Becoming Frida Kahlo

[ Soft music plays ] -Let me tell you about a little girl born in Mexico.

She would grow up to be one of the most famous artists in the world.

We all recognize her face and that look.

But who was she really?

And why is she more loved now than ever before?

This daughter of the revolution lived no ordinary life, and hers is no easy tale to tell.

-Frida Kahlo was a rule-breaker.

-The way she broke taboos, the way she broke the norm was completely revolutionary and transgressive.

-She doesn't respect things that should be respected, like birth, blood, miscarriages.

-She made no concessions about her art.

-She was strong and ambitious, and answered to no one.

But she was also driven and tormented by love.

-She said, "I love Diego more than I love my own life."

-She would always come back to Diego Rivera, like an obsession -- an obsession that was painful.

-So, why do we still idolize her, this mixed-up mess of contradictions, and why can't we take our eyes off her?

-What people see in her is all that power of rebellion, irreverence.

-For people who are queer, for people who are brown, for people who are creative in different ways.

-She teaches us about identity.

Art was her superpower.

-In the end, I don't need her perfect.

She was genius.

[ Bell clanging ] [ Thundering ] [ Dog barking ] [ Thunder ] [ Knocking ] -Frida Kahlo was born under the rain.

July is the month of rain in Mexico.

[ Thundering ] And I have a theory -- people that are born in the rainy season are different.

[ Keys clack, ding ] [ Keys clacking ] -En Mxico decimos que lo que no te mata te hace ms fuerte.

[ Typing, ding ] What doesn't kill you make you stronger.

-At the age of six, I had polio, and my leg began to grow thin.

At first, I assumed that the children's taunts wouldn't affect me, but later, they really did.

And each time, worse.

-Era una nia que recibi mucho bullying de parte de sus compaeros.

Frida tuvo que aprender a defenderse desde nia.

-As she grew up, she needed to be different and needed to be noticed.

-She was a -- a rule breaker.

-She drank too much, she smoked too much, she used foul language.

-Tambin usaba pantaln, cosa que no estaba nada bien vista en una mujer.

-And so, what she is saying is, "Yes, I am something else.

What am I?"

-Frida Kahlo was a daughter of the Mexican revolution.

-Mexico's revolution is really the first major social revolution in the twentieth century.

It was the first opportunity a country had taken to say, "We want to change things.

We're going to improve society."

Frida Kahlo claimed that 1910 was her date of birth.

Even though she was born in 1907, she wanted to align her date of birth with the birth of this new Mexico.

She was making a statement about her devotion into all the layers of Mexican culture.

-Frida came from the village of Coyoacan, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by rivers, trees, animals, flowers, the church.

There isn't really much going on.

So, the experience of going to the National Preparatory School in Mexico City changed her life.

-Frida entra tambin a la preparatoria justo cuando la preparatoria nacional es un semillero de produccin artstica y plstica.

Eso ya es un cambio maysculo en la vida de una chica joven de 14, 15 aos que est aprendiendo todo.

In those days, it was very few women who studied the Preparatoria.

You have to bear in mind that from a generation of 2,000, there were only 35 women.

-Las mujeres que estudiaban, de alguna forma, ya traan otro chip en la mente.

Lo comn en esa poca es que se casaran y tuvieran hijos.

-Dear Mama, today, I will stay at school because Diego Rivera will deliver a lecture.

I believe it's about Russia, and I would like to learn some about Russia.

If you would like to come, let me know at noon.

Send me five cents for an ice cream cone and five cents for quesadillas?

Your daughter, Frida.

-If you were a student in the National Preparatory School, such as Frida was, there is no way you didn't know who was Diego Rivera and what he was painting.

-Diego Rivera literalmente era un rock star.

Era una de las figuras ms grandes de Mxico.

-For the very young Frida Kahlo, seeing Rivera talk, that must have been fascinating.

-Mexican muralists put a movement that completely changed the idea of art in the world.

And my grandfather, Diego, promote himself as he being the inventor, and the -- and he was the leading head.

-Los artistas mexicanos son herramientas de difusin de las nuevas ideas de la revolucin -The Ministry of Education implements the idea to produce public art in public buildings.

