Amid the rubble of the contracting indie film sector, Df Indie Studios is raising its banner with plans to finance and distribute 10-12 films a year, each budgeted at as much as $10 million. The new outfit also is promising to be more producer- and investor-friendly.
Mary Dickinson and Charlene Fisher, both experienced in structuring entertainment ventures, spent two years researching opportunities and pitfalls in the arena before putting the company together. They have raised $100 million in capital from private investors, backed by $150 million in guarantees from output deals they are assembling and expect to announce shortly.
The Dfis co-founders said they will be working with a group of producers -- all agreeing to the same deal terms -- that includes Ted Hope and Anne Carey's This Is That Prods., Ridley and Tony Scott's Scott Free, Samara Koffler's RedBone Films and Jennifer Fox.
However, a spokesman for Scott...
Mary Dickinson and Charlene Fisher, both experienced in structuring entertainment ventures, spent two years researching opportunities and pitfalls in the arena before putting the company together. They have raised $100 million in capital from private investors, backed by $150 million in guarantees from output deals they are assembling and expect to announce shortly.
The Dfis co-founders said they will be working with a group of producers -- all agreeing to the same deal terms -- that includes Ted Hope and Anne Carey's This Is That Prods., Ridley and Tony Scott's Scott Free, Samara Koffler's RedBone Films and Jennifer Fox.
However, a spokesman for Scott...
- 6/14/2009
- by By Gregg Kilday
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Palm Springs International Film Festival
PALM SPRINGS -- Apparently Prissy from Gone With the Wind isn't the only one who don't know nothin' about birthin' babies.
From the perspective of The Business of Being Born, an eye-opening look at maternity in America, the nation's hospitals and insurance companies place a close second.
Initiated by executive producer Ricki Lake and directed by Abby Epstein, this investigation of contemporary childbirth "management" is in many ways The Inconvenient Truth of obstetrics, not to mention a convincing endorsement of midwifery.
Being Born screened at the Palm Springs International Film Festival ahead of a limited theatrical run. It will be offered by Netflix in February.
A close-up and personal film, in which several of its subjects -- including Lake -- allow the camera to capture their chosen methods of delivery in indisputably intimate detail, it is a must-see for any woman who's pregnant or planning to have kids.
At first glance, the notion of deliberately giving birth outside of a hospital (as Lake did in 2001, in her bathtub with her second child) might seem to be a risky proposition.
But then come all the disturbing questions:
-- Why does the U.S. have the second-worst newborn death rate in the developed world?
-- Why are more than 40% of the deliveries done in some New York hospitals all Caesarean sections?
-- And why, according to a study, are the peak hours for Caesarean procedures at 4 in the afternoon and 10 at night?
As the film probes the circumstances that have led to midwife-attended births in America dropping from 50% in 1938 to less than 8% today (whether in or outside hospitals), while in the five countries with the lowest infant mortality rates, midwives figure into 70% of those births, it points to those Michael Moore-approved usual suspects: namely the health care and insurance industries.
But though some doctors admit to pressing for time-efficient, $14 billion-a-year Caesarean sections as a way of avoiding negligence claims, and questionable practices are nothing new (Thalidomide, anyone?), Being Born makes its best case when documenting those natural-birth alternatives.
Casting vanity to the wind, Epstein's subjects permit Paulo Netto's unimposing camera to witness the miracle of birth in a big-business-free environment, and the effect, like the production itself, is as poignant as it is potent.
THE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN
Red Envelope Entertainment and International Film Circuit
Credits:
Director: Abby Epstein
Executive producer: Ricki Lake
Producers: Abby Epstein, Amy Slotnick, Paulo Netto
Director of photography: Paulo Netto
Editor: Madeleine Gavin
Running time -- 87 minutes
No MPAA rating...
PALM SPRINGS -- Apparently Prissy from Gone With the Wind isn't the only one who don't know nothin' about birthin' babies.
From the perspective of The Business of Being Born, an eye-opening look at maternity in America, the nation's hospitals and insurance companies place a close second.
Initiated by executive producer Ricki Lake and directed by Abby Epstein, this investigation of contemporary childbirth "management" is in many ways The Inconvenient Truth of obstetrics, not to mention a convincing endorsement of midwifery.
Being Born screened at the Palm Springs International Film Festival ahead of a limited theatrical run. It will be offered by Netflix in February.
