even-Zohar from the 70s, and the design and implementation of a methodological analysis that shows how work certain marks of theatricality in this filmography. We try also, with this thesis, to mitigate of the principal defects attributed to the development of the Polysystem Theory, that is, to solve the gap between theory and methodology. We won't use the idea of theatricality as immanence -although we won't refute it- because our interest is to consider this phenomenon from a diachronic point of view, and always connected to other socio-economical variables. We study the theatricality in the cinema made by the manchego director as a consequence of the programmatical election by him of certain elements of repertoire -or repertoremes- from the Spanish cultural system from the fifties to the nineties. Our hypothesis is that theatricality is a result of the active use in the repertoire of models that doubt about the verisimilitude, benefiting a theatralizing artifice. Before starting the analysis of the Spanish cultural repertoire, in the second chapter we will deal with the canonization process of Almodóvar's cinema following the ideas by Itamar Even-Zohar and Rakefet Sela-Sheffy, who has worked about canon from this polysystemical theory. We pursue two objectives. On the one hand we aspire to justify the legitimization of the films we are studying, and on the other hand, we develop an analysis tool for the canonization processes in cinema. From chapter three to chapter eight, we take into account the Spanish cultural repertoire from the fifties until the end of the nineties, pointing out their main elements and structuring them attending to their artistic nature: cinema, theatre, fine arts, music, literature and other audiovisual languages. In the beginning of the third chapter we analyze the sociological context where these artistic practices where inserted, something that, in our view, is necessary for understanding correctly the scope and the importance of the changes suffered in the Spanish system. And in the last part of each section we will analyze how these examples of artistic expression are inserted in the work of the Spanish filmmaker through different types of interferences. Finally, we study some of the principal performative intertexts in the almodóvarian filmography for trying to discover not only the strategies of shooting and mise en scène in these fragments. We want also to prove an active use of the repertoire for deducing some patterns that point at a theatricality empirically demonstrable. Concluding, we can say that the politics of selection of these components of the systems has been deliberately chosen. This behavior is the result of the functioning from a theatrum mundi vision, where the idea of world is seen as a complex interrelation of social performances. Thus, the cinema becomes the most suitable medium for reflecting on the fragility of the identities, or maybe to support the idea that life is part of the conventions of the scenic representation, where we are all in a play on the stage playing a determinate role.