Reviews/News: 'Frida'
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"Using her exceptional talent for creating stunning images, director Julie
Taymor has put together a cinematic experience with the power to match Frida
Kahlo's colorful life." -- ReelTalk Movie Reviews / Betty Jo Tucker.
"Though 'Frida' is easier to swallow than Julie Taymor's preposterous 'Titus,'
the eye candy here lacks considerable brio." -- Slant Magazine / Ed Gonzalez.
Rated 2 out of 4. "Certainly beautiful to look at, but its not very
informative about its titular character and no more challenging than your
average television biopic." -- FilmCritic.com / Erik Childress.
Rated C+. "An old-fashioned, Hollywoodish biopic, oddly unimaginative in
everything but its visuals." -- One Guy's Opinion / Frank Swietek.
"Vividly conveys the passion, creativity, and fearlessness of one of Mexico's
most colorful and controversial artists -- a captivating drama that will speak
to the nonconformist in us all." -- Spirituality and Health / Frederic and
Mary Ann Brussat.
Rated 2 out of 4. "It's just disappointingly superficial -- a movie that has
all the elements necessary to be a fascinating, involving character study, but
never does more than scratch the surface." -- James Berardinelli's ReelViews /
James Berardinelli.
Rated 3 it of 4. "Though 'Frida' offers only what feels like a surface level
recap of its subject's life, and as a result feels rather light on substance,
Taymor ensures that it has style to burn." -- MovieMartyr.com / Jeremy
Heilman.
Rated 6 out of 10. "While most of the brief celebrity cameos are flatly
portrayed, both Hayek and Molina do great jobs in their roles, though the film
lacks the strong lead performance of, say, an Ed Harris in 'Pollock.'" --
Planet Sick-Boy / Jon Popick.
Rated 2.5 out of 5. "It's a solid introduction to the cult of Kahlo, devoting
almost as much screen time to her work as to her affairs, tantrums and
betrayals by Rivera, doctors and her own treacherous flesh." -- TV Guide's
Movie Guide / Maitland McDonagh.
Rated 3 out of 4. "...fuses the events of her life with the imagery in her
paintings so vividly that the artist's work may take on a striking new
significance for anyone who sees the film." -- SPLICEDWire / Rob Blackwelder.
Rated 2 out of 4. "A technical triumph and an extraordinary bore." -- Film
Freak Central / Walter Chaw.
-- O.F.C.S.: The Online Film Critics Society
* * * * * * * *
NY DAILY NEWS
"FRIDA"
Portrait of the artist is pretty on the outside
-- Hayek & Co. outshine their homely subjects --
FRIDA. With Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina, Ashley Judd, Geoffrey Rush. Directed
by Julie Taymor. Running time: 122 mins. Rated R: sexuality, nudity,
language.
_________
With the possible exception of John Hurt's performance under pounds of ghastly
latex in "The Elephant Man," most biographical movie subjects do well by their
casting.
Movie stars are generally prettier people than the scientists, kings, outlaws
and astronauts they play, and we accept these cosmetic upgrades as part of our
willing suspension of disbelief.
But that willingness is severely tested in "Frida," with the cover-girl beauty
of Salma Hayek subbing for an artist who, by her own eye, was a homely lady
with a mustache and one eyebrow.
You don't have to be familiar with Kahlo or her work to feel the disconnect
between star and subject. Though primarily a surrealist, Kahlo used herself as
a constant source of self-portraiture, sometimes enhancing her appearance,
sometimes mocking it, occasionally deconstructing it with views of the broken
person inside.
Kahlo, who died in her mid-40s in 1954, was crippled by childhood polio and a
bus accident that crushed her torso and doomed her to a life of spine
operations. Despite constant pain, she became a tornado sweeping across the
cultural landscape of pre- and post-war Mexico.
Kahlo was a misfit in a conservative Catholic environment -- a bisexual,
free-thinking, part-Jewish Communist who practiced open marriage with iconic
muralist Diego Rivera and counted among her casual bed partners the exiled
Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky.