A close-up and personal film, in which several of its subjects -- including Lake -- allow the camera to capture their chosen methods of delivery in indisputably intimate detail, it is a must-see for any woman who's pregnant or planning to have kids.
At first glance, the notion of deliberately giving birth outside of a hospital (as Lake did in 2001, in her bathtub with her second child) might seem to be a risky proposition.
But then come all the disturbing questions:
-- Why does the U.S. have the second-worst newborn death rate in the developed world?
-- Why are more than 40% of the deliveries done in some New York hospitals all Caesarean sections?
-- And why, according to a study, are the peak hours for Caesarean procedures at 4 in the afternoon and 10 at night?
As the film probes the circumstances that have led to midwife-attended births in America dropping from 50% in 1938 to less than 8% today (whether in or outside hospitals), while in the five countries with the lowest infant mortality rates, midwives figure into 70% of those births, it points to those Michael Moore-approved usual suspects: namely the health care and insurance industries.
But though some doctors admit to pressing for time-efficient, $14 billion-a-year Caesarean sections as a way of avoiding negligence claims, and questionable practices are nothing new (Thalidomide, anyone?), Being Born makes its best case when documenting those natural-birth alternatives.
Casting vanity to the wind, Epstein's subjects permit Paulo Netto's unimposing camera to witness the miracle of birth in a big-business-free environment, and the effect, like the production itself, is as poignant as it is potent.
THE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN
Red Envelope Entertainment and International Film Circuit
Credits:
Director: Abby Epstein
Executive producer: Ricki Lake
Producers: Abby Epstein, Amy Slotnick, Paulo Netto
Director of photography: Paulo Netto
Editor: Madeleine Gavin
Running time -- 87 minutes
No MPAA rating...
PARK CITY -- On the Road with Judas is one more attack on the notion that films need to have linear stories with main characters and a cathartic ending. Adapting his novel of the same name, director-writer JJ Lask has fashioned a film about the nature of narrative and storytelling, along with other scatological observations about life and art that seemingly popped into his head. Clever and moderately entertaining, film is a puzzle that will find some supporters as surely as it will sharply divide audiences. Controversy could generate some interest on the art house circuit.
The starting point for On the Road with Judas could well have been the ending of Annie Hall where Woody Allen, playing a writer, stages a play in which he winds up with Annie, contrary to how events turned out in the "real-life" of the film. He tells the audience that if he can't get things to go his way in life, at least he can in art.
In Judas, Kevin Corrigan plays a character named JJ Lask who has written a book called On the Road with Judas. The so-called "real" people that the book is based on are played by one set of actors, while the same "fictionalized" characters from the book are played by another set of actors. Sound confusing? It is, intentionally so.
The storyline on its own is pretty straightforward. Judas (Aaron Ruell and Eddie Kaye Thomas) is a computer systems designer by day and, with his best buddy Francis (Alex Burns and Leo Fitzpatrick), a computer thief by night, vandalizing college campus all around New England. Judas meets a girl, Serra (Eleanor Hutchins and Amanda Loncar), falls in love and wants to tell her everything. But in Lask's version nothing is simple.
In full postmodern mode, Judas is more a commentary on a love affair than The Real Thing. Much of the romance is literally played out on the stage of a talk show called "Let's Have Drinks," hosted by Rubin Parker Jr. (played by the real JJ Lask). The real characters, Corrigan as Lask, and even the fictional characters come on the show and dissect what's happening in the book.
Lask seems more concerned with exploring the creative process and how all characters are lies fabricated from some kernel of reality, than he is in the actual love affair. Consequently, one watches more with a sense of detachment, trying to figure out who's who than a rooting interest in these people getting together. Although the performances strike the right earnest but ironic tone, none of the characters -- only the author played by Corrigan -- come off as fully developed people. With the exception of one moving love scene where Judas bears his soul and says he would give up everything for Serra, Lask's way to the heart is clearly through the head.
Keeping all the balls in the air is a first-rate technical feat, aided by Lask's brisk editing (he was an award-winning editor of commercials) with Jason Kileen. Jennifer Dehghan's production design, particularly for the stage of the mock talk show and Judas' basketball-court-sized loft, captures the spacey tone of the material.