We need to let the people, the common people, know, through public walls, what has happened and what are we searching for?

-If you put yourself in front of one of these murals, your life has been changed.

[ Bell tolling ] [ Sweeping ] -I fell in with a group called Los Cachuchas.

They were not Communists, but Liberals.

They were lazy and never studied.

-They were called the Cachuchas.

According to them, their caps were...cachuchas?

I've never heard of that word for cap, but... She was very mischievous and so were they.

-I was loafing around in class.

I was with the boys everywhere they went.

Instead of going to my classes, I went to theirs.

I barely passed classes, or I cheated to get good grades.

-They were terrible, all of them, terrible and very bad students, which is something very -- very incredible because they were so bright, so bright.

-The cachuchas had a lot of admiration for Alejandro Gomez Arias.

Gomez Arias was the speaker in school.

He always participated in all the meetings and all the trouble.

I fell in love with Gomez Arias, and he with me.

-He was handsome.

He was pretty good-looking.

I mean, when I saw him, he was an old man, but -- but I have seen photographs of him when he was younger.

And he was very gentle.

They were an interesting pair that way.

Because she's kind of fierce, and he was not fierce at all.

-When Gomez Arias took me home, he would kiss me and recite verses to me.

I was in love with Gomez Arias, but I was very flirtatious.

He would become horribly jealous.

I wanted him to ravish me, but he preferred to tell me nice things, to kiss me, and hug me.

-Ese fue el primer amor de la vida de Frida Kahlo.

-He had this passion for her, and she had a passion for him.

He loved the vitality in Frida.

And she was beautiful.

I think she was a beautiful girl.

So, and she was more fun than most people -- lots of fun.

[ Indistinct conversations ] [ Band playing ] -It was the sixteen of September, one day after the Gritto, which is a very big festivity in Mexico for the independence of Mexico.

In those days, there was sort of a fair going around in the Zocalo, in the main plaza.

Frida went to the fair with Alejandro Gomez Arias, and they were stands with candies and with balloons and with little toys, and Frida was very fond of the little toys.

She bought a small umbrella -- this kind of Chinese umbrella that are used to decorate beverages, and she was fascinated with that.

-They were coming home from Mexico City on a bus.

The buses, at that point, were pretty rickety.

They were wooden.

They were going to get on one bus, but she lost some toy, therefore, they got on the next bus.

-She has this quote where she says, "Most of my friends grow up slowly.

I grew up in an instant."

-She was about to be 20.

-I was sitting next to Frida.

The electric train with two cars approached the bus slowly.

It hit the bus in the middle, and slowly, the train pushed it.

-The bus got ploughed into by a trolley car.

It was almost as though it was intentional.

I mean, he just kept coming and kept coming.

-The bus bent more and more.

For a time, it did not break.

But then, it burst into a thousand pieces.

It ran over many people.

-There were dead people and people screaming.

-Naturally, the first thing that I did was to look for Frida.

I picked her up, and then I noticed with horror, Frida had a piece of iron in her body.

[ Equipment beeping ] Frida's condition was so grave that the doctors did not think they could save her.

They thought she would die on the operating table.

[ Typing ] -There was a metal handrail that pierced Frida Kahlo's body.

[ Typing ] -Everything -- she was broken in many different parts.

-In this hospital, death is dancing around my bed at night.

[ Typing ] -Y los mdicos no se explicaban cmo haba sobrevivido a ese accidente.

O sea, fue tremendo.

-I lost my virginity, a kidney was bruised, I couldn't urinate, but the thing I complained about the most was my back bone.

I do not fear death.

It's pain I can't stand.

[ Birds chirping ] [ Rustling ] [ Ticking ] -Frida pasa muchas horas sola despus del accidente porque Coyoacn era como un pueblito afuera de la ciudad.

Entonces los amigos no pueden ir tanto a visitarla.

Alejandro Gomez Arias tampoco la puede ir a visitar tanto.

Cuando tienes estos momentos de soledad, yo creo que hay una introspeccin importante.

Y ah es donde una forma de entretenerse era pintando.

La mam manda a hacer un atril para adaptarlo a la cama y que ella pueda pintar en la cama.

