This text analyses director Pedro Almodovar's insights into gender, sexuality and subjectivity in his film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. The author draws on a range of psychoanalytic and critical concepts and sees the film as an account of the often tyrannical spell of sexual desire, of the anxieties of relationships and families, but also of the possibilities of personal liberation. Peter William Evans also discusses the recent history of Spain and ties the film's co...

Written on the Wind (1956) is one of classical Hollywood's most striking films andranks among Douglas Sirk's finest achievements. An intense melodrama aboutan alcoholic playboy who marries the woman his best friend secretly loves,the film is highly stylised, psychologically complex, and marked by Sirk'scharacteristic charting of the social realities of 1950s America.This first single study of Written on the Wind reassesses the film's artisticherit...

Pedro Almodóvar's 1988 black comedy-melodrama Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown established its director as one of the most exciting of European film-making talents. An often hilarious study of sexual mores, Women on the Verge has a central character, Pepa (Carmen Maura), as warm and richly drawn as any modern film heroine. Made strong and self-reliant by suffering in a troubled relationship, Pepa is the centre of a network of lovers, friends and family who repres...

This text ranges widely over key films and moments from stages of Luis Bunuel's career. It locates and re-appraises Bunuel's films with particular emphasis on the national cinemas and varied cultures with which he was identified.