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I
went back to see Auto Focus a second time because I
wasn’t sure that I was giving it as much love as it deserved
the first time around. And
in the same week, I was seeing Frida a first and then
a second time. And
the similarities really hit home.
Both films are about men whose first marriages failed
because of their sexual appetites before they found women
who were stronger than them and accepted who they really were…
until the men went too far.
Oh,
you thought Frida was about Ms. Kahlo.
Well, it is. Kind of. The
name of the movie should have been Diego & Frida because
that’s the movie that Julie Taymor delivered.
I haven’t spoken to Ms. Taymor - and I hope to in the
week to come – but I got the distinct impression from watching
the film that she doesn’t have enormous respect for Frida
Kahlo: The Artist. I’m not even sure if she respects Frida Kahlo: The Woman.
Because when you really look at this film, Kahlo is
more the muse to others - from her Father to Diego Rivera
to Tina Modotti to Leon Trotsky… even to Josephine
Baker in the end.
I
walked out of the theater amazed.
Amazed by Taymor’s visual skills.
Amazed at the performances by Alfred Molina
and Salma Hayek. Amazed
by the long road this woman took through her life. But mostly I was amazed at how uninterested
I was in her work as an artist.
Perhaps the most shocking sequence in the film is one
near the end in which Taymor brings Kahlo’s work to life in
a kind of three-dimensional zoetropic collage… that includes
less than a dozen works by the artist. We are watching this film in celebration of this talent who overcame
life’s obstacles – the ones she had no control over and the
majority of which she brought onto herself with eyes wide
open – and was appreciated after her death.
But is she a great artist?
You
would think.
And
there is some wonderful work in the film.
But Taymor tops her effort time after time after time.
And maybe that is an inherent problem with a film about
an artist being made by a highly visualist director.
When Altman did Van Gogh, he told an intimate tale
set against Van Gogh’s work. But the visual honored Van Gogh… it never competed.
Likewise, Ed Harris’ Pollack was not a film
made in the style of Pollack’s art. It was a clean, simple piece of narrative filmmaking
that told the story and did a beautiful job with the creation
sequences. One could
say that Scorsese’s segment of New York Stories overwhelmed
the quality of the work of the artist that Nick Nolte
portrayed… that Scorsese’s camera was the virtuoso there.
And that’s probably true.
But the film wasn’t about the art and the film wasn’t
about the judgment of the artist’s work in any way. The film was about a creative, wild heart in
middle age, still fighting for air.
And the passion of creation was far more important
in that story than the art that was created.
I
will still defy anyone to tell me that Taymor is not a great,
great film director. The parts of Frida in which she weaves
her magic are as spectacular as you’ll see on a screen. Really sublime. And they are good storytelling because they are all representational
of moments that define Kahlo’s character… very specific to
the moments in the film.
Now, does that leave Kahlo as a great artist?
Remember… as we watch this film, every person who praises
Kahlo to high heaven has a sexual stake in her passion.
And this is also the unfortunate downside of casting
a woman as near-perfect as Ms. Hayek.
One
of the most profound pieces of art in the film appears when
Kahlo finally is freed of her full-torso cast.
When that cast is removed, like a piece coming out
of a kiln, there is a surprisingly long shot of Ms. Hayek’s
bosoms. And they are,
without just being a silly boy, aesthetically perfect.
The camera lingers like a fresh set of eyes seeing
a Michelangelo or DiVinci for the first time.
But
it is more than that one scene.
The ferocity of Hayek’s beauty combined with her character’s
sexual aggressiveness makes for a combination that never allows
the audience to wonder why people are reacting to this woman…
we don’t even have to appreciate the work.
She has a unibrow and an occasional light mustache…
so what?!?! Kahlo was, from what I have seen, an attractive
woman. But she was
not a physical work of art in and of herself.
And there is a difference.
It’s the difference between Selma Blair or Parker
Posey and the women who play the leads in the studio movies
in which they act. Now, both of these are fine looking women,
the quality of which most men will never attain. However, as actors, they are “the plain girls” or “the smart girls”
or “the sassy girls.” Selma
Blair has had a lot of sex in recent roles, but every
time, she is either being taken advantage of by a wiser, older,
abusive man or falling off a bed of having sex with a guy
in a mascot suit or something like that. Even in the indie film, Personal Velocity
– directed by a woman and also coming to Toronto – Posey is
sexual and romanced by the camera.
But Kyra Sedgwick, in another segment, is given
points for her body in a way that Posey is not.
I
feel kind of terrible hoisting this weight on Ms. Hayek’s
performance. She fought hard to get this film made and it has been a long-time
passion. And her work
is very good. But
this is one of the things that separates the art of film from
the art of theater. The Lion King – feel that irony – made
for a great piece of animation and a great piece of representational
theater. But you could
never make The Lion King as a live action movie.
It’s kind of obvious, no?
Anne Bancroft is an attractive woman, but if
Mrs. Robinson looked like Kathleen Turner in her Body
Heat days, that would have changed the entire weight of
The Graduate. And
in the recently released Simone, the model who plays
the digital character is nearly flawless… but she doesn’t
have the charm that would make that character the star she
is supposedly turned into.
If anyone ever gave Hayek a chance to play the right
roles, she would be one of the world’s biggest stars.
She has the acting chops.
She has the looks.
And she does have a natural charm.
She would kill in an Austin Powers movie.
She would have been a perfect Charlie’s Angel.
She could have been one of the guys in Ocean’s Eleven.
She’s
not an easy cast. But she has that thing. And I’d hate to see her become this year’s
Halle Berry… beauty waiting to be ridiculed for the
next film that can never live up to the weight of her Oscar
winner. Tough place
to be.
All
that said, both of these are well-made films that will find
appreciative audiences. There is enough to get you through Auto
Focus and more than enough to get you through Frida…
in a world of short attention spans, Frida will stand
as one of the best films, ten minutes at a time, of the year.
(Yes… that is a compliment and an insult… not pull-quote
material.)
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