Summer of Passion on Arte
Between the veil of mystery over her private life and the gift of ubiquity that allows her to always be there at the right time, the darling actress from Almodóvar has established herself as a star.
«Penélope Cruz, is that your real name?“we ask the very young actress during a TV appearance in an extract from Penélope Cruz, reflections of passion. Yes, everything is original, unvarnished and already written. She is the Penelope of Greek mythology, object of desire for many suitors and waiting for her husband for a long time (Javier Bardem, met in 1992 and whom she will finally marry in 2010). It is the cross (“cruz” in Spanish), the one carried to be a national treasure in Spain, to be a world celebrity and to be the stuff of dreams. A survey conducted by Californian cosmetic surgeons in 2011 revealed that her body was the benchmark for clients seeking change. Penelope is also the one who patiently weaves a tapestry. Cruz, she weaves a career but also a self-veil which belongs only to stars. Charles-Antoine de Rouvre’s documentary reminds us of all the biographical information: the hardworking girl forging discipline and willpower through classical dance, which has been filming continuously since she revealed her sulky pout in Ham, Ham (1992) de Bigas Luna.
Timing always
To unravel Cruz and his work to be more than just another pretty face is also to see the relation to time of any star. It is to last but to be there at the right time, to correspond to the demand: it emerges when Spanish cinema is regenerated thanks to Luna and Almodóvar, bringing a “lacking spontaneity” according to his drama teacher. It will be the fake ingenue who takes the initiative in relationships, the post-feminist who assumes herself without threatening the patriarchal status quo. When she looks to Hollywood in the late 90s, she is in sync with a movie industry sniffing out anything “Latino” as a loss leader to expand the market. The Madrilenian Cruz then becomes Brazilian in Love, peppers and bossa nova (2000), Colombian in Blow (2001) or Mexican in Bandidas (2006) and, beyond that, the archetype of the sensual and extroverted Latin woman, exotic for export – she will never lose her accent.
A star simply “is”. The ubiquity of Penélope Cruz in the 2000s is the pubs (L’Oréal and Chanel in particular) and social gossip (her relationship with Tom Cruise between 2001 and 2004). Fortunately, she will go back and forth between the United States and Europe. It consolidates its status as an Iberian cliché as reassuring as tapas and Real Madrid, rewarded with its Oscar for best supporting role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) by Woody Allen. Timing always, maturity finally allows her to be the lasting muse of her idol, the filmmaker whose films in Betamax she spent young, dreaming of playing for him: Pedro Almodóvar. The two have known each other since she was 18 and, after supporting roles in In the flesh (1997) et all about my mother (1999), Almodóvar offers her the role which confirms her dramatic thickness, that of the courageous mother in Return (2006), crowned with a collective female interpretation prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The glamor of yesteryear Hollywood, it is paradoxically Almodóvar who haloes it in Spain. Earthly warmth à la Sophia Loren in Returnthen Hitchcockian glaze in broken hugs (2009).
“Everyone reads the mind of the other”
Talk to Cruz about Almodóvar and there she is, suddenly mystical: “It’s hard to explain without sounding weird, but we know each other and feel each other, each reads each other’s minds,” she explained to New York Times in January for the promotion of their latest collaboration Parallel Mothers, which earned him his fourth Oscar nomination. The film tackles the Franco period, and Cruz becomes more than a Spanish loss leader but also a repository of a tragic national history, in the same way that Fassbinder blended glamor and historical awareness in his later films.
All the same, the mystery still hangs over the one accustomed to the covers of fashion magazines, red carpets and parades. Nothing sticks out in his interviews and public appearances, a sign of a need for constant control, both of his performance and of his image. Contrasting his performance in Return et Vicky Cristina Barcelonabiographer Ann Davies (1) notes that the former is better “because it does not simply repeat the clichés of Hispanicity” but his oscar for the second is “the tacit recognition that Cruz can take on Hollywood at its own game and win, which is the mark of a star.”
(1) Penelope Cruz, Ann Davies, 2014, BFI Publishing
Sunday July 24 from 8:50 p.m. broken hugs with Penélope Cruz, a crazy love story dominated by fatality, jealousy and betrayal, followed by Penélope Cruz, reflections of passion which retraces her path as an actress and recounts her meeting with Javier Bardem, then Lucìa and sex, Julio Medem’s film that celebrates female sexuality. Go to arte.tv/summer to see or review the Summer of Passion programs