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Frida was my first writing assignment. I’djust been signed by Creative ArtistsAgency and was ecstatic to finally be paid todo something I loved. Though technically arewrite, the Frida producers told me to goback to the book (Hayden Herrera’s Frida