The influence and legacy of Chavela Vargas in Pedro Almodóvar's filmography

Abstract

Is Chavela Vargas a Chica Almodóvar? This article analyzes the integration of the figure of Chavela Vargas in Pedro Almodóvar's filmography, addressing her musical, aesthetic, and symbolic influence within the Spanish filmmaker’s cinematic universe. Through an interdisciplinary methodology that combines tools from film analysis, sociocultural studies, and film musicology approaches, the article examines how Vargas’s voice and image are incorporated into Almodóvar’s narratives, redefining them from an affective, creative, queer, and political perspective. The paper is structured in two complementary phases: first, it offers a sociohistorical overview of the moment in which the two artists met, contextualizing their personal and creative trajectories in relation to the culture of dissent and discourses on pain, gender, and identity; secondly, a detailed audiovisual analysis of a defined film corpus is developed, paying attention to the films in which Chavela Vargas appears explicitly or is evoked, through her songs or in the dialogue. This paper argues that the incorporation of Chavela Vargas’s voice in these films is not just another aesthetic resource, but an authorial gesture deeply connected to queer sensibilities, affective memory, and a relationship between two artists who, from their respective fields, challenge the norms of gender, sexuality, and representation.