Taymor, the conceptualist behind Broadway's "The Lion King," obviously sees in
Kahlo something of a kindred artistic spirit, and her admiration hangs a false
air of hagiography over the picture. Though everything admirable about Kahlo
-- her courage, determination and talent -- are on display, she's also treated
as a conventional lovelorn victim.
"Frida" covers Kahlo's life from her teenage years to her death, but focuses
primarily on her stormy relationship with Rivera (Alfred Molina), who was 20
years older and already a womanizer of Bob Crane proportions when they met.
While biographies describe Kahlo as equally promiscuous, the movie treats her
dalliances -- with both men and women -- as acts of revenge, payback to a
husband who's unfaithful even with her sister.
Hayek deserves credit for her determination in getting this oft-discussed
biopic into production, but she overplays the toughness and edge attributed to
Kahlo into a stereotype of the hot, temperamental Latina we used to see played
in Westerns by Katy Jurado or Linda Darnell.
Mostly, though, Hayek's problem is one of physical miscasting. She's so tiny
next to the tall, rotund Molina that she looks like child in their scenes
together. And despite a fake caterpillar brow, she's just not believable as a
woman bemoaning her disfigurements.
Molina suffers from similar stereotyping. Though service is paid to Rivera's
political passion, he comes off more as a leering opportunist, a bear of a man
more apt to follow the impulses coming from his crotch than from his brain.
Taymor's visual style is well-engaged with her subject's folkloric influences,
and the movie looks great. Her use of Kahlo's paintings as living bridges
between scenes and time changes is eye-catching if not always effective, and
the finale -- reenacting with models Kahlo's requested public cremation -- is
strikingly beautiful.
* * * * * * * * * *
NY DAILY NEWS
Love, pain and paint
Salma Hayek realizes her dream of filming artist Frida Kahlo's amazing life
By GARY DRETZKA
HOLLYWOOD -- Considering the orgy of gossip, magazine covers, interviews and
talk-show appearances heralding the release of the long-awaited biopic "Frida,"
one can only imagine how America's celebrity-obsessed media would treat Frida
Kahlo (1907-54) and her husband, Diego Rivera (1886-1957), if the Mexican
artists were alive today.
There would be plenty of grist for the mill: Kahlo's flamboyant Mexican-peasant
image; her affairs with Communist exile Leon Trotsky and sculptor Isamu
Noguchi; the obese Rivera's many dalliances (including one with Kahlo's
sister); the resulting marital spats; Kahlo's courageous battle against
crippling pain caused by massive injuries suffered in a bus accident when she
was 18; Nelson Rockefeller's decision to destroy the mural he commissioned from
Rivera because it included a portrait of Lenin, and so on.
"She was a drama queen," observes Hayden Herrera, author of the 1983 biography
upon which "Frida" was based. "That's probably what attracted Madonna and
other American actors to her story. Frida-mania is more of an American
phenomenon than a Mexican one, especially among young Latinas who feel
separated from their roots and build shrines and altars around her image."
According to Herrera, it wasn't until protests erupted over Rockefeller's
decision to undo Rivera's work that anyone outside Manhattan paid much
attention to the Mexican artists' presence in New York. Indeed, Herrera
herself knew nothing of Kahlo until the mid-'70s, when she began spending time
in Mexico.
The Mexican actress Salma Hayek stars in "Frida" opposite the English actor
Alfred Molina as Rivera; she also produced the film. From Coatzacoalcos, in
the state of Veracruz, the stunning 5-foot-2 brunette fell in love with the
Kahlo persona when she was 14, and it's taken her nearly 10 years to realize
her dream of playing her on screen.
The version of "Frida" that opened Friday survived an arduous 20-year gestation
period. At various times, the names of a dozen writers, nearly as many
directors and producers, and such potential leading ladies as Madonna, Jennifer
Lopez and Laura San Giacomo were attached to this and competing projects.
"There were so many reasons nobody wanted to make the movie," said Hayek, who
bears a striking physical resemblance to Kahlo (minus her facial hair). "It's
about a hairy woman and a fat man who were Communists. She was bisexual, and
they were both Mexicans." The actress credits Madonna with rekindling interest
in Kahlo, and essentially turning the artist into the kind of pop-culture icon
studio executives hope audiences will pay to see.
