In 32 minutes, Pedro Almodóvar’s Strange Way of Life packs in more tenderness, eroticism and cinephile references than most feature films manage across a couple of hours. In his second foray into English language filmmaking after 2020’s The Human Voice, the international auteur takes on the most American and most macho of genres: the western. Balancing the contrasting sex appeals of Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke, Almodóvar imagines a lover’s reunion, lubricated by wine and memories of a youthful lust.
LWLies: What is your relationship to the western?
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Almodóvar: The western is not a genre I discovered as a child. I remember children playing cowboys and Indians but I was never part of this. Once I arrived in Madrid, in my twenties, I became passionate about the genre. There are genres that I never discovered in my first youth – like film noir, thrillers, and the western – but I effusively embraced in my adulthood. So, the truth is that I’ve never thought about making a western, although the western is present in at least two of my films: Johnny Guitar (1954) in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), in the ‘Lie to me and tell me you’ve been waiting for me’ scene, which I think is one of the most beautiful pieces of dialogue ever written; and in Matador (1985), the final scene of Duel in the Sun (1946) appears as a premonition to the main characters in my film. Johnny Guitar is also an exception in the genre as it’s a woman’s western, where Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge wear the pants and the guns. The western is essentially a masculine and an American genre. It’s America inventing itself through cinema.
I lied, there was one other time when I thought about making a western. It was in the early nineties, I got the rights to Tom Spanbauer’s novel ‘The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon’, which features gay cowboys and Indians. I did a first draft in Spanish but I needed an American writer to work with me, and that’s when I hit a wall. Everyone I spoke with said they wouldn’t dare touch a story like that. I hadn’t thought about making a western since, until three years ago, when I wrote the scene that became the foundation of this film, which is the long conversation between the two old lovers after their orgiastic reunion. I think they’re more naked in that scene than if I had filmed the orgy itself.
The cowboy, like you mentioned, is the quintessential cinematic emblem of masculinity. What did you want to add to its mythos?
Naturally, it’s a masculine genre. Women are secondary characters. But there’s never been a conversation about desire between men. It’s a taboo akin to the one that exists right now with footballers. There are no gay footballers. Same as there’s no gay bullfighters. You know, in Spain, it’s even forbidden to insinuate that such a thing exists. It was most attractive to me that they were old lovers remembering their youth, and how they react to a night of excess, sex and alcohol, where one of them is denying what happened between them whilst the other reminds him of it incessantly. I’m not only talking about desire, but about nakedness. Their real nakedness is in that morning after dialogue. They’re both ambiguous, because they both have ulterior motives. Silva is trying to advocate for his son, who he knows has murdered the sheriff’s sister-in-law.
I wanted them to be two old lovers who still want each other, which becomes clear during dinner, but that one of them still has that desire and wants to give it a name while the other rejects it, although he delays his work until they’ve spent that night. It’s a very masculine thing, within gay relationships, this ‘yes but no’. Yes, tonight we can be together, but tomorrow I have to leave and go find a murderer who’s also your son.
You’ve mentioned this excess when they encounter each other again. The food, the alcohol. When we see Silva and Jake in flashback, their first kiss is drowning themselves in wine. What’s the role of excess in their relationship?
Excess is the excuse to unleash their desires. I remember my youth, many times drugs and alcohol would open up sexual experiences that you wouldn’t have otherwise had. Whenever Sheriff Jake talks about the past, he says, “It was crazy,” while Silva instead recalls those moments every time he drinks. It’s two very different positions on sexuality. It’s also an old-fashioned idea, that in the chaos of drugs and alcohol, a man can indulge desires that in more sober circumstances, he wouldn’t allow himself. It’s sort of hypocritical but…
