Frida

Infobox Film
name =Frida

---

caption = "Frida" promotional film poster
writer = Clancy Sigal
Diane Lake
Gregory Nava
Anna Thomas
(based on the book by Hayden Herrera)
starring = Salma Hayek
Alfred Molina
Antonio Banderas
Valeria Golino
Ashley Judd
Mía Maestro
Edward Norton
Geoffrey Rush
Roger Rees
director = Julie Taymor
producer = Sarah Green,
Salma Hayek,
Jay Polstein
music = Elliot Goldenthal
cinematography = Rodrigo Prieto
editing = Françoise Bonnot
distributor = Miramax Films
released = August 29, 2002
runtime = 123 min.
language = English
budget = ~ $12,000,000
imdb_id = 0120679

"Frida" is a 2002 biographical film which depicts the professional and private life of the surrealist Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. It stars Salma Hayek in her Academy Award nominated portrayal as Kahlo and Alfred Molina as her husband, Diego Rivera.

The movie was adapted by Clancy Sigal, Diane Lake, Gregory Nava, Anna Thomas and Edward Norton (uncredited) from the book "" by Hayden Herrera. It was directed by Julie Taymor. It won Oscars for Best Makeup and Best Original Music Score (receipient: Elliot Goldenthal).

Plot

The traumatic accident Frida Kahlo suffered at the age of 18 when a car trolley collided with a bus is depicted in "Frida". She is impaled by a metal pole and the injuries she sustained plague her for the rest of her life. To help her through convalescence, her father brings her a canvas upon which to start painting. Throughout the film a scene starts as a painting, then slowly dissolves into a live-action scene with actors.

"Frida" also details the artist's dysfunctional relationship with the muralist Diego Rivera. When Rivera proposes to Kahlo, she tells him she expects from him loyalty if not fidelity. Diego's appraisal of her painting ability is one of the reasons that she continues to paint. Throughout the marriage, Rivera cheats on her with a wide array of women, while the bisexual Kahlo takes on male and female lovers.

The two travel to New York City so that he may paint the mural "Man at the Crossroads" at the Rockefeller Center. While in the United States, Kahlo suffers a miscarriage and her mother dies in Mexico. Rivera refuses to compromise his communist vision of the work to the needs of the patron, Nelson Rockefeller; As a result, the mural is destroyed. The pair return to Mexico, with Rivera the more reluctant of the two.

Kahlo's sister Cristina moves in with the two at their San Ángel studio home to work as Rivera's assistant. Soon afterward, Kahlo discovers that Rivera is having an affair with her sister. She leaves him, and subsequently sinks into alcoholism. The couple reunite when he asks her to welcome and house Leon Trotsky, who has been granted political asylum in Mexico. She and Trotsky begin an affair which forces the married Trotsky to leave the safety of her Coyoacan home.

Kahlo leaves for Paris after Diego realizes she was unfaithful to him with Trotsky. When she returns to Mexico, he asks for a divorce. Soon afterwards, Trotsky is assassinated. Rivera is temporarily a suspect and Kahlo is incarcerated in his place when he is not found. Rivera helps get her released.

Kahlo has her toes removed when they grow gangrene. Rivera asks her to remarry him and she agrees. Her health worsens, including the amputation of a leg, and she ultimately dies after finally having a solo exhibition of her paintings in Mexico.

Allusions

*The passengers on the trolley Kahlo rides and that crashes with a bus are based on subjects in the painter's 1929 portrait, "The Bus".
*The Brothers Quay–created stop motion animation sequence depicting the initial stages of Kahlo's recovery at the hospital after the trolley accident are inspired by "Day of the Dead".
*The gown Valeria Golino wears at Kahlo's 1953 Mexican solo art exhibition is a replica of the dress her character Lupe Marín wore in Rivera's 1938 portrait of her.