"Madonna wanted to do a movie about Frida a long time before anyone knew who
the hell I was," said Hayek. "By the time people started talking about it,
however, she already had given up on it. People want to know more about the
things Madonna shows an interest in."
CULT FIGURE
Kahlo was acutely aware of the hold her surreal paintings -- including many
narcissistic self-portraits depicting herself as a martyr -- had on American
art lovers.
"She always said that Americans made her artistic reputation, and her
exhibition history bears this out," says Alan Artner, art critic for the
Chicago Tribune. "Her first major sale was in 1938 to actor Edward G.
Robinson, and her first solo exhibition was at the Julien Levy Gallery in New
York later that same year. Only in 1953 did she have her first solo exhibition
in Mexico.
"She did not, however, have a major museum one-person show in America until
1978 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Interestingly, that show
was paired with a larger one for a former Chicago artist, because Kahlo was not
yet being treated as a star attraction."
By this time, Artner adds, Kahlo had long been a cult figure in Mexico and was
starting to be recognized by feminist critics who were rewriting art history to
take into account "marginalized" figures.
"Kahlo was a natural because of the narcissism of her work, combined with her
refusal to accept an orthodox female role in patriarchal society," he said.
"The more melodramatic aspects, both in her art and life, also exerted popular
appeal on people like Madonna, who by the late '80s owned some of Kahlo's
paintings."
Hayek, who starred in Mexican telenovellas before making her mark in Hollywood,
admits that she wasn't immediately taken by Kahlo's work.
"I didn't like it, but I couldn't get it out of my head," says the 36-year-old
actress. "I kept asking questions and going back to the art. This was someone
unlike anyone I had ever known or read about or heard about, and she opened my
mind."
Director Julie Taymor came on board late in the game. Best known for her
adaptation of "The Lion King" on Broadway, Taymor's only previous Hollywood
experience was writing, directing and producing the wildly ambitious "Titus,"
which she adapted from Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus."
One of her challenges was keeping the focus of "Frida" on Kahlo, even though
Rivera's immense presence is impossible to ignore.
"The daunting thing was encapsulating 30 years of these people's lives into two
hours, as well as all the environments in which they put themselves," said
Taymor, who has a home in Mexico. "They were committed politically, him more
than her. Her paintings were more about herself, and expressing her reality.
It was a challenge to balance the politics, the romance and the art."
When Taymor joined the film two years ago, she inherited the draft of a script
by Rodrigo Garcia (writer-director of "Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at
Her" and son of Gabriel Garcia Marquez), one of many writers involved in the
film. She liked what she read, but agreed to work with actor Edward Norton --
Hayek's boyfriend -- on the final version of the screenplay. (Neither Norton
nor Garcia is given a screenwriter's credit. Hayek and Norton attribute this
slight to the often-incomprehensible politics of the Writers Guild.)
With a budget from Miramax that topped out at a mere $15 million, Hayek was
forced to call in acting favors from Ashley Judd, Antonio Banderas, Geoffrey
Rush, Valeria Golino, Mia Maestro, Diego Luna, Saffron Burrows, Roger Rees and
Norton, who plays Nelson Rockefeller.
The script provided something of a learning experience for Taymor.
"I didn't know Frida was bawdy, funny and passionate, that she had this amazing
love affair with a man she knew could never be faithful to her," said the
49-year-old Bostonian. "It wasn't unconditional love, because she demanded
loyalty. It was a love between friends and artists who supported each other."
CULTURAL QUEST
One thing Taymor brought to the table was recurring imagery from the uniquely
Mexican holiday, the Day of the Dead.
"When Elliot Goldenthal [her partner and the film's composer] and I lived in
Oaxaca, we were struck by how the people there celebrated the Day of the Dead,"
Taymor said. "It wasn't prominent in the screenplay. I added it because Frida
consistently was living in the shadow of death. I lived in Indonesia and
there's a similar concept there to help people deal with death. I think it's
healthy."