Al principio, Frida, bueno, empieza haciendo retratos de las hermanas, de las amigas, o de la gente del crculo muy cercano a su vida.

Pero poco a poco va a tomar confianza.

-It's not that Frida Kahlo starts to paint from zero.

She liked to draw.

She liked art history.

We know that young Frida Kahlo, she would make these short trips around Coyoacan and she would make drawings.

[ Bell tolling ] [ Dog barking ] [ Indistinct conversations ] -Frida nace en una familia donde la fotografa era parte de la casa.

-Some people wanted their photos to have color, so you needed to paint over the photo with a very thin brush.

The father showed Frida how to do this.

All this is before the accident.

So, she's doing portraits of members of her family, her sisters, and of her wealthy neighbors.

And she is so pleased with the result that she writes on the back of the painting, "This is my first work of art."

-Listen, my Alex, if you can't come yet, write to me.

Alex, the last time you came, you told me that you would return very soon.

One of these days...

The pen doesn't write well in tears.

I have done nothing but wait for that day that still hasn't come.

Come to see me... Alex, I want you to come and tell me that you love me, even if it isn't true.

-She pleads with him in other letters to please come and see her.

Oh, it's it's really horribly painful because Alejandro began to pull away from Frida Kahlo while she was recuperating from the accident.

I think his parents probably thought, she's not suitable for him, and so they send him off to Europe.

-Frida was not an asset.

She had gone out of school, so he was -- She was not going to be improving herself.

[ Typing ] -What is Alejandro Gomez Arias going to do with a crippled girlfriend?

So he steps aside.

He abandons her.

-He has left me.

This man who was to be the love of my life has disappeared.

So she has to rebuild herself from zero.

-Her first self-portrait, she did it as a gift for Alejandro Gomaz Arias at the moment that he was trying to be -- not be her boyfriend any more.

And she sent it to him, and she sent a note with it, saying, "Please hang it in a low place, where you can look at it as if you were looking at me."

- So please, don't you stop me No, don't you stop me -It's funny because if you think in terms of today, that would be almost like in the act of harassment.

- Like a mirror staring out to sea Oh, my mind is free, so please don't you stop me No, don't you stop me -So the message of Frida in the painting is, "No matter what happened to my body, I am still here, and don't you forget that."

It's a very special painting for her.

- Cherie, your eyes -Desde un principio, la obra de Frida habla mucho de s misma.

Es una forma de exorcizar los demonios, de ponerlos afuera de ti.

Siempre pasa estas problemticas a la pintura.

Desde el accidente, el ser creativo es una forma de ganar, de no dejarse vencer.

- Oh No, don't you stop me, no, don't you stop me No, don't you stop me -If you want to became an artist between 1920 and 1940, you have to be in Mexico.

It was like a procession.

-At this time, in the 1920s, Mexico was fun.

So it was a real flowering of culture.

-After the Mexican Revolution, people went crazy about Mexico.

They all came.

A huge amount of artists, they wrote, they painted, people from cinema.

Orson Welles came with Rita Hayworth, who was really very extraordinary, very beautiful.

And they were quite taken by -- by Mexico.

They thought it was like coming to paradise.

-By 1927, Frida Kahlo has recovered sufficiently from her accident that she wanted to be an artist.

She had ambitions of being an artist.

She wants to meet them.

-Her spirit was back, and she decided that she had to paint.

And obviously, she loved doing it.

And I think she must have realized that she wasn't bad.

She was pretty good.

-The reality must have been, "What is going to be of me?

If I'm not going to be able to go back to school and I'm not going to be able to become a doctor," as she wished to, "what is going to happen to me?

I'm not sure about it.

I don't know if I have what it takes."

So, she goes to see Rivera when he was painting at the the Ministry of Education.

Her approach to Rivera, based on the fact that he was very important, he was very well known, he had painted murals, he was a celebrity, and she already listened to him at different lectures at the National Preparatory School.

Well, that's a strong reason to approach him, no?

-She went to the scaffold where Rivera was painting.

She wasn't phased by one of the most famous artists in the world.

