Symbiotic careers in movie making: Pedro and Agustín Almodovar
Abstract
In this paper we focus on the paradox of unbinding creativity by binding up artistic and business tasks in a single symbiotic career carried out by two people. We argue that the uncertainty of the matching between film directors and producers in the artistic labour market, and the constraints production companies impose on creativity once the match is made, drive creative professionals to found their own production organisations, as well as forming their own art worlds. Self-production involves both artistic and business tasks, each of which requires a particular mind-set and abilities. The creative person alone cannot (in most cases) cover both the creative and the production side of his artwork. He needs a partner to take charge of deal making and production, somebody very close and deeply trusted who is capable of subordinating his own career to the trajectory of the artist. Thus, two people sustain a single career, that of the creative professional, embedding it in their own production company. The propositions we offer in this paper cast light on a largely unexplored topic in the literature, that of why and how two people sustain a single career. They are illustrated by the symbiotic career of the internationally acclaimed Spanish film director Pedro Almod�var and his brother Agust�n.
... In particular, the consolidation of the director -writer roles gives to directors ultimate creative control of the film, while the consolidation of the director -writer -producer roles gives them dual artistic and business control Baker & Faulkner, 1991;Mainemelis et al., 2008;Svejenova, 2005). Alvarez and Svejenova (2002) found that the cinematic accomplishments of Pedro Almodovar are related not only to his creative genius, but also to his brother and executive producer Augustin Almodovar who over the years has been committed to managing the "dirty part of business" (p. 184). ...
... 184). Alvarez and Svejenova (2002) argued that directors develop "symbiotic careers" with a trusted person, usually a producer, or a friend or relative who becomes their producer. This provides them with a permanent supportive structure and a heighten ability to tackle competing artistic and business demands. ...
... In another study of eight performing arts organizations in Canada, Reid and Karambayya (2009) highlighted the need for dual executive leadership in creative organizations to balance contradictory forces and make trade-offs between artistic excellent and financial viability. In addition, we note earlier that Alvarez and Svejenova (2002) found that Pedro Almodovar maintained a symbiotic career with his brother Augustin, who over the years has been committed to managing the "dirty part of business" (p. 184) in order to help Perdo's creativity flourish. ...
... In doing so, the artists attempt to maintain a certain degree of coherence, while at the same time they seek to reduce risks and maximize their gains. The second strategy is to associate with another professional who is not necessarily an artist (see Alvarez & Svejenova, 2002). The third strategy is to build alliances in order to guarantee a certain level of stability. ...
Over the last years the scholarly literature on careers has been enriched by the proposal of new career models which present a rhetoric that asks for the end of career boundaries: individual, hierarchical, organizational and geographical. However, in the real world, many constrains continue to exist. This paper tries to contribute to the understanding of the new boundaries of the 21st century careers. To do so we look at the case of careers in the arts. We review existing literature on careers, present a historical, contextual perspective of artistic careers, and conduct field work in the city of São Paulo based on in-depth interviews with 18 Brazilian artists from nine different occupations in the field of arts, whose data were subjected to qualitative content analysis. Our results show that career boundaries exist even in a sector we could consider as historically boundaryless . We identify and discuss four boundaries of the artistic career, seeking to reflect on the importance of considering the relationship of the individual and the context in which he/she operates in order to understand careers today.
... Indeed, as suggested by several authors (e.g. Alvarez & Svejenova, 2002;Sosa, 2011), strong and long-lasting dyadic relationships can enhance reciprocal trust, increase the level of involvement and support creativity, hence facilitating the two parties in undertaking new challenges. ...
Drawing on the relational perspective of artistic innovation, which suggests that different types of ties (weak vs. strong) lead to different outcomes in terms of the development and implementation of new artistic ideas, this study uses an in-depth case study of Italian choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti to explore the role of the relational work artists deploy to develop and implement their artwork. We investigate how artists engage in specific relational actions (broadening, bonding, embedding and dis-embedding) with producing organizations, and how these actions lead to innovation over time. The findings suggest that artistic innovation moves through four stages – proximal innovation, fuzzy innovation, established innovation and maintained innovation – sustained by an artist’s oscillation between a network characterized by strong ties with few organizations and a network characterized by weak ties with many organizations, depending on the artist’s quests for inclusion and differentiation. In this process, a long-lasting relationship between the artist and a specific organization may ‘pivot’ artistic innovation.
... Like previous research (e.g., Simonton, 2002Simonton, , 2004b, we also found that a few social ties persist in time. Although the 12 directors moved a lot between roles and media, they maintained a small group of people with whom they worked time and again in a "symbiotic" way (Alvarez & Svejenova, 2002;Svejenova, Mazza, & Planellas, 2007) creating bonding social networks. Perretti and Negro (2007) found that while newcomers play a key role in the creativity of films, a core of familiar group members brings predictability and supports innovation. ...
Previous research has examined how mobility and career competencies influence success in boundaryless careers. In this study, we flip the direction of those relationships and we explore how the interplay between success and failure relates to subsequent mobility, career competencies, and career evolution through the life span. Using a biographical design, we conceptualize success and failure as critical moments that influence the unfolding of the boundaryless careers of Oscar-nominated film directors. While the dominant metaphors of boundaryless careers are those of “paths,” “ladders,” “trajectories,” and “plateaus,” our findings suggest a new metaphor: the roller coaster.
The term cultural entrepreneurship is increasingly used in academic research to address the intersection of business developments and creative work. However, the concept itself is disputed. Unpacking varying definitions of the term, this article revisits literature on the topic, searching for the figures of the cultural entrepreneur that scholars create. The article suggests that the literature is dominated by hero figures, who are based on retrospective analyses of successful individuals, and tragic hero figures, who summarize the situation for most self-employed creatives, establishing a bleak outlook. As an alternative, the article suggests seeing cultural entrepreneurs as catalyst figures.