Although "Frida" is being released and distributed by an American company, it
shares acting talent and production values with such successful recent Mexican
films as "Y Tu Mama Tambien," "Amores Perros" and "El Crimen del Padre Amaro."
Hayek often returns to Mexico City to offer financial and acting support to
filmmakers there.
"'Frida' is coming out at the right time, because Americans are ready to learn
about other cultures and take in more than a superficial, stereotypical image
of humanity elsewhere," she said. " Americans aren't interested in Mexico, and
that's why they don't know about the country's true culture, so I thought it
was important to tell this part of Mexican history.
"Before September 11, Americans saw the world as it's portrayed in the 'Small
World' ride at Disneyland. I think that's started to change, because they
[started to] wonder why so many people hated America. They didn't even know
they were hated."
If Hayek is looking for another challenge after the launch of "Frida," she need
only return to her father's Lebanese roots for inspiration. Hollywood will
make a hundred movies about revolutionary Mexican bisexuals before it spends a
dime on a story about women in the Middle East.
"They're nonexistent in the movies here," Hayek observes. "A couple of years
ago, I wanted to do a project on that. But right now, it's impossible to do
anything about Arabs in this country."
* * * * * * * * * *
Associated Press / 10-25-02
Hayek Aims to Help Hispanics in Film
By SANDRA MARQUEZ, Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Hollywood has long stereotyped Hispanic women as spitfires,
bombshells and maids.
It responded no differently to Salma Hayek, who packed two suitcases and moved
to Los Angeles from Mexico City on a whim in 1991, leaving behind a budding
career as a soap-opera star. The struggling actress got one of her first
breaks as a scantily clad vampire who tackles an enormous python in Quentin
Tarantino's "From Dusk Till Dawn," in 1996.
"I am not the kind of person that wants to sit down and whine about something,"
Hayek said of her determination to find strong roles for Hispanic actors.
"Instead, I want to get up and make an effort and do it myself."
She took inspiration from one of her heroes, Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, who
defied convention throughout her life. For eight years, Hayek nurtured a movie
project based on Kahlo's life.
"Frida," which opened in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, is one of the most
high-profile Hispanic-themed movies in years.
Hayek stars as Kahlo -- the most challenging role of her career -- and is one
of the film's producers. She said she hopes it will help create more
visibility for Hispanics in Hollywood.
The movie about Mexico's most famous female artist comes at a time when
America's 35 million Hispanics, roughly 12.5 percent of the population, are
increasingly capturing the attention of advertisers and studio executives.
"It seems to me the door is ajar. It ain't really open yet," said Rita Moreno,
who was the first Hispanic actress to win an Academy Award, for a supporting
role in 1961's "West Side Story."
"My perception is that Latinos really have to fend for themselves. Salma Hayek
really killed herself to have this film made. Perseverance is the order of the
day still, and it probably will be for some time to come."
"Frida" eventually found a home at Miramax studios, which made it for $12
million.
Hayek beat out rival projects linked to Jennifer Lopez and Madonna. She
persevered even when funding fell apart, the project switched studios,
directors dropped out and the script was repeatedly rewritten. She convinced
friends Alfredo Molina, Antonio Banderas and Ashley Judd to co-star for scale
wages.
Early reviews were generally good. The Associated Press' Christy Lemire said
the movie was "worth the wait," and Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert said
Hayek's performance was worthy of an Oscar nomination.
The small group of Hispanic actors who have won Academy Awards are Jose Ferrer,
Anthony Quinn, Moreno and, most recently, Benicio Del Toro, for 2000's
"Traffic."
Hollywood saw a small, brief Hispanic boom in the 1920s, when Lupe Velez and
Delores Del Rio were cast in silent movies. The leading man in the original,
1926 version of "Ben-Hur" was Mexican actor Ramon Navarro.
"It ended up being a Latin craze. It was a fad that blew away. By the '30s,
it was on the wane," said Charles Ramirez Berg, a film professor at the
University of Texas and author of the newly released "Latino Images in Film."
Hollywood's current love affair with Hispanics is probably not as fleeting, he
said.