She ordered him to come down from the scaffold, then said, "Listen, Diego, [laughs] I need to make a living.

Please look at these and tell me if I am good enough."

She didn't have many, but she'd painted a few portraits, some of them quite good.

-And he says, "Yes, there is definitely something there.

Interesting.

You should pursue your idea of becoming an artist."

-He told me that I should try to paint whatever I wanted, without being influenced by anyone else.

That impressed me a lot, and I begun to paint what I believe in.

-"I may not be a formal artist, like all you guys, but I am myself, and I am going to find my own way," which is exactly what she did.

-Tina Modotti is originally from Italy.

She moved to Hollywood when she was young, and she was in the silent movies.

And she's quite you know, adventurous.

Says, "Alright."

She gets on a train, and moves to Mexico city.

-Tina Modotti becomes a photographer and she's also a political activist.

She was working for the communist party, and she has very strong leftist views.

And this, I actually think, is where Tina Modotti becomes, um, quite interesting.

She was a rebel.

There is no question about it.

She's outspoken.

She didn't really believe in marriage.

She is willing to pose without her clothes on, without shame.

-Of what Frida was fascinated with this type of woman that she had never met before -- a young woman, a beautiful one, a sexy one.

-Cuando ella conoce a Tina Modotti, Tina Modotti ya era una gran fotgrafa.

Para Tina Modotti hacer fotografa tena la intencin de sealar la importancia de la vida de los otros.

Utiliza la iconografa de la post revolucin mexicana: el maz, las cananas, la hoz, el martillo comunista.

Y eso lo va mezclando en su fotografa.

-All of us, at some point in our lives, have looked up to an older woman and wanted to be like them.

She is a role model for Frida Kahlo.

Tina Modotti, for example, joins Mexico's communist party in 1927, and Frida Kahlo joins in 1928.

-Frida was seduced by everything, by -- by Tina, by the communist party, who took her in, by the -- the group that was there.

It was, um, Julio Antonio Mella, a Cuban who was a leader of students.

The Che Guevara was not in at that time, but, um, Julio Antonio Mella was very much in that line of being the -- the perfect hero.

-He is totally handsome.

[ Laughs ] He is very handsome, and Tina Modotti loves to take photographs of him.

And they fall madly in love.

-At that time, the communist party was very powerful.

It was in fashion in Mexico.

It was Julio Antonio Mella, it was Diego Rivera.

They were all the elite of the communist party.

And Diego Rivera, he was quite a monument in Mexico.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -Tina Modotti threw fantastic parties.

These parties were wild.

And not surprisingly, Diego Rivera was one of the frequent participants in these happenings.

And I mean, his reputation preceded him.

-The meeting with Diego was in a period when people carried pistols.

At a party given by Tina, Diego shot a phonograph, and I began to be very interested in him.

-In the context of the post revolution era in Mexico, it was common to carry a gun just, you know, to keep things straight, no?

And Rivera was that kind of man.

And it was then that Frida, she started to see him in a different context.

Not in terms of the master who makes murals, the man whose opinion is important to me.

Rivera was impressive.

He was huge, he had this great personality.

He could be very funny.

He was very outspoken.

You know, everybody listened when Rivera talked.

And I think this is part of what Frida starts to see in Rivera.

-I think he was the most famous painter in the world.

Possibly Picasso was more famous.

At that time, so, what -- what's not to love about that for Frida?

[ Laughs ] He was -- He was sort of adorable.

I could see it very easily.

-Diego was a macho, but I think he was not a womanizer.

You know, a Latin macho, it's somebody that... denigrates a woman, and Diego never do that, never never.

He really likes them.

No, he...

But, he wasn't able to be with one.

That was a problem.

-He always said that he was good in bed because he made love like a woman.

That is something difficult to understand, but that's what he said.

[ Laughs ] -There is a very funny story that when Diego Rivera arrived to visit Frida, Guillermo Kahlo ask him, "I notice that you are very frequently coming to visit my daughter.

I suppose you are interested in Frida."

And Diego says, "Of course, otherwise I didn't come to Coyoacan, like, so far to see her."

And then Guillermo Kahlo said, "Ah.

But you know, she is a demon."

