I am objecting to your portrayal of Hayek as a 'bimbo' more concerned with her appearance than anything else and, therefore, behind the decision not to have her leg "withered by reality".
At 04:48 PM 1/27/03 -0800, Marta Russell wrote:
>I know I am over my post but really this must receive a due answer.
>
>>Kelley
>>'course, apparently, by hayek's own admission, she downplayed many parts
>>of frida's life, particularly the political part of her life. gee. too
>>bad that wasn't mentioned on a 'zine site that is supposed to be about
>>left politics! not that disability isn't political, but Frida was a communist,
>
>here we go the Kelly buzzsaw -- But????? But?????????
You'll have to translate for me. I'll translate the above:
1. Hayek spent 9 yrs. trying to get this film produced. Frida Kahlo was Hayek's hero and obsession for years. Having gotten so deeply into this woman's life, Hayek recognized how much of her life she was leaving out. She and Julie Traymour, among others, made decisions as to what they would leave in and what they would leave out.
2. Similarly, you made a decision about what you would focus on in your review. I wondered why, just as you wondered why they extinguished polio/scoliosis (sp?) from the film.
I know why you did: your concern is the representation of disability and the disabled in film and reviews need to be focused. The same concerns emerge in films about real life people. Sometimes it is important to look at what people leave out and don't say, I agree. Often, what is not addressed is a entree into the way in which structural oppression works.
Is their choice to write a movie as an historical romance, rather than a film specifically about disability an instance of structural oppression manifesting itself in and through people. I don't know. It could be.
Were Hayek's and Traymour's reasons for focusing on Frida's accident and the pain associated with that accident another instance--where the accident is seen as somehow more worthy of representing than is polio and the host of illnesses she suffered as a child. Are time and budget constraints legitimate reasons to leave that part of the story out? Was leaving out the withered leg an instance of ablism that can be tied to decisions about how to portray the story of Frida's life? Is it enough to say time and budget didn't allow for an adequate exploration, particularly transforming Hayek's body so that scenese where her leg was exposed represented the leg accurately?
Those are fine questions.
I object to the claim that Hayek was uniquely responsible for the decision. It is also not clear to me that they _had_ to focus on the pain associated with the polio. Yes, Frida's art and poetry was born of her pain. Traymour and Hayek, though, chose to see it as primarily from her accident because of the world that Frida represented in her paintings--which focused on that event and associated trauma from the operations, the scar, the miscarriages, etc. Are these poor rationalizations on their part? I don't think so, though I do agree with you that the withered leg didn't have to be left out just because of their focus.
I object to your claim that Hayek is responsible for the lack of a withered leg. I do so because Hayek _did_ concern herself with how to represent Frida's limp. I do so because, had you read the links, the studio refused to allow her to sport a mustache so Hayek shaved her upper lip in order to force it to grow in darker.
I conclude, therefore, that Hayek probably had no objections to portraying the withered leg and it was more likely the studio that put the kabosh on that.
As for Daniel Day Lewis: he is a method actor and well known for being extremely anal about researching the role in a specific kind of way. As someone else suggested, Hayek doesn't seem to have the same background (she came from Mexican Soap Opera background)--though she may be trying to get there, just as, say, Marilyn Monroe became a 'star' and then took method acting classes.
I don't think it especially useful to compare My Left Foot to Frida. My Left Foot was absolutely about the Christi's struggles with cerebral palsy. Frida was written as an historical romance focusing mainly on Frida's life with Rivera and her lovers. Would it have been a better film had they included more focus on the pain from the polio? I imagine so. Again, though, I don't know that it was Hayek's decision not to do so.
At any rate, Lewis, as a method actor portraying someone with a very obvious disability that he couldn't cover up and people reacted to Christi b/c of that. It was central to the story and it was necessary for him, given his method, to get into the role by living life as his character did. Frida, though, did a great deal to hide her withered leg, as you note. She tried to live her life so she didn't have to deal with those reactions. This was why, I gathered, that Hayek chose to wear shoes that made her limp and then try to hide the limp.
Should Hayek of done more to get into the role--to understand polio and its effects. Probably. But what is clear to me is that she DID make some efforts. They weren't good enough for you, I understand that. I still think it unfortunate that you mischaracterized her as not doing anything at all. She doesn't measure up to Day Lewis, but then there are reasons why she may not needed to have gone to the lengths he did. I personally don't think someone has to be a method actor and approach roles that way.
Would it have hurt them to represent the withered leg? No--although the studio may not have wanted to do it pleading budget, but more likely for the same reasons they didn't like the mustache. Though why they went for the scar... which I think is interesting because some reviewers have seen the scar as erotic. I find that interesting in terms of what the studio saw as worthy of representing: a scar.
>It was not just the limp. You miss entirely the point. To accurately
>portray Frida would have meant to show the leg, the obviously smaller
>one. All those nude scenes in bed needed to show the smaller leg. It is
>possible, to do that on film.
I don't think, when it comes to film, that people need to do anything.
What I was objecting to was that you called her a bimbo and that you hadn't bothered to find out a little bit as to where Hayek was coming from. It can still be wrong from your perspective, but it would have been a far better review had you at least noted that they consciously chose not to focus on the polio as a source of pain, but on the theme that emerged in her paintings frequently: the accident and her miscarriages.
her paintings were often about her accident and her miscarriages, yes? there was the emotional pain of not being able to have a child--due to the accident. it seems to me that, if this is the case, then these events --as well as emotional trauma--was a significant factor in her life. i can understand why they chose to focus on that.
none of this undermines your criticisms of the failure to portray her shrunken leg.
frida apparently also spent much of her life hiding her disability and that's one of the reasons I found Hayek's comments interesting: she actually thought a lot about how to portray the limp.
I thought Salma's decision to also hide it (the limp) interesting, in that respect. Was it just rationalizing? Don't know. I know the review noted that the studio was against her wearing a fake mustache.
Curious: did frida paint her shrunken leg? She's well known for the mustache and eyebrows, but the leg?
>>it's not at all clear to me that she's a "bimbo all over" let alone one
>>of the "mexican variety".
>
>
>You have convinced me that Hollywood can fake anything as evidenced by
>your defense of this mediocre and untrue film.
I was defending Salma against the charge that she is a bimbo and that she didn't care about the physical aspects of the character.
you object to her failure to do the polie and the shrunken leg complete justice. i understand that but I did find it illuminating to learn that she did put quite a bit of thought into the whole project. i think that was worthy of note.
>I am surprised that you do not pick up on the feminist critique of this
>film which even my 22 year old daughter complained about -- the movie's
>obsession with making Frida a victim of the marriage to Rivera. She
>wasn't that either.
i know. i'm such a one-note charlie, ain't i?
why should i give two turds about the film as a feminist? e.g., if a film says its about something then i pay attention and ask if the film did justice to what the creators were trying to do.
Kelley