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All Of It with Alison Stewart
A New Doc About Frida Kahlo, Based on Her Diaries
00:16:22
A new documentary tells the story of the beloved Mexican painter Frida Kahlo via her diarie.
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Fan
So I was just parking my car and then I saw you. The Gecko. Huge fan.
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
I'm always honored to meet fans out in the wild.
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Fan
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
Well, the Geico app is top notch.
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Fan
I know you get asked this all the time, but could you sign it?
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
Sign what? The app. Yeah, sure.
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Fan
Oh, that means so much. Oh, it rubbed off the screen when I touched it. Could you sign it again?
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
Anything to help, I suppose.
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Fan
You're the best.
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Commercial Announcer
I'mma put you on, nephew.
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
All right, unc. Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order, miss?
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Commercial Announcer
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Kushan Avadarp (Host)
This is all of it. I'm Kushan Avadarp. Alison Stewart. Let's play a little game. Can you name this artist just from the titles of three paintings? Here they are. Self Portrait with Cropped Hair, the Wounded Deer, and the Two Fridas. A lot of you listening might have guessed Frida Kahlo. And you'd be correct. Even though she was active in the 1930s through the 50s, and even though she passed away at the age of 47, her work has endured to make her a cultural icon today. And while a lot of us recognize her self portraits, we might not be as familiar with her sharp wit or or her describing her own life and work. A new documentary called Frida aims to fix that. Instead of listening to people who knew about Ms. Kahlo, we hear from Frida herself. At least, we hear her life told through her own words, her diaries, her letters. We also see her work in a new way through reimagined animations of her paintings. Frida is the directorial debut of filmmaker Carla Gutierrez, and she joins us now. Hi, Carla.
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
Hey. Thank you for having me.
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Kushan Avadarp (Host)
Thanks for being here. There have been lots of documentaries about Frida Kahlo, but yours is attempting some firsts of its kind. Can you tell us what your documentary does that's new with the subject of Frida?
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
Yeah. I had seen all the documentaries that existed of Frida that had been done before. And when I went back to the books about her, I saw that she really kind of told the story of many things that happened in her life and that there was an opportunity for, you know, for herself to tell us about her feelings throughout life. So we went into heavy research to gather all her writings and to tell her the truth. We knew that we wanted Frida to carry her own story and we wanted to give her the mic, but we thought that we were going to rely on other people. We always wanted to make the film very present tense. We only wanted to hear from voices that, you know, had first. You know, there were, like, witnesses of what had happened to her that were people that loved her, people that took care of her, the people that were very present in her life. But we thought that we were gonna rely on those voices a little bit more. And then when we started reading all of her writings, Frida herself told us, no, no, no, I want to take control of this storytelling and of. We just kind of were guided by her. We allowed her to kind of take over, and that was a beautiful experience.
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Kushan Avadarp (Host)
What was it like trying to get access to all of that material? Because I imagine it must have been heavy research.
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
Yes. And, I mean, I have to credit my producing team, led by the amazing producer Katya McGuire. Also, the beautiful thing, and that's something that I know that Frida Kahlo probably would have wanted, is that Diego Rivera. After Frida died, her husband, Diego Rivera, gifted all of the copyright for both his art and her art and also all of their writings to the people of Mexico. They were both communist. They believed that art really belonged to the people. So we had access. We asked permission to the government of Mexico to be able to use her writings in this film. And then my team went ahead and looked for every writing that there was of Frida. They're in different collections around the world, so they're not in one single place. There hasn't been a single publication that carries all of her writing. So there was a lot of involved research to just get everything, every word that she had said that, you know, that we could get access to. We Even have notes from her in high school telling her, mom, I'm gonna be late from school. Can you send me some money for lunch? So we really gathered everything that we could and started reading her voice. I mean, we started really hearing her voice as we were reading these writings. And she really came alive for me in a way that I had never, you know, heard her before. And I'm somebody that was really obsessed with her.
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Kushan Avadarp (Host)
Was there something that you discovered that you didn't know about her before? Like, wow, she's very funny, or, wow, she's very cynical?
