Pedro Almodóvar Talks Western ‘Strange Way Of Life’: “I Think It’s The First Time In The History Of Westerns Where You See Two Men Making The Bed’

Melanie Goodfellow
·3 min read

Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar rode into the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday with his short film Strange Way Of Life, pushing boundaries for LGBT representation in the Western genre.

Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal star as a sheriff and a rancher with a romantic history, who reconnect after a 25-year gap. While it’s clear that their passion is still alive, circumstances appear to conspire against a reunion.

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Almodóvar and Hawke took to the stage for a special conversation after the Out of Competition world premiere in Cannes on Wednesday.

The director said the premise for the film had come from a question asked in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain – ‘What would two men do, working on a ranch?” – but added that his short bore no other similarities with the 2005 feature.

“I wanted to make a classic western in which we talk about the desire between two cowboys. Normally in classic Westerns, women always have secondary roles and we never talk about the desire between two men. That’s what I wanted to do” he said.

Questioned on whether he considered Strange Way Of Life to be the first “truly queer Western” in which gay male desire is tackled so opening, Almodóvar agreed, pointing to the long intimate discussion between the two characters after an “orgiastic night”

“In Jane Campion’s The Power Of The Dog, their sexuality is very ambivalent. They never talk about desire and, of course, they never fuck,” he said, alluding to the relationship between Benedict Cumberbatch and Kodi Smit-McPhee’s characters in the film.

He also suggested the domestic details in the film set it apart.

“I think it’s the first time in the history of a Western where you see two men making the bed,” he said referring to a scene the morning after the men’s night of passion.

“It’s a very important scene because for the character of Jake (Hawke), making the bed is a way to erase what happened the night before, while for Silva (Pascal), it’s the opposite. Throughout the scene, he talks about what happened in the bed.”

Almodóvar also discussed the revival of the Western genre.

“It’s interesting, 10 years ago, people were saying the Western is dead but in the last five years, we’ve seen The Rider By Chloe Zhao, The Power Of The Dog and First Cow by Kelly Reichardt. Curiously, they were a new way of looking at the genre and all three of them are by female filmmakers.

“There is also Yellowstone, but for me, the series is very traditional in the worse way,” he said.

Hawke said he had jumped at the chance to work with Almodóvar.

“When I received the script and invitation to participate, I went for a walk and thought something I’d done in my life must have been right to get this email. I was so grateful,” he said to applause.

“A lot of contemporary Westerns feel like they’re imitating old movies and to get the chance to work with Almodóvar, everything he has ever done in his life, has an original voice with the camera, an original story to tell. All of his stories are so deeply human.”

Asked whether he thought, the male characters would end up staying together, Hawke replied “We disagree about this. I think they are going to stay together.”

Disagreeing, Almodóvar pitched a long imaginative sequel in which the characters are torn apart by circumstances and end up separately in Mexico in hot pursuit of a criminal at the heart of the storyline.

There, a final three-way gun showdown would seal the fate of the relationship, although the filmmaker said he had not decided in what direction.

“It will be after two hours… I don’t know if they will be together but they will be free of this nightmare,” he said. “I should probably make it.

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