"I think it probably has more to do with demographics."
The relative success commercially and critically of recent Latin American films
such as "Amores Perros" and "Y Tu Mama Tambien" of Mexico, and "Son of the
Bride" and "Nine Queens" of Argentina, have not escaped studio notice either.
Universal has entered into a joint venture with Arenas Entertainment, headed by
Spaniard Santiago Pozo, to produce feature films in English and Spanish geared
to the U.S. Hispanic market.
Other signs of Hispanic culture seeping into the mainstream can be seen on the
small screen, including an array of Hispanic-themed TV shows such as "Greetings
From Tucson" on the WB network, the "George Lopez" show on ABC, "Resurrection
Blvd." on Showtime and "American Family" on PBS.
Nonetheless, Hispanics remain the most underrepresented group in prime-time
television, accounting for only 2 percent of all characters, according to a
recent study by the University of California, Los Angeles.
HBO has launched HBO Latino, a Spanish-language channel aimed at 18- to
34-year-olds. It will offer original programming as well as dubbed versions of
such HBO shows as "Sex and the City" and "Six Feet Under."
Hayek now laughs at her bold decision to move to Los Angeles 11 years ago with
little money or English. After two months without any job offers, reality
began to set in.
"I realized what a big challenge I had given myself," she said.
Her 1995 starring role opposite Banderas in "Desperado" helped launch her
career. Other screen credits include "Breaking Up" with Russell Crowe and
"Fools Rush In" with Matthew Perry.
Hayek believes "Frida" will make a difference by projecting an image of Mexico
as a historic haven for avant-garde thinkers and artists.
"Even if it doesn't make a lot of money, it will help because it will change
the perception of who we are," she said. "It will challenge people to see us in
a different light."
* * * * * * * * * *
U.DAILY NEWS
Brush With Greatness
Salma Hayek's Struggle to Play Artist Frida Kahlo
A Portrait of Persistence
By Bob Strauss / Film Writer
What was it about Frida Kahlo's art that so touched actress Salma Hayek she
devoted more than seven years to getting a movie about the fascinating figure
produced?
"I found it gross, weird," says Hayek -- the star of such widely diverse films
as "Dogma," "Desperado" and "Wild Wild West" -- about her first encounter, as a
young girl in Mexico, with her nation's iconic self-portraitist's surreal,
singular work.
"I didn't like it. And then I walked away from it and couldn't get rid of the
images in my head. They haunted me, and I wanted to see them again. And I
wanted to discover why they were haunting me. It took me many years to answer
this question, and the reason is that she had such bold honesty about her
intimacy that it was hard to take."
That fascination has finally resulted in "Frida." Hayek plays the artist from
teenage schoolgirl through the horrible bus accident that left her deformed and
in constant pain, her tumultuous marriage to the famed muralist Diego Rivera
(played by English actor Alfred Molina), her many love affairs with men and
women (including exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, who took refuge
from Stalin's assassins in her home) and up to her death, at the age of 47, in
1954.
Directed by Julie Taymor ("The Lion King" stage musical, the film version of
Shakespeare's "Titus"), the movie also tries to visually capture the spirit of
Kahlo's paintings. Combining Mexican folk-art influences with the fact that
the often-bedridden Kahlo had only her own mirror images for a model, she was
prone to placing herself -- usually with connected eyebrows and more than a
hint of a mustache -- at the center of nightmarish dreamscapes that reflected
her inner conflicts. Marriage, miscarriage, death, transcendence -- all were
apt subjects for Kahlo's brush.
And those were just the paintings. Kahlo's life was a work of art in itself,
involving as it did elaborate dress, equally complex braided hairdos, radical
politics and large quantities of liquor, sex and, as the physical problems
exacted a bigger and bigger toll, drugs.
-- Labor of love --
Hayek wanted to get all of that into the movie, along with so many of the other
elements that made the life of Frida Kahlo so fascinating. But above all, she
wanted the film to express the subject's love for living and creativity in a
way that was as unique to the ever-unconventional Kahlo as it would be to the
generally desultory genre of tortured-artist biopics.