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
Something that was part of it. I mean, I. You know, when I said I was obsessed, I was obsessed. I was like, probably millions of people, right? Like, they discover her art, they connect with it on an emotional level. And then, you know, they get really interested in learning about her life also, because her art is so connected to her lived experience. But, yeah, what surprised me, really, was to be able to, like, hear that texture of her personality and really get to the essence of her spirit in a way, hearing her fragility. For example, she had a long letter when she. She was, you know, she was pregnant, and she didn't know if her body was strong enough to keep the pregnancy. She didn't even know if she wanted to keep the pregnancy or maybe avoid it. And you could hear a woman that was contending with these, like, big questions about her personal life in a very fragile and fearful way. So to hear that fragility just gave me a much more like, more of a more entire picture of her as a human being in all her complexities and all her messiness. Her wit was something also that was surprising. The many ways that she expressed herself when she was criticizing a situation or she was criticizing people. She definitely had a sharp tongue, and it was really fun to hear that stray from her, from her own voice.
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Kushan Avadarp (Host)
The sharp tongue comes out also. The sharp visuals come out. One of the most striking elements visually is when you animate Frida Kahlo's paintings. So listeners. For instance, in the opening title sequence, you see her 1938 painting titled what the Water Gave Me. And the elements of that painting, like the bathtub, the feet in the water, the volcano, skyscraper, they all appear as you pan down, and they're all swaying to music and appearing as the camera goes down along the painting. Carla, when did you decide that. That you wanted to include and animate the paintings?
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
From the very beginning, actually. As we were conceiving the approach for the film, we always wanted to find a way to. In a way Dive in and have the viewers dive into her pool of thoughts and pool of emotions. And I even had this image of us swimming through those emotions. It was a way to really kind of like jump into her internal world. And, you know, when you see a piece of art in a museum and I've been able to see a few of her paintings, you know, in person, you can have this conversation with the painting. You can really, you know, take your time and, you know, have the emotional reactions, but also pay attention to all the details. But we were bringing her art into this cinematic universe where the was moving forward. And I wanted, in a way, for the viewers to have that same experience, to have a conversation with the intention that Frida Kahlo had for those paintings. So I wanted to guide the audience through the different emotions that I wanted to highlight in the paintings and again, be very respectful and truthful to the intention that we believe Frida Kahlo had in those specific paintings. So, yeah, it was a bold choice because how do you choose to touc the paintings of such an iconic artist? Right. It's kind of like messing with. It's not even a comparison, but like messing with the world of Star Wars. My kids will get really upset if you mess up with the rules. But I think it's a bold choice that I'm really happy about because we were able to really kind of highlight what she wanted us to say.
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Kushan Avadarp (Host)
How have viewers reacted to that bold choice?
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
We've got some people that criticized it because how do you touch her art? Right. But I think overall, the audiences are really loving the choice because they feel, again, that they are being able to take that jump and really immerse themselves in her thoughts and in her feelings.
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Kushan Avadarp (Host)
You're listening to all of it. I'm Kusha Navadar in for Alison Stewart, and we're talking about the new documentary Frida, which tells the story of artist Frida Kahlo through her own diaries and letters. And we're talking to Carla Gutierrez, the film's director and editor. Carla, we know there's so much that a storyteller leaves on the cutting room floor. Was there a letter, was there a painting where you thought, oof, I really wish we had space for that one.
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
There's that feeling at the beginning, but once you kind of let go of some things that you really, you know, that you really loved or you discover during the research process, you feel more and more confident that you're leaving those things out for the service of this story. And this story really. I mean, the Theme that we always talked about with my team was, you know, here's a woman who cannot contain her voice and chooses not to contain her voice, especially in, you know, in a society and at a time where the voices of women were very much suppressed and she was just loud and very honest with the expression of her true self through her art. And so that was, you know, so the choices that we make was always at the service of that theme. That was always at the service as showing really being able to capture that spirit. So there were some details that we left out, but I think the film and the storytelling is better for it.
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Kushan Avadarp (Host)
You had worked on other documentaries prior to this about other influential figures, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Julia Child. What have you learned about telling stories about cultural icons that you put to work here?
