Making in Movies
Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) is broken. Her body has been shattered in a bus accident, a metal rod has pierced her pelvis, and the doctors have barely succeeded in saving her life. She has been bed-bound for weeks, trapped in a full body cast with very little movement...
She will probably never walk again. This is the helpless situation Frida finds herself in when her first love Alejandro approaches the sickbed to end the relationship, leaving Mexico City—and Frida—to study in Paris. There are tears, anger — all hope seems lost.
But then, a turning point in Julie Taymor’s Frida (2002): Frida’s father gives her a drawing pad and a wooden frame, enabling her to paint while lying in bed. Her career as an artist begins with the help of her father’s sketchbook. Cut—a jump in time: Frida, still lying in her bed, is creating a self-portrait with the help of a ceiling mirror. She has already transitioned to brush and canvas. The walls are covered with paintings she has finished over the past days, weeks, months (we have to guess). Frida has apparently already reached a certain level of craftsmanship and found the main theme of her work: processing her own pain through art.
This scene is typical of Hollywood in its representation of the artist and her creative process. We don’t see Frida Kahlo learning to paint. The process is shown in a time lapse, starting with the trigger (sketch-book), and cutting straight to the result: the birth of an artist who depicts herself in her work, and finds healing through art. In the next scene we witness a miracle: Frida rises from her wheelchair and can walk again. The film clearly portrays this as a result of her painting. And that is where the story is. Films about artists are not usually interested in the process of creating, but in art as a form of catharsis; the creation is shown as the salvation of a life that would otherwise be miserable.