With research on entrepreneurial passion booming, there is an increasing need to understand how and why that passion influences entrepreneurs' performance over time. To address this need, we develop a multistage process model, proposing that entrepreneurial passion type—harmonious or obsessive—explains how entrepreneurs modify their identity and reprioritize their roles as inventors, founders, and developers in response to feedback as the venture develops, thus giving rise to different patterns of role identity transition or persistence. The proposed feedback system advances our understanding of entrepreneurial passion by providing a dynamic view of the impact of passion and role identity management on overall entrepreneurial performance. We conclude by outlining the theoretical and practical implications of our multistage process model and by presenting an agenda for future research on entrepreneurial passion and role identity management. © 2022 The Authors. Journal of Organizational Behavior published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
span lang="PT-BR">Os estudos sobre gestão de carreiras evoluíram muito em conteúdo, métodos e teorias, mas o foco principal sempre foi na análise da carreira e não na sua gestão. A produção acadêmica em carreiras criativas ainda é discreta, fragmentada e ainda mais frágil em termos de gestão. Essa pesquisa buscou revisar e integrar a produção acadêmica sobre gestão de carreiras no contexto do trabalho criativo. Para isso, foi feita uma revisão das pesquisas acadêmicas publicadas, nacionalmente e internacionalmente, delimitando as principais teorias e dimensões. A análise do material pesquisado permitiu o desenvolvimento de quatro perspectivas para os estudos nesse campo: axiológica, tecnológica, coletiva e social. Os resultados desta análise contribuem para (a) uma melhor compreensão das dimensões de gestão da carreira criativa, (b) a identificação de desafios para estudos sobre esse tema e (c) uma discussão de orientações para pesquisas futuras.</span
Careers have experienced an evolution parallel to society’s constant progress. Careers have migrated from hierarchical and unidirectional models within a single organization, to models that provide non-linear or vertical movement within the hierarchy, movement between organizations, changes in employer-employee relationships, etc. Furthermore, careers have transferred responsibility from organizations to individuals. Due to these changes, careers have been transmuted from the organizational pyramid to a globalized, boundaryless, and one-dimensional scheme. In addition, within the IT sector, external factors such as gender, organizational culture, differences in requirements between technical and nontechnical positions, among others, have also impacted career management. This chapter presents a review of the changes that have been undertaken in career management from a general point of view, to the peculiarities of the IT sector, and ultimately encompass some conclusions extracted from research.
This chapter advances the notion of projects of passion as a class of phenomena for which profit seeking is secondary to the pursuit of a "calling." Drawing on a comparative case analysis of seven temporary art projects realized over 35 years by renowned artist-entrepreneurs Christo and Jeanne-Claude, it defines a theoretical model of the unique elements and aspects of the process through which projects of passion unfold. In the model, freedom and novelty are singled out as unique drivers of project motivation, individual business models and rhetorical strategies as process mechanisms, and authenticity and impact (the aesthetic, social, and economic value appropriated by third parties) as project outcomes. The chapter concludes with implications for the strategic management of projects and opportunities for further research.
This article tests one key assumption of Bourdieu's theory of culture fields: that actors are positioned in a ''topography'' of social relations according to their endowments of economic, social, and cultural capital. Blockmodeling procedures are used to analyze data on German writers and to identify a social structure in which positions vary according to the types and amounts of capital accumulated. A strong split between elite and marginal writers dominates the social structure, and even the fundamental distinction between high and low culture is embedded in this bipartition. Significant differences in both cultural and social capital distinguish elite from nonelite positions; within this bipartition, pronounced differences in cultural capital separate high and low culture. Relative to cultural and social capital, economic capital plays a lesser role in understanding the social structure of cultural fields.
The Hollywood film industry is considered as a system of recurrent ties among the various major participants who usually work under short-term contracts for single films. This form of project-based organization in seen as a response to uncertainty and risk in the film industry. The Paper examines the ways in which independent contractors-producers, directors, cinematographers, and actors-organize and operate to reduce uncertainty and risk and to increase profits. The analysis of data from 2,430 films made in the period 1965-80 establishes patterns of recurrent ties among participants who are at comparable levels of cumulative productivity with respect to earnings, Oscars, Oscar nominations, and number of previous films. The paper also considers the degree to which film earnings are influenced by the past productivity of the major participants.
Using a wealth of data collected in Israel, this study depicts a complete system in which art is created and evaluated - the scale of Israeli society allowing for a comprehensive and detailed description of all the agents involved in the production and consumption of modern art. The author analyses the patterns of social relations and behaviour created around two art worlds - the world of abstract avant-garde art and the world of traditional figurative painting. She argues that the two worlds differ radically both in terms of the factors that affect the formation of taste, the process of evaluation and the patterns of success in them and in the ways in which these factors exert their influence.
Creativity in all fields, including business, flourishes under intrinsic motivation—the drive to do something because it is interesting, involving, exciting, satisfying, or personally challenging. This article presents the Componential Theory of Organizational Creativity and Innovation, which defines the factors—including intrinsic motivation—that determine a person's creativity. This article also shows how the work environment can influence individual creativity.
While traditional approaches to maximizing employee creativity have focused on hiring creative people, more recent perspectives suggest that employees' work environments influence the creativity of their contributions. This article discusses the benefits of integrating these approaches. To ensure the most creative work from employees, managers need to assess the creative potential of each person and then place those with high potential into work contexts that stimulate and nurture it. When firms place people with high creative potential in contexts that offer complex job assignments, supportive and non-controlling supervision, and competitive coworkers, they reap the benefits of maximum employee creativity.