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
Yeah, so I realized that I'm very much attracted to badasses.
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Kushan Avadarp (Host)
Absolutely.
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
And I think that will continue what I've learned. And my approach when I get involved with a biopic is, again, not to just do a list, you know, cover, you know, the list of greatest hits or all the accomplishments of that person, but how do you go beyond that? How do you really, you know, get a sense of their emotional journey? So, for example, with Julia Child, for me, that film was about pleasure and about, you know, an older woman kind of like, finding a passion and giving into that pleasure. Right. Enjoying life like that. For rbg, it was about a woman that, you know, that believe that progress happens very slowly, but you just have to do the work. And she did the work all the time. So it's really. How do you capture the essence of somebody? And with Frida, again, about a woman that chose not to contain her voice and that her artistic expression gave her, you know, catharsis. It was a process of a cathartic process for her that gave her so much, you know, with the fact that she lost so much in her life. Painting really completed her life and how good that is, you know, to let it out and to let it out in honest ways.
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Kushan Avadarp (Host)
Would you say that this catharsis that she felt that you're describing, the ability to bring that to viewers, is what you're proudest of with this piece, or is it something different?
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
I think so. I mean, I think that I definitely, you know, I kept thinking about my own relationship with Frida's art. I discovered her when I was a young immigrant in the United States, and I saw a painting of hers where she was standing in between the United States and Mexico, and I felt that that really reflected My own feelings and my own experience. And as I mature as a woman, that was the experience that I always had when I saw one of her paintings that I saw myself in her. And it was because she got so personal. Even though it was her face. She was just really saying in her paintings, you know, my most intimate feelings, even if it's about grief, even if it's about pain, those are important. And they're important enough for me to pour those feelings onto the canvases. So if we capture that in the film, and that's what people take away from, you know, from our film, then I hope we did our work.
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Kushan Avadarp (Host)
Yeah. And do you think that's particularly important right now? Why tell the story about Frito right now?
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
You know, there's a reason why we keep connecting with her besides the fact that she's become a symbol for, you know, feminist empowerment or, you know, queer freedom for people with disabilities. I think just her showing that, you know, honesty and the release of your honest feelings is cathartic. It's like therapy for her, it was through her paintings. But, you know, especially now, because we cure so much the way that we show ourselves to the world with social media, that it's. I think it's still very difficult for us to really face, you know, the. The tough parts of ourselves or. Or the pain that is inside of ourselves, and we hide it. Especially, I feel women, we hide those things. We don't think that they're important. So, yes, that was. That was really the goal for this film to show that.
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Kushan Avadarp (Host)
And you just made me think of something quickly, before we have to wrap up here. Social media. What do you think Frida Kahlo would have made of social media today after reading all of her letters?
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
I mean, I would say she was one of the first people that did a lot of selfies, but did a lot of raw, very open, honest selfies with her paintings. But she really showed her internal being so much. I actually think that she would have had a lot of fun with it. I actually think that she would react to, you know, what she's become. I mean, because she's not only become a symbol, but she's kind of like a commercial image at this point. You know, she's a pop culture image. And I think that. I personally think that she would have had a lot of fun with it and would have really respected the, you know, how irrelevant all of that is. She would have had a lot of opinions about it and would have laughed really hard and would have told everybody how they got it wrong. That's what I think.
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Kushan Avadarp (Host)
Carla Gutierrez has been with us. She's the director of A Self Portrait, talks about Frida Kahlo through her own words, her letters and her diaries. Carla, thank you so much.
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
Thank you so much.
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Kushan Avadarp (Host)
Coming up on tomorrow's show, in almost exactly a month, it'll be tax time. Lynette Kalfani Cox, also known as the Money Coach, joins us to discuss. Discuss how to prepare and get your finances in order. Thank you all so much for joining us today. This has been all of it. I'm Kusha Navadar. We'll see you tomorrow.
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Commercial Announcer
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
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Commercial Announcer
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Gecko (Geico Spokesperson) / Carla Gutierrez
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