"She loved life," Hayek says. "This is a love story between a woman who lived
hard times and her passion for life. And the best way to tell that story was
through her love story with Diego."
Some Kahlo fans, of course, might find the film's focus on that central
relationship hard to take. When reduced to its fundamentals, after all,
Kahlo's reputation as a feminist pioneer seems to orbit a widely held image of
her as the long-suffering wife of an incorrigible womanizer.
Hayek has no use for either simplistic stereotype.
"Probably, it helped me that I don't see her as a victim," says the actress,
who underwent everything from unflattering facial hair applications to monkey
bites for her performance. "I don't think you're a victim when you have your
husband cheat on you and you realize you're not going to change him, but
instead of crying and becoming pieces, you say, 'OK, I'll just have romances
with other people, too. Men and women, and sometimes take women away from
him."
"Is that a victim? That's not a victim!" Hayek says in her dramatic Spanish
accent. "You can't be a victim and wake up in the morning and design what
you're going to look like, spend so much time on what apron and blouse you're
going to put with this skirt, the jewelry and the hair. How am I going to
decorate myself, you know? If you are a victim, you don't want to come out of
the house."
Correctly or not -- and the demonic amount of research Hayek has put into the
subject makes one tend to concur -- the actress's conclusions about Kahlo
certainly reflect her own, do-things-her-way personality. Born in Veracruz
state to a business executive of Lebanese heritage and an opera-singer mother
in the late 1960s, Hayek dropped out of college to become an actress. Her
intense presence and striking good looks soon made her a soap opera star. But
despite little facility with English, she left sure success in Mexico City for
the iffy prospects of an ethnic actress in Hollywood.
Hayek credits Texas filmmaker Robert Rodriguez with giving her a break in such
productions as "Desperado," "From Dusk 'Til Dawn" and the cable movie
"Roadracers" (to return the favor, she reprised her "Desperado" role for
Rodriguez's upcoming "Once Upon a Time in Mexico"). Still, she admits that
it's been a long, hard climb to legitimate American stardom.
"I am not your typical casting choice -- for anything!" Hayek acknowledges,
laughing again. "But this, fortunately, has pushed me to grow in different
directions. I was not getting offered the parts that I wanted, so instead of
complaining, I've tried to go out there and create my own films that meant
something to me."
-- Blank canvas --
That kind of determination was crucial to surviving the long, frustrating
process of getting "Frida" made. Time after time, deals fell through,
sometimes when production companies went under, sometimes for more bizarre
reasons. (Hayek recalls one go date that had to be canceled when the
director's preceding film was delayed because a 100-year freak desert rainstorm
produced vegetation all over its arid location.)
Of course, the fundamental difficulty was the subject matter. Internationally
famous as Kahlo has become since her death, the particulars of her story did
not conform to most film financiers' narrow concepts of commercial appeal.
"It was very tough trying to get the movie made," Hayek recalls . "They'd say,
'C'mon, you wanna make a movie about painters that are Mexicans that are
communists? Who's going to care?'"
After all of that and more (rival Kahlo projects with Madonna and Jennifer
Lopez attached to them arose and collapsed during the period), Hayek sold
Miramax Films chairman Harvey Weinstein on a script draft that was primarily
the work of Rodrigo Garcia, son of the Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Taymor agreed to direct.
But somehow, something still wasn't right. So Hayek turned to her significant
other, "Red Dragon" star Edward Norton (who plays Nelson Rockefeller in
"Frida").
"I had a lot of external problems to make the film, but probably the biggest
problem was myself because I was never completely satisfied with anything,"
Hayek admits. "Edward had been hearing a lot about what I wanted the script to
be like and volunteered to rewrite it. He collaborated very close with Julie
to incorporate her vision into it."
Adds Sarah Green, a producer who came to the project around the same time
Taymor did two years ago, "Edward did a page-one rewrite really focusing on
character and dialogue. And he and Julie worked on all of the visual sequences
that make the film so unique. It was considerable work, and the thing that
made it as easy for actors to relate to as it is."