Savvy moviegoers may recognize elements of Charlie Kaufman's work, specifically the real-fictional characters of Adaptation, as well the shifting personalities of David Lynch films such as Mulholland Drive. Whether the pieces add up to anything will be a subject for heated debate after the film.
On the Road With Judas
P.S. 260 and All Day Buffet Films
Credits: Directed by JJ Lask; Writer: Lask (based on his novel); Producers: Amy Slotnick, Ronan P. Nagle; Director of Photography: Ben Starkman; Production Designer: Jennifer Dehghan; Music: Human; Costume Designer: Annie U. Yun; Editor: JJ Lask, Jason Kileen.
Cast: Judas, real: Aaron Ruell; JJ Lask: Kevin Corrigan; Judas, actor: Eddie Kaye Thomas; Serra, actor: Eleanor Hutchins; Serra, real: Amanda Loncar; Francis, real: Alex Burns; Francis, actor: Leo Fitzpatrick; Rubin Parker Jr.: JJ Lask.
No MPAA rating, running time: 103 minutes...
The starting point for On the Road with Judas could well have been the ending of Annie Hall where Woody Allen, playing a writer, stages a play in which he winds up with Annie, contrary to how events turned out in the "real-life" of the film. He tells the audience that if he can't get things to go his way in life, at least he can in art.
In Judas, Kevin Corrigan plays a character named JJ Lask who has written a book called On the Road with Judas. The so-called "real" people that the book is based on are played by one set of actors, while the same "fictionalized" characters from the book are played by another set of actors. Sound confusing? It is, intentionally so.
The storyline on its own is pretty straightforward. Judas (Aaron Ruell and Eddie Kaye Thomas) is a computer systems designer by day and, with his best buddy Francis (Alex Burns and Leo Fitzpatrick), a computer thief by night, vandalizing college campus all around New England. Judas meets a girl, Serra (Eleanor Hutchins and Amanda Loncar), falls in love and wants to tell her everything. But in Lask's version nothing is simple.
In full postmodern mode, Judas is more a commentary on a love affair than The Real Thing. Much of the romance is literally played out on the stage of a talk show called "Let's Have Drinks," hosted by Rubin Parker Jr. (played by the real JJ Lask). The real characters, Corrigan as Lask, and even the fictional characters come on the show and dissect what's happening in the book.
Lask seems more concerned with exploring the creative process and how all characters are lies fabricated from some kernel of reality, than he is in the actual love affair. Consequently, one watches more with a sense of detachment, trying to figure out who's who than a rooting interest in these people getting together. Although the performances strike the right earnest but ironic tone, none of the characters -- only the author played by Corrigan -- come off as fully developed people. With the exception of one moving love scene where Judas bears his soul and says he would give up everything for Serra, Lask's way to the heart is clearly through the head.
Keeping all the balls in the air is a first-rate technical feat, aided by Lask's brisk editing (he was an award-winning editor of commercials) with Jason Kileen. Jennifer Dehghan's production design, particularly for the stage of the mock talk show and Judas' basketball-court-sized loft, captures the spacey tone of the material.
Savvy moviegoers may recognize elements of Charlie Kaufman's work, specifically the real-fictional characters of Adaptation, as well the shifting personalities of David Lynch films such as Mulholland Drive. Whether the pieces add up to anything will be a subject for heated debate after the film.
On the Road With Judas
P.S. 260 and All Day Buffet Films
Credits: Directed by JJ Lask; Writer: Lask (based on his novel); Producers: Amy Slotnick, Ronan P. Nagle; Director of Photography: Ben Starkman; Production Designer: Jennifer Dehghan; Music: Human; Costume Designer: Annie U. Yun; Editor: JJ Lask, Jason Kileen.
Cast: Judas, real: Aaron Ruell; JJ Lask: Kevin Corrigan; Judas, actor: Eddie Kaye Thomas; Serra, actor: Eleanor Hutchins; Serra, real: Amanda Loncar; Francis, real: Alex Burns; Francis, actor: Leo Fitzpatrick; Rubin Parker Jr.: JJ Lask.
No MPAA rating, running time: 103 minutes...