And Diego Rivera said "Yes, I know."

"Okay, I warned you."

Like, "It's your problem."

-Para Diego Rivera debe haber sido absolutamente fascinante conocer a Frida Kahlo.

Alguien rebelde, fuerte, con ideas propias.

Diego Rivera no hubiera podido tener una mujer sumisa.

Y Frida Kahlo fue perfecta para Diego Rivera.

-Imagine, there is this world-famous artist that is telling you, "I want to make you a portrait in the most important mural I ever done."

Well, Frida fall immediately, absolutely.

Because also, it's a beautiful portrait.

- Bsame, bsame mucho Como si fuera, esta noche, la ltima vez -This must have been extremely seductive for her.

You know, this is the way he sees me.

This is the way he wants me.

He wants me to fight.

He wants me to be a comrade, you know.

I have a voice.

I am not just a nice girl he likes and wants to go to bed with.

-Once Diego could seduce Frida, then she became devoted to Diego Rivera.

- Bsame me Bsame mucho -Yo creo que s estaban muy enamorados.

- Como si fuera, esta noche, la ltima vez -I believe they fell in love.

- Bsame, bsame mucho Que tengo miedo a perderte Perderte despus [ Hooves clopping ] -On January 18th, 1929, Tina Modotti and Julio Mella had attended a political meeting.

The Mexican government think he's a troublemaker, they think he is dangerous, partly because he is charismatic and that he can maybe sway people more, so... At this point, Julio Mella has moved in with Tina Modotti, and they can see the building ahead of them.

But... [ Gunshots ] ...shots rang out, and Julio Mella falls to the ground.

He is 26 years old.

He's quite young when he dies.

-Tina Modotti is questioned.

The police suspect her.

What they argue, is that, of course, this is a crime of passion, that she's in love with somebody else, and has orchestrated the death of Julio Mella.

So the police arrest her.

People know that she didn't kill -- that she had nothing to do with Julio Mella.

It's like... At the same time this is happening to Tina Modotti in the police station, she's being tried in the newspapers.

They're saying, "Well, basically, if you're a member of the communist party, if you pose nude, if you take on numerous lovers, this is what is going to happen to you."

They did humiliate her at a time when she was, obviously, destroyed.

It's almost like a public shaming of Tina Modotti.

It's a way, in a sense, to punish women who don't live by the morality of the time.

It's a lesson.

I think all women, including Frida Kahlo, understand that women are supposed to live a certain kind of life.

They are supposed to be married.

They are supposed to be in the house, cooking, cleaning.

Remember, at this time in Mexico, women still don't have the vote.

During the revolution, there were a lot of promises made towards women that they would have much more equality, and the fact that that never happened.

-Mexican journalist destroyed a woman in less than five, six, seven days.

Diego Rivera was really -- He behaved very well because he accompany -- accompanied Tina, he took care of her, he defended her from journalists.

He was very good at that time.

Very extraordinary.

-Diego Rivera says that he came to Tina Modotti's rescue in his autobiography.

He was called to testify.

I'm sure Frida would have been impressed by Diego's actions, standing up for their comrade and their close friend.

She knows that her friend is... crushed, so that, I think, would have a huge effect on her.

-Frida Kahlo understands what was happening.

She knows, of course, being with Diego Rivera, it, in a way, provides a safe haven for her.

-He was her way out.

And although she wanted to be independent as a woman on her own, but it was impossible to do.

-I don't know if she convinced Diego Rivera or if Diego Rivera ask her to be married, but what they did was something very small.

They went to a civil ceremony -- only Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and her father.

The mother didn't go.

Remember, a person 20 years older and a communist -- impossible for the mother to accept it.

Y cambiaste dolor y tristeza, por algo mejor -Isn't -- She's smoking, isn't she?

She is smoking.

So she is incredibly irreverent about this situation of getting married.

It's hilarious.

-[ Laughs ] She looks Frida Kahlo.

[ Laughs ] She doesn't pretend anything that she's not.

-El da acab en un pleito tremendo en una azotea con Diego borracho, con no s qu.

- De mi corazn -So it was kind of crazy -- crazy wedding -The photo came out in the press.