Due to Writers Guild arbitration, however, neither Norton nor Garcia receive a
writing credit for "Frida."
-- Box-office draw? --
That wasn't the film's final birthing pain, either. Although the production in
Mexico was by most reports a happy, if hard-working, occasion -- "Once I gave
my child to Julie, I completely detached myself from it," says Hayek, who had
to immerse herself in creating Kahlo. "I shut up and obeyed" -- Taymor and
Weinstein got into some very public conflicts once the picture began
test-screening last spring.
"I made this movie the way I wanted, but obviously when you're doing a movie
with Miramax, you're going to fight your battles," Taymor says of the company
whose chairman's notoriety for editing (Weinstein is also the producer of
Martin Scorsese's upcoming, long-wrassled-over "Gangs of New York") has earned
him the nickname Harvey Scissorhands.
"What happens in post-production is they get, 'Oh, we smell crossover,'" Taymor
says. "They didn't think that this could possibly be a bigger film, but they
agreed to do it, and Harvey is very good at doing that, that's what he's known
for. But then you smell, and then it starts to become a little more complex."
So, what did Weinstein want changed?
"It's all about length, all about running time," Taymor says. "And some other
things, but at this point, I'm not going into it publicly. Let me put it this
way: It was a struggle, we've acknowledged that, a huge one and a long one.
But it's my cut, and he likes it. If I made compromises here and there, they
were the kind of compromises where you go, 'It could be this or it could be
that; they're both valid. I can live with that.'"
As for that other baby, born of so much struggle to celebrate life through so
much pain, what does the birth mother think of her little, immense "Frida"?
"I like the movie," Hayek says. "It satisfies what I wanted to say about her.
And it's not a matter of other people liking it or not liking it; I see people
being thought-provoked by the movie, and I see it touching a lot of people."
# # # # #
=L=
(With thanks to Billie a.k.a. Pusssykatt)
Phoenix
mj.aol.com>, land...@aol.comnospamno says...
>
> Taymor, the conceptualist behind Broadway's "The Lion King," obviously sees in
> Kahlo something of a kindred artistic spirit, and her admiration hangs a false
> air of hagiography over the picture. Though everything admirable about Kahlo
> -- her courage, determination and talent -- are on display, she's also treated
> as a conventional lovelorn victim.
Which Frida may have been. What, brave
artists are exempt from feeling the more
pitiful emotions?
>
> "Frida" covers Kahlo's life from her teenage years to her death, but focuses
> primarily on her stormy relationship with Rivera (Alfred Molina), who was 20
> years older and already a womanizer of Bob Crane proportions when they met.
> While biographies describe Kahlo as equally promiscuous, the movie treats her
> dalliances -- with both men and women -- as acts of revenge, payback to a
> husband who's unfaithful even with her sister.
As it may well have been. It's an
interpretation, not an exact bio-pic, Jeez!
> Mostly, though, Hayek's problem is one of physical miscasting. She's so tiny
> next to the tall, rotund Molina that she looks like child in their scenes
> together. And despite a fake caterpillar brow, she's just not believable as a
> woman bemoaning her disfigurements.
Kahlo WAS tiny especially next to the huge
Rivera, and beautiful or sexual enough to gain
many devoted lovers. Her disfigurements were
mostly internal.
>
> Molina suffers from similar stereotyping. Though service is paid to Rivera's
> political passion, he comes off more as a leering opportunist, a bear of a man
> more apt to follow the impulses coming from his crotch than from his brain.
Um, that's what Rivera was like. Rivera was
also a con man of sorts, who got many rich
people to commission his murals out of a false
sense of social good. Did this reviewer want
these artists on a pedestal or something?
Artist are people, greedy, sexual, leering
people fraught with sins and weaknesses.
I'm not a fan of Kahlo or Rivera (in fact
their works leave me cold), but wanting some
vaulted portrait of them would be wrong on
some many levels.
I hate it when reviewers forget they're
supposed to be critiquing a film as a whole
rather than the reality of what's portrayed on
screen.
Which doesn't mean this flick doesn't suck out
loud.
bel