Accuracy

*In the film, the nude woman Rivera is painting in the mural "Creation" was actually posed for by his wife Lupe Marín and not the unknown auditorium model as depicted. In the film, when Marín confronts Rivera about his infidelities, said model is present.
*As portrayed in the film Diego painted the mural "An Abundant Earth" after marrying Kahlo. Actually, he completed this while still married to his previous wife, Marín. The nude woman he used as a subject in one of the panels in the mural was Tina Modotti and not an unknown model he has an affair with, as also portrayed in the film.
*In the film, Kahlo miscarries in New York City; in reality this took place in Detroit.
*As depicted in the film, Frida paints "Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair" immediately after discovering Diego's affair with her sister Cristina Kahlo. The affair ended in 1934 but the portrait wasn't actually painted until 1940. The recording of the song "Paloma Negra", which plays in the sequence following Frida's discovery of the affair, is from 1958.

Cast

*Salma Hayek - "Frida Kahlo"
*Alfred Molina - "Diego Rivera"
*Geoffrey Rush - "Leon Trotsky"
*Mía Maestro - "Cristina Kahlo"
*Ashley Judd - "Tina Modotti"
*Antonio Banderas - "David Alfaro Siqueiros"
*Edward Norton - "Nelson Rockefeller"
*Amelia Zapata - "Maid"
*Alejandro Usigli - "Professor"
*Diego Luna - "Alejandro Gonzalez Arias"
*Fermín Martínez - "Painter on Bus"
*Loló Navarro - "Nanny"
*Lucia Bravo - "Auditorium Model"
*Margarita Sanz - "Natalia Trotsky"
*Patricia Reyes Spíndola - "Matilde Kahlo"
*Roger Rees - "Guillermo Kahlo"
*Valeria Golino - "Lupe Marín"
* Omar Rodriquez - "André Breton"
*Felipe Fulop - "Jean van Heijenoort"
*Saffron Burrows - "Gracie"
*Chavela Vargas - " La Pelona"
*Lila Downs - "Singer"

Production

Development

The film version of Frida Kahlo's life was initially championed by Nancy Hardin, a former book editor and Hollywood-based literary agent, turned early "female studio executive," who, in the mid-1980s wished to "make the transition to independent producing." Learning of Hayden Herrara's biography of Kahlo, Hardin saw Kahlo's life as very contemporary, her "story... an emblematic tale for women torn between marriage and career." Optioning the book in 1988, Hardin "tried to sell it as an epic love story in the tradition of "Out of Africa", attracting tentative interest from actresses such as Meryl Streep and Jessica Lange, but rejection from the film studios. As Kahlo's art gained prominence, however (" [i] n May of 1990 one of Kahlo's self-portraits sold at Sotheby's for $1.5 million, the highest price ever paid at auction for a Latin American painting"), Madonna "announced her plans to star in a film based on Frida's life," and Robert De Niro's Tribeca Productions reportedly "envisioned a joint biography of Rivera and Kahlo."

In the spring of 1991 director Luis Valdez began production on a New Line feature about Frida Kahlo starring Laura San Giacomo in the lead. San Giacomo's casting was objected due to her non-Hispanic ethnicity, and New Line bowed to the protests, and left the then-titled "Frida and Diego" in August 1992 citing finances. [http://thebookla.com/s_2000_hayek.html The Book LA SUMMER 2000 Selma & Frida ] ] Hardin's project found itself swamped by similar ones::"When I first tried to sell the project... there was no interest because nobody had heard of Frida. A few years later, I heard the exact opposite--that there were too many Frida projects in development, and nobody wanted mine."

