Frida Axell

''Frida'' is a 2002 American biographical drama film directed by Julie Taymor which depicts the professional and private life of the surrealist Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

Starring Salma Hayek in an Academy Award–nominated portrayal as Kahlo and Alfred Molina as her husband, Diego Rivera, the film was adapted by Clancy Sigal, Diane Lake, Gregory Nava, Anna Thomas, Antonio Banderas and unofficially by Edward Norton from the 1983 book '' Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo'' by Hayden Herrera. ''Frida'' received generally positive reviews from critics, and won two Academy Awards for Best Makeup and Best Original Score among six nominations.

Plot

In 1925, Frida Kahlo suffers a traumatic accident at the age of 18 onboard a wooden-bodied bus that collides with a streetcar. Impaled by a metal pole, the injuries she sustains plague her for the rest of her life. To help her through convalescence, her father brings her a canvas to paint on.

Once regaining the ability to walk with a cane, Frida visits muralist Diego Rivera, demanding an honest critique of her paintings. Rivera falls in love with her work, and they begin a dysfunctional relationship. When he proposes, she tells him she expects loyalty from him, if not fidelity. Throughout the marriage, Rivera has affairs with a wide array of women. At the same time, the bisexual Kahlo takes on male and female lovers, including, in one case, the same woman as Rivera.

The couple travels to New York City in 1934, so Rivera may paint the mural ''Man at the Crossroads'', at the behest of the Rockefeller family, inside Rockefeller Center. While living in the United States, Kahlo suffers a miscarriage and travels back to Mexico for her mother's funeral. 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 more reluctant.

Kahlo's sister, Cristina, moves in with them at their San Ángel studio home as Rivera's assistant. Soon afterward, Kahlo discovers Rivera is sleeping with her. Leaving him, she subsequently sinks into alcoholism after moving back to her family's Coyoacán home. They reunite during a ''Día de los Muertos'' celebration where he asks her to welcome and house Leon Trotsky, who has been granted political asylum in Mexico. Trotsky expresses his love for Kahlo's work during an excursion to Teotihuacan, and they begin an affair. Soon, Trotsky's wife learns of the affair, forcing the couple to leave the safety of Kahlo's home.

Kahlo leaves for Paris when Diego realizes she was unfaithful to him with Trotsky. However, Rivera had little problem with Kahlo's other affairs, as Trotsky was too important to be intimately involved with his wife. When she returns to Mexico, he asks for a divorce. In 1940, Trotsky is murdered in Mexico City. Initially, Rivera is suspected by police of orchestrating the assassination. When they fail to locate him, Kahlo is arrested. Cristina arrives and escorts Kahlo out of prison, explaining that Rivera convinced President Cárdenas to release her.

Kahlo has her toes removed when her doctor notices they have become gangrenous. Rivera remorsefully asks Kahlo to remarry him, and she agrees. Her health worsens, leading to the amputation of a leg and bronchopneumonia, which leaves her bedridden. In 1953, Kahlo's bed is carried from her home to a museum to attend her first solo exhibition in her native country.

Cast

* Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo
* Alfred Molina as Diego Rivera
* Geoffrey Rush as Leon Trotsky
* Mía Maestro as Cristina Kahlo
* Ashley Judd as Tina Modotti
* Antonio Banderas as David Alfaro Siqueiros
* Edward Norton as Nelson Rockefeller
* Diego Luna as Alejandro Gonzalez Arias
* Margarita Sanz as Natalia Sedova
* Patricia Reyes Spíndola as Matilde Kahlo
* Roger Rees as Guillermo Kahlo
* Valeria Golino as Lupe Marín
* Omar Rodriguez (aka Omar Chagall) as André Breton
* Felipe Fulop as Jean Van Heijenoort
* Saffron Burrows as Gracie
* Karine Plantadit-Bageot as Josephine Baker

Allusions and paintings

The passengers in the bus Kahlo rides in that crashes with a streetcar are based on subjects in the painter's 1929 portrait, ''The Bus''. Other Kahlo paintings either shown directly or depicted in the film by the characters include ''Frieda and Diego Rivera'' (1931), '' What the Water Gave Me'' (1938), ''The Two Fridas'' (1939), ''The Broken Column'' (1944), and ''The Wounded Deer'' (1946).

The Brothers Quay created the stop motion animation sequence in the film depicting the initial stages of Kahlo's recovery at the hospital after the accident are inspired by the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead. The gown Valeria Golino wears at Kahlo's 1953 Mexican solo art exhibition is a replica of the dress that her character, Lupe Marín, wore in Rivera's 1938 portrait of her.

Production

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 Herrera'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 receiving rejection from the film studios. As Kahlo's art gained prominence, however "in May 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 received objections due to her non-Hispanic ethnicity, and New Line complied with the protesters' demands, and left the then-titled ''Frida and Diego'' in August 1992 citing finances.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 oppositethat there were too many Frida projects in development, and nobody wanted mine.

Valdez was contacted early on by Salma Hayek, then unknown in the U.S., who sent "her romoreel 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. Raúl Juliá was cast as Diego Rivera, but his death further delayed the movie. At the same time, Hardin approached HBO