Of course, there was a huge scandal because of the ages.

You know, Frida was 22 and Diego was 44 or something like that.

Diego was like, "Finally, I can construct a life."

He -- The face of him, was like, "Finally, I can construct something."

-I think Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera fell in love very quickly.

I think there was a mutual attraction they had for each other.

He was not a guy -- he just didn't want to get married.

I mean, he didn't really believe in marriage.

And he had been with women for a long, long time, you know, women who he had a serious relationship and he had children with, and yet he didn't want to marry them.

But he almost immediately wanted to marry Frida Kahlo.

So I think that does say something.

-When Frida and Diego married, her father, Don Guillermo, was in terrible problems of he has a loan on their house -- that he was almost going to lose the Blue House.

And Diego paid for everything.

He paid for the house, and then he put it through Frida's name.

-I think her father saw that this man could take care of Frida, and probably her father realized that he wasn't going to be able to pay all the medical bills that she was likely to have.

-He was one of the five most well-paid painters in the world.

With Picasso, Matisse -- he was one of the most well-paid painters.

Immediately, they went to Cuernavaca, to live in the house of the ambassador of the United States in Mexico, to paint a mural for him.

-He accepts a commission from the U.S. ambassador, but this goes against everything that the communists stand for.

That's really being a traitor.

All of the other communist artists say, "We are not accepting money from capitalists for any mural commissions."

Diego Rivera continues to accept.

He actually wanted to just paint.

Remember, this is a time of big divisions in the communist party, and Diego has been seen as not supporting the communist party line.

Taking work from capitalist Americans to paint a mural is the final straw.

-The instruction is get rid of Rivera.

Get him out of the communist party.

And that's what happens.

So, he says goodbye.

But he still is an artist from the left.

-He knew what was going to happen.

There is no way that Diego Rivera did not know he would be expelled.

And even though it was a very contentious relationship with Mexico's communist party, this was his life and these were his friends.

And they were no longer his friends.

They were his enemies.

I always wondered, like, how must that feel for Frida Kahlo, losing her friends, as well?

She had no choice, really.

She could not have stayed with Diego Rivera and remained in the party when he is expelled.

So, what's -- what is she going to do?

I mean, she leaves the party.

-She describes the first year of marriage, and she said that she took care of her house, she dusted the house.

She spent her time taking Diego his midday meal with some flowers in a basket.

She did a lot to please Rivera.

I think she was just playing the role of his exotic little wife.

And she was -- it wasn't perfect for her because she had too much -- too much going inside to play that role forever.

-I think in the first year, she was -- she was happy.

Then half as happy, porque, because Diego Rivera was starting to get a -- affairs with other women.

-Las infidelidades de Diego Rivera, Frida estaba desconsolada de celos y de tristeza.

La relacin Frida Diego era complicada.

[ Typing ] -Ese primer embarazo fue tal vez un mes, una cosa as.

Lo debe haber perdido muy pronto.

Y quiz tambin haba todo este momento de locura, de recin casada con Diego Rivera.

-I don't -- I'm not very sure, that she wanted so -- so -- to be a mother, you know?

I am not sure.

I think that for her, the most important thing, apart from her paintings, was Diego Rivera.

And she says, Diego Rivera is such an important person that has to be traveling all the time and working and with more important subjects than being a father.

[ Typing ] -The first year of marriage, she lost a child, and Rivera was having an affair.

She was terribly unhappy.

-In 1929, she paints this portrait, Time Flies By, as it's known.

What is she seeing?

She's searching for her identity as an artist.

"I may be just married to this great artist, who is larger than me, who is more important than me.

He is in control of everything.

Everybody thinks I am Rivera's wife only.

But where am I?

I have to find my own place."

This is my time -- that's what she's saying with the plane and the clock.

It's not about the past.

It's about now.

So then what's the next step for the revolutionary artist?

-For a new wife, a new life.

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in America and in conflict.

-He'd become seduced by the U.S. -Diego wouldn't come home.

I think, you know, Frida knew what was going on.

-Facing tragedy.

-I had to paint it because I felt murdered by life.

-"Becoming Frida Kahlo."

-Pain drove her to paint.