"God is nothing other than an exalted father" (504)

"The psychoanalysis of individual human beings, however teaches us with quite special insistence that the god of each of them is formed in the likeness of his father, that his personal relation to God depends on his relation to his father in the flesh and oscillates and changes along with that relation, and that at bottom God is nothing other than an exalted father" (504).

Sort of an introduction to Almodóvar, I couldn't help but think of him and his films when I read this quote. There has always been a re-occuring theme in all his films where he deals with the absent father in relation with the "exalted father" Freud mentions. In one of his earlier films, Law of Desire, one of the characters has a relationship with her father and when he leaves her, she replaces him instead with the priest at her Catholic school. In another film, Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down, the whole beginning sequence starts with a beating heart as background music and there is a pull back shot that reveals a painting with Jesus and the Virgin Mary. The whole film involves a man that goes in search of forming to create a family, even if it is through a forced kidnapping. And in the film we were supposed to watch, The Skin I Live in, there's the concept of a father as a creator, molding another in his likeness - the theme of Christianity. Almodóvar likes to play with the concept of family and fatherhood as it relates to the human experience. I find the quote by Freud interesting because he acknowledges religion is man made, and of course, we create our gods in our likeness, instead of the opposite way. I've related it with Almodóvar as an introduction to one of his recurring themes that may show up in Broken Embraces.