- 1/21/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Opens Friday, March 21
There would be nothing wrong with the romantic comedy "View From the Top" if this were 1960 and Sandra Dee and Pat Boone were available to play these roles. But it is 2003, a time when women can aspire to more than being a first-class international airline stewardess. Sorry, make that flight attendant -- the film's time warp does that to you. The film cries out for a satirical edge, some self-awareness that dumb-blonde comedies must be retooled for the modern age. But director Bruno Barreto, who once handled such sophisticated, multilayered comic works as "Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands" and "Gabriela", plays things absolutely straight without the least bit of vibrancy or subtlety in his direction. The result is a flat, superficial comedy that never establishes a tone that would allow the film to take potshots at such eminently hittable targets as flight training schools or airline travel in general.
Already postponed four times from previous release dates, this lackluster Miramax comedy appears headed for a quick theatrical payoff. Thanks to star Gwyneth Paltrow, its primary appeal will be to female adolescents and teens.
Paltrow plays a woman anxious for any escape from her small Nevada town and trailer-park mom. That escape comes in a flight attendant job, initially for a local commuter airline reminiscent of the one immortalized in Bob Newhart's classic routine about the Grace L. Ferguson Airline and Storm Door Co. Here she meets her first mentor, pert attendant Kelly Preston, and first back-stabber, the unprincipled Christina Applegate.
Paltrow and Applegate move on to a training program at prestigious Royalty Airlines. They come under the tutelage of Mike Myers, who attempts to create an entire comic character out of one physical characteristic -- a highly aggressive wall-eye that causes each eye to focus elsewhere. At flight school, Candice Bergen, author of a memoir about her career as a flight attendant and therefore Paltrow's idol, takes over as Paltrow's mentor.
When Paltrow's final exam results prove bafflingly poor, she is assigned a commuter route out of Cleveland. The good news is that Mark Ruffalo, a young man she flirted with before joining Royalty, also winds up in Cleveland, where he goes to law school. They become an item, perhaps fall in love even, but face a dilemma when Paltrow is allowed to retake her final exam: Will She choose a career as an international flight attendant or marry an up-and-coming lawyer?
In its costumes and art direction, which favor overly bright solid colors and occasional pastels, the film acts like a period piece. Even the soundtrack contains few songs under 20 years' vintage. Yet Barreto fails to follow up on the retro look, playing the film's mild comic bits against a modern albeit fake world.
Eric Wald's tepid screenplay lacks conflict at nearly every turn. Applegate turns out to be Paltrow's nemesis, but other than one poorly staged catfight, no one really impedes Paltrow's rise to the top. Her attempt to play an airhead blonde feels strained throughout, while Ruffalo has little to do other than drop into the movie from time to time, looking handsome and eager.
Comic elements throughout are weak, though Myers does at times relieve the movie of its tedium. Cameos or virtual cameos by Rob Lowe, Chad Everett and George Kennedy add little. Technical credits are pro.
VIEW FROM THE TOP
Miramax Films
Brad Grey Pictures/Cohen Pictures
Credits:
Director: Bruno Barreto
Screenwriter: Eric Wald
Producers: Brad Grey, Matthew Baer, Bobby Cohen
Executive producers: Amy Slotnick, Robbie Brenner, Alan C. Blomquist
Director of photography: Affonso Beato
Production designer: Dan Davis
Music: Theodore Shapiro
Costume designer: Mary Zophres
Editors: Christopher Greenbury, Ray Hubley
Cast:
Donna: Gwyneth Paltrow
Christine: Christina Applegate
Ted: Mark Ruffalo
Sally Weston: Candice Bergin
Sherry: Kelly Preston
John: Mike Myers
Steve: Rob Lowe
Running time -- 87 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
There would be nothing wrong with the romantic comedy "View From the Top" if this were 1960 and Sandra Dee and Pat Boone were available to play these roles. But it is 2003, a time when women can aspire to more than being a first-class international airline stewardess. Sorry, make that flight attendant -- the film's time warp does that to you. The film cries out for a satirical edge, some self-awareness that dumb-blonde comedies must be retooled for the modern age. But director Bruno Barreto, who once handled such sophisticated, multilayered comic works as "Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands" and "Gabriela", plays things absolutely straight without the least bit of vibrancy or subtlety in his direction. The result is a flat, superficial comedy that never establishes a tone that would allow the film to take potshots at such eminently hittable targets as flight training schools or airline travel in general.
