A New Frida Kahlo Documentary, Based on Her Diaries

Summary

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Podcast Summary: All Of It – "A New Frida Kahlo Documentary, Based on Her Diaries"

Podcast: All Of It (WNYC)
Host: Kusha Navadar (in for Alison Stewart)
Air Date: April 12, 2024
Guest: Carla Gutierrez, Director of the documentary "Frida"

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Overview

This episode centers on the new documentary "Frida," which explores the life and artistry of Frida Kahlo by drawing directly from her diaries and letters. Unlike previous documentaries that rely on external commentary, this film aims to let Frida Kahlo "speak for herself," revealing her inner thoughts, humor, vulnerabilities, and personality. The conversation with filmmaker Carla Gutierrez highlights the documentary’s creative approach, the challenges in accessing Frida’s writings, the process of animating her iconic works, and reflections on Kahlo's potential reception of today’s social media culture.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

A New Approach to Frida Kahlo’s Story

• Directly from Frida’s Own Words:
  Gutierrez discussed why her documentary departs from conventional formats, allowing Kahlo to narrate her own life through her writings rather than relying heavily on scholars, experts, or acquaintances.

  "...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 course, you know, we just kind of were guided by her.”
  (Carla Gutierrez, 03:31)

• Firsthand Voices Only:
  The team aimed to feature only those who were an intimate part of Kahlo’s life, but found that her own voice was so strong it came to dominate the narrative. (03:31-04:55)

Collecting Frida’s Writings

• Extensive & Global Research:
  Gutierrez credits her team, led by producer Katya McGuire, for assembling Frida’s scattered writings from international collections. Access was only possible because Diego Rivera gifted their archives to the people of Mexico.

  “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.”
  (Carla Gutierrez, 05:01)

• Finding the Personal Side:
  The trove included both monumental reflections and personal minutiae—like high school notes to her mother asking for lunch money—that helped the filmmakers “really hear her voice.” (05:01-06:34)

New Facets of Kahlo’s Personality

• Fragility & Sharp Wit:
  Gutierrez, despite “obsession” with Kahlo, was surprised to discover new depths—her fragility, especially around her pregnancies, and her biting humor.

  "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 straight from her own voice."
  (Carla Gutierrez, 06:41)

Animating the Paintings

• Immersing Viewers in Her Inner World:
  The film incorporates cinematic animations of Kahlo's paintings (e.g., the title sequence of "What the Water Gave Me") to visually access her emotions and intentions.

  “We always wanted to find a way to…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.”
  (Carla Gutierrez, 08:47)

• A Bold, Controversial Choice:
  Some viewers questioned the appropriateness of animating such iconic works, but Gutierrez prioritized respect for Kahlo’s intention and emotional truth. Most audiences responded positively, feeling “immersed” in Kahlo's world. (08:47-11:04)

Storytelling Choices & What Was Left Out

• Serving Frida’s Uncontainable Voice:
  While some cherished items didn’t make the final cut, every decision centered on showcasing Kahlo as a woman “who cannot contain her voice and chooses not to contain her voice.”

  "The choices that we make was always at the service of that theme…showing...that spirit."
  (Carla Gutierrez, 11:19)

Filmmaking Perspective: Biopics and “Badasses”

• Essence Over Greatest Hits:
  From previous biopics on Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Julia Child, Gutierrez learned the value of seeking the subject’s core emotional journey—not just their accomplishments.

  “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 catharsis.”
  (Carla Gutierrez, 12:38)

Frida Kahlo & Social Media

• A 20th-Century "Selfie" Queen:
  Kahlo took raw, honest self-portraits; Gutierrez believes she would have embraced social media playfully, had fun with her memefication, and would have laughed about misunderstandings.

  “She would have had a lot of fun with it...she would have laughed really hard and would have told everybody how they got it wrong.”
  (Carla Gutierrez, 15:38)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Frida’s Voice:

  “Frida herself told us, no, no, no, I want to take control of this storytelling.”
  (Carla Gutierrez, 03:31)

• On Emotional Discovery:

  “To hear that fragility just gave me a much more of a more entire picture of her as a human being in all her complexities and all her messiness.”
  (Carla Gutierrez, 06:41)

• On Animation Risks:

  “How do you choose to touch the paintings of such an iconic artist? ...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.”
  (Carla Gutierrez, 08:47)

• On Frida & Social Media:

  “She was one of the first people that did a lot of selfies, but did a lot of, like, raw, very open, honest selfies...I actually think that she would have had a lot of fun with it.”
  (Carla Gutierrez, 15:38)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:51 – Episode Introduced, context for Alison Stewart’s absence
• 03:31 – Gutierrez discusses the documentary’s distinctive approach
• 05:01 – Insights into the research behind accessing Frida’s writings
• 06:41 – Surprises about Kahlo's personality (fragility, wit)
• 08:47 – The decision to animate Kahlo’s paintings
• 11:19 – Challenges in what to include or leave out
• 12:38 – Lessons from biopics and focusing on emotional journeys
• 14:25 – Gutierrez’s personal connection to Kahlo’s art
• 15:38 – Speculation on Frida Kahlo and social media

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Closing Thoughts

This episode provides a nuanced, intimate glimpse into the making of "Frida," a documentary that prioritizes the artist's voice and vision. Gutierrez’s dedication to authenticity and innovation offers listeners a richer, more complex view of Frida Kahlo—not merely as an icon or symbol, but as a vivid human being whose emotional and artistic expression has transcended generations. The conversation is accessible, insightful, and peppered with the kind of warmth and curiosity that Kahlo herself might have appreciated.

Transcript

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[Kusha Navadar]

This is all of it. I'm Kusha Navadar in for Alison Stewart, who is on medical leave. She sends her best and wants you to know she misses you and is looking looking forward to coming back soon. This isn't the first time I've been lucky to keep the host chair warm for Allison. I got to spend some time with you all last summer when she was going through the process of donating her kidney and we had a lot of great conversations that week and so we wanted to revisit some of our favorites. So today Team Olivet is happy to present you this all of it encore presentation of those discussions. So let's get into it with a documentary about an iconic artist. Foreigners recognize Mexican painter Frida Kahlo from her Self portraits like the Wounded Deer, Self Portrait With Cropped Hair, and the Two Fridas. But beyond her work on canvas, most of us haven't really had the chance to encounter her sharp wit or thoughts and reflections on 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 Frieda herself, or 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. I began by asking filmmaker Carla Gutierrez to explain how she aimed to explore Kahlo's life and work in a different way from other biographical explorations.

[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 her herself to tell us about her feelings throughout life. So. 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 gonna rely on other people's voices. We always wanted to make the film very present tense. We only wanted to hear from voices that 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 course, you know, we just kind of were guided by her. We allowed her to kind of take over. And that was a beautiful experience.

[Kusha Navadar]

What was it like trying to get access? Because I imagine it must have been heavy research.

[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. 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, and 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 going to be late from school. Can you send me some money for lunch? So we really gathered everything that we could, and we 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.

[Kusha Navadar]

Was there something that you discovered that.

[Interviewer]

You didn't know about her before?

[Kusha Navadar]

Like, wow, she's very funny, or, wow, she's very cynical?

[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 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 abort it. And you could hear a woman that was contending with these big questions about her personal life in a very fragile and fearful way. So to hear that fragility just gave me a much 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 straight from her own voice.

[Kusha Navadar]

The sharp tongue comes out also, the.

[Interviewer]

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. Carlo, when did you decide that you wanted to include and animate the paintings?

[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 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 story 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 touch 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.

[Kusha Navadar]

How have viewers reacted to that bold choice?

[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.

[Interviewer]

Carla, we know there's so much that a storyteller leaves on the cutting room floor.

[Kusha Navadar]

Was there a letter?

[Interviewer]

Was there a painting where you thought, oof, I really wish we had space for that one.

[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.

[Interviewer]

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?

[Carla Gutierrez]

Yes, so I realized that I'm very much attracted to badasses. Absolutely. 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, cover 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 believed 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 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.

[Interviewer]

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?

[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'm sure 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. From, you know, from our film, then. Then I hope we did our work.

[Kusha Navadar]

Before we have to wrap up here. Social media. What do you think Frida Kahlo would.

[Interviewer]

Have made of social media today after.

[Kusha Navadar]

Reading all of her letters?

[Carla Gutierrez]

I mean, you know, I would say she was one of the first people that did a lot of selfies, but did a lot of, like, raw, very open, honest selfies with her pa. But she really show 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.

[Kusha Navadar]

That was my conversation with filmmaker Carla Gutierrez. The documentary is called A Self Portrait. Up next, we'll discuss a new book about Shakespeare's work titled the Great White how to Love Shakespeare Wild. Talking about race, author and Shakespeare expert Farrah Karim Cooper explains her research and critical analysis of race in the Bard's great plays. This is all of it.

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