Valdez was contacted early on by the - then unknown in the US - Salma Hayek, who sent "her [promo] reel to the director and phoned his office," but was ultimately told she was then too young for the role. By 1993 Valdez had retitled the film "The Two Fridas" with San Giacomo and Ofelia Medina both playing the portraitist. [ [http://www.variety.com/article/VR106879.html?categoryid=19&cs=1 Kahlo biopic gets new wakeup call - Entertainment News, International News, Media - Variety ] ] Raul Julia was cast as Diego Rivera, but his death further delayed the movie. At the same time, Hardin approached HBO, and with "rising young development executive and producer" Lizz Speed (a former assistant to Sherry Lansing) intended to make a TVM, hopeful that Brian Gibson (director of "What's Love Got to Do With It", the story of Tina Turner" and "The Josephine Baker Story") would direct. Casting difficulties proved insurmountable, but Speed joined Hardin in advocating the project, and after four years in development, the two took the project from HBO to Trimark and producer Jay Polstein (with assistant Darlene Caamaño). At Trimark, Salma Hayek became interested in the role, having "been fascinated by Kahlo's work from the time she was 13 or 14" - although not immediately a fan:

Hayek was so set on acting the role that she sought out Dolores Olmedo Patino, longtime-lover of Diego Rivera, and (after his death) administrator to the rights of Frida and Rivera's art, which Rivera had "willed... to the Mexican people," bequeath [ing] the trust to Olmedo. Salma Hayek personally secured access to Kahlo's paintings from her, and began to assemble a supporting cast, approaching Alfred Molina for the role of Rivera in 1998. According to Molina, "She turned up backstage [of the Broadway play "Art"] rather sheepishly and asked if I would like to play Diego". Molina went on to gain 35 pounds to play Rivera. [ [http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,544397,00.html That Frida feeling | Culture | The Guardian ] ]

When producer Polstein left Trimark, however, the production faltered again, and Hayek approached Harvey Weinstein and Miramax, and the company purchased the film from Trimark. Meanwhile, in August 2000 it was announced that Jennifer Lopez would star in Valdez's take on the story, "The Two Fridas", by then being produced by American Zoetrope. [ [http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/film/article-897340-details/Fascinated+by+Frida/article.do Fascinated by Frida| Film | This is London ] ] Nonetheless, it was Hayek and Miramax who began production in Spring, 2001 on what was to become simply titled "Frida". [http://www.writingstudio.co.za/page80.html the writing studio: adaptation frida] . Accessed April 10, 2008]

Filming

Filming took place from April 7 through June 2001 and was shot entirely in Mexico. [http://www.writingstudio.co.za/page104.html Page Title ] ]

Among the on location places shot were three UNESCO world heritage sites: Teotihuacan, Xochimilco, and Puebla's historic centre. Other on location sites include Rivera and Kahlo's Juan O'Gorman designed San Ángel studio home and the San Idelfonso National Preparatory School. Replicas of Casa Azul (Kahlo's Coyacan home) and RCA Building's lobby were built at Churubusco Studios in Mexico City and shot in Stage 4 of said studios.

For scenes depicting Diego completing a mural, crew members stretched a canvas across a scaffold placed in front of the painter's actual artwork. This "makeshift 'mural'" included sketched outlines and painted portions. The optical "illusion" of a work in progress was achieved through the canvas "flattened" by a camera shooting from a distance and therefore "blending" the edges into the fixed mural. [ [http://www.writingstudio.co.za/page84.html Page Title ] ]

Salma Hayek wore over fifty costumes as Frida. Some pieces were purchased from street vendors in Mexico City. [ [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,388460,00.html How Salma Hayek transformed into Frida Kahlo | Frida | Movie News | Movies | Entertainment Weekly ] ]

Release

On August 29, 2002 the film made its world premiere opening the Venice International Film Festival. "Frida"'s American premiere was at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles on October 14 of that year. It had its Mexican premiere on November 8 2002 at Mexico City's Palace of Fine Arts.

Honors

American Film Institute

Movies of the Year 2002, Official Selection

Rationale:

FRIDA is a movie about art that is a work of art in itself. The film's unique visual language takes us into an artist's head and reminds us that art is best enjoyed when it moves, breathes and is painted on a giant canvas, as only the movies can provide.

National Board of Review

Top Ten Films

ee also

* Frida (soundtrack)

References

External links

* [http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.miramax.com/frida/ Archives of the Official site]
*imdb title|id=0120679|title=Frida
* [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/frida/ Rotten tomatoes]