Already postponed four times from previous release dates, this lackluster Miramax comedy appears headed for a quick theatrical payoff. Thanks to star Gwyneth Paltrow, its primary appeal will be to female adolescents and teens.
Paltrow plays a woman anxious for any escape from her small Nevada town and trailer-park mom. That escape comes in a flight attendant job, initially for a local commuter airline reminiscent of the one immortalized in Bob Newhart's classic routine about the Grace L. Ferguson Airline and Storm Door Co. Here she meets her first mentor, pert attendant Kelly Preston, and first back-stabber, the unprincipled Christina Applegate.
Paltrow and Applegate move on to a training program at prestigious Royalty Airlines. They come under the tutelage of Mike Myers, who attempts to create an entire comic character out of one physical characteristic -- a highly aggressive wall-eye that causes each eye to focus elsewhere. At flight school, Candice Bergen, author of a memoir about her career as a flight attendant and therefore Paltrow's idol, takes over as Paltrow's mentor.
When Paltrow's final exam results prove bafflingly poor, she is assigned a commuter route out of Cleveland. The good news is that Mark Ruffalo, a young man she flirted with before joining Royalty, also winds up in Cleveland, where he goes to law school. They become an item, perhaps fall in love even, but face a dilemma when Paltrow is allowed to retake her final exam: Will She choose a career as an international flight attendant or marry an up-and-coming lawyer?
In its costumes and art direction, which favor overly bright solid colors and occasional pastels, the film acts like a period piece. Even the soundtrack contains few songs under 20 years' vintage. Yet Barreto fails to follow up on the retro look, playing the film's mild comic bits against a modern albeit fake world.
Eric Wald's tepid screenplay lacks conflict at nearly every turn. Applegate turns out to be Paltrow's nemesis, but other than one poorly staged catfight, no one really impedes Paltrow's rise to the top. Her attempt to play an airhead blonde feels strained throughout, while Ruffalo has little to do other than drop into the movie from time to time, looking handsome and eager.
Comic elements throughout are weak, though Myers does at times relieve the movie of its tedium. Cameos or virtual cameos by Rob Lowe, Chad Everett and George Kennedy add little. Technical credits are pro.
VIEW FROM THE TOP
Miramax Films
Brad Grey Pictures/Cohen Pictures
Credits:
Director: Bruno Barreto
Screenwriter: Eric Wald
Producers: Brad Grey, Matthew Baer, Bobby Cohen
Executive producers: Amy Slotnick, Robbie Brenner, Alan C. Blomquist
Director of photography: Affonso Beato
Production designer: Dan Davis
Music: Theodore Shapiro
Costume designer: Mary Zophres
Editors: Christopher Greenbury, Ray Hubley
Cast:
Donna: Gwyneth Paltrow
Christine: Christina Applegate
Ted: Mark Ruffalo
Sally Weston: Candice Bergin
Sherry: Kelly Preston
John: Mike Myers
Steve: Rob Lowe
Running time -- 87 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 3/21/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The lives of great artists are notorious for their resistance to the biopic treatment. The iconic Mexican painter Frida Kahlo proves no exception.
While this film dutifully chronicles her suffering, obsessions and battles with her own body, it stands in pale contrast to Kahlo's real biography, which is her amazing paintings.
In development for nearly a decade, battling rival projects and studio skittishness, "Frida" emerges as a fairly convention biopic rather than the artistic statement one might anticipate given director Julie Taymor's theatrical background and actress-producer Salma Hayek's passion for the role.
The film hues closely to the facts of Kahlo's life and her tempestuous relationship with world-famous muralist Diego Rivera, her mentor and husband. Taymor puts Frida's vivid and often disturbing art to sagacious use, slipping the famous images into scenes to reflect or comment on dramatic developments. But the film somehow misses the mark, having made rather tidy a messy and brutally painful life.
As more than 100 published books concern Kahlo and Rivera, one should never underestimate the public appetite for this story. With a stellar cast -- Alfred Molina as Rivera, Geoffrey Rush as Leon Trotsky, Edward Norton as Nelson Rockefeller, Antonio Banderas as muralist David Siqueiros and Ashley Judd as photographer Tina Modotti -- along with a careful rollout and Miramax's marketing muscle, "Frida" does have potential as an art house hit. The outlook overseas and in ancillary markets is even more positive.
The movie begins on the day of Frida's one and only exhibit in Mexico, in the spring of 1953. Her health has deteriorated so greatly, the doctor forbids her to leave her bed. So she has her bed carted to the gallery. On the ride over, the movie goes into a flashback. Frida, a high-school tomboy, loves to get into mischief with a gang of boys. She sneaks into a school auditorium where the great Rivera is painting.
The movie quickly moves to the trauma that shapes her life: A trolley accident in 1925 leaves her impaled on a metal rod. So devastated is her body that it's a miracle she even lives, much less that she walks again. Lying in bed for months, bored and in pain, she takes up painting. Her parents (Roger Rees and Patricia Reyes Spindola) give her a special easel and canopied bed with a mirror above her so she can be her own model. A life of self-portraiture, of painting the inner and outer Frida Kahlo, thus begins.
The story of her event-filled life understandably moves swiftly. Yet the consequence is that the movie gives short shrift to Frida's recovery and the enormous will power she developed to tolerate pain and fatigue. Clearly, the drinking, smoking and drug use that come later help her to dull that pain.
The bond between Diego and Frida is handled with empathy. Molina captures Diego's bearish personality, his huge body, his embrace of sensual pleasures and his fierce commitment to leftist political principles. In one of the film's welcome flights of surreal fancy, Rivera is fittingly depicted, in cutout images, as King Kong atop the Empire State Building, batting at airplanes as he would his critics. Molina gets the essential goodness of the man, his firm belief in loyalty and a set of principles that sometimes gets overshadowed by his many adulterous affairs, the worst being with Frida's own sister (Mia Maestro).
Hayek learned how to paint and how to effect the outer Frida -- including her wearing of traditional Mexican clothing. Other than Frida's trademark thick, connecting eyebrows, though, she has not allowed the makeup artist to de-glamorize her. More problematic is the fact Hayek doesn't inhabit her character as Molina does his. She is playing a role while Molina is Diego.
The film neither makes too much nor too little of its protagonists' wild side -- their open marriage, where they even shared lovers, or Frida's bisexuality and her affair with Trotsky, which may have cost him his life. The only sugar-coating comes near the end: It's quite possible Frida took her own life but the film never hints of this.
Rodrigo Preito's colorful and appealing cinematography, designer Felipe Fernandez's period re-creations and Elliot Goldenthal's guitar-flavored music, picking up Mexican themes, make a tight budget go a long way.
FRIDA
Miramax Films
Miramax presents in association with Margaret Rose Perenchio
A Ventanarosa Production in association with Lions Gate Films
Credits:
Director: Julie Taymor
Writers: Clancy Sigel, Diane Lake, Gregory Nava, Anna Thomas
Based on the book by: Hayden Herrera
Producers: Sarah Green, Salma Hayek, Jay Polstein, Nancy Hardin, Lindsay Flickinger, Roberto Sneiders
Executive producer: Mark Amin, Brian Gibson, Mark Gill, Jill Sobel Messick, Amy Slotnick
Director of photography: Rodrigo Prieto
Production designer: Felipe Fernandez
Music: Elliot Goldenthal
Costume designer: Julie Weiss
Editor: Francoise Bonnot
Cast:
Frida Kahlo: Salma Hayek
Diego Rivera: Alfred Molina
Leon Trotsky: Geoffrey Rush
Nelson Rockefeller: Edward Norton
David Siqueiros: Antonio Banderas
Cristina Kahlo: Mia Maestro
Tina Modotti: Ashley Judd
Guillermo Kahlo: Roger Rees
Lupe Marin: Valeria Golino
Matilde Kahlo: Patricia Reyes Spindola
Alejandro: Diego Luna
Running time -- 119 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
While this film dutifully chronicles her suffering, obsessions and battles with her own body, it stands in pale contrast to Kahlo's real biography, which is her amazing paintings.
In development for nearly a decade, battling rival projects and studio skittishness, "Frida" emerges as a fairly convention biopic rather than the artistic statement one might anticipate given director Julie Taymor's theatrical background and actress-producer Salma Hayek's passion for the role.
The film hues closely to the facts of Kahlo's life and her tempestuous relationship with world-famous muralist Diego Rivera, her mentor and husband. Taymor puts Frida's vivid and often disturbing art to sagacious use, slipping the famous images into scenes to reflect or comment on dramatic developments. But the film somehow misses the mark, having made rather tidy a messy and brutally painful life.
As more than 100 published books concern Kahlo and Rivera, one should never underestimate the public appetite for this story. With a stellar cast -- Alfred Molina as Rivera, Geoffrey Rush as Leon Trotsky, Edward Norton as Nelson Rockefeller, Antonio Banderas as muralist David Siqueiros and Ashley Judd as photographer Tina Modotti -- along with a careful rollout and Miramax's marketing muscle, "Frida" does have potential as an art house hit. The outlook overseas and in ancillary markets is even more positive.
The movie begins on the day of Frida's one and only exhibit in Mexico, in the spring of 1953. Her health has deteriorated so greatly, the doctor forbids her to leave her bed. So she has her bed carted to the gallery. On the ride over, the movie goes into a flashback. Frida, a high-school tomboy, loves to get into mischief with a gang of boys. She sneaks into a school auditorium where the great Rivera is painting.
The movie quickly moves to the trauma that shapes her life: A trolley accident in 1925 leaves her impaled on a metal rod. So devastated is her body that it's a miracle she even lives, much less that she walks again. Lying in bed for months, bored and in pain, she takes up painting. Her parents (Roger Rees and Patricia Reyes Spindola) give her a special easel and canopied bed with a mirror above her so she can be her own model. A life of self-portraiture, of painting the inner and outer Frida Kahlo, thus begins.
The story of her event-filled life understandably moves swiftly. Yet the consequence is that the movie gives short shrift to Frida's recovery and the enormous will power she developed to tolerate pain and fatigue. Clearly, the drinking, smoking and drug use that come later help her to dull that pain.
The bond between Diego and Frida is handled with empathy. Molina captures Diego's bearish personality, his huge body, his embrace of sensual pleasures and his fierce commitment to leftist political principles. In one of the film's welcome flights of surreal fancy, Rivera is fittingly depicted, in cutout images, as King Kong atop the Empire State Building, batting at airplanes as he would his critics. Molina gets the essential goodness of the man, his firm belief in loyalty and a set of principles that sometimes gets overshadowed by his many adulterous affairs, the worst being with Frida's own sister (Mia Maestro).
Hayek learned how to paint and how to effect the outer Frida -- including her wearing of traditional Mexican clothing. Other than Frida's trademark thick, connecting eyebrows, though, she has not allowed the makeup artist to de-glamorize her. More problematic is the fact Hayek doesn't inhabit her character as Molina does his. She is playing a role while Molina is Diego.
The film neither makes too much nor too little of its protagonists' wild side -- their open marriage, where they even shared lovers, or Frida's bisexuality and her affair with Trotsky, which may have cost him his life. The only sugar-coating comes near the end: It's quite possible Frida took her own life but the film never hints of this.
Rodrigo Preito's colorful and appealing cinematography, designer Felipe Fernandez's period re-creations and Elliot Goldenthal's guitar-flavored music, picking up Mexican themes, make a tight budget go a long way.
FRIDA
Miramax Films
Miramax presents in association with Margaret Rose Perenchio
A Ventanarosa Production in association with Lions Gate Films
Credits:
Director: Julie Taymor
Writers: Clancy Sigel, Diane Lake, Gregory Nava, Anna Thomas
Based on the book by: Hayden Herrera
Producers: Sarah Green, Salma Hayek, Jay Polstein, Nancy Hardin, Lindsay Flickinger, Roberto Sneiders
Executive producer: Mark Amin, Brian Gibson, Mark Gill, Jill Sobel Messick, Amy Slotnick
Director of photography: Rodrigo Prieto
Production designer: Felipe Fernandez
Music: Elliot Goldenthal
Costume designer: Julie Weiss
Editor: Francoise Bonnot
Cast:
Frida Kahlo: Salma Hayek
Diego Rivera: Alfred Molina
Leon Trotsky: Geoffrey Rush
Nelson Rockefeller: Edward Norton
David Siqueiros: Antonio Banderas
Cristina Kahlo: Mia Maestro
Tina Modotti: Ashley Judd
Guillermo Kahlo: Roger Rees
Lupe Marin: Valeria Golino
Matilde Kahlo: Patricia Reyes Spindola
Alejandro: Diego Luna
Running time -- 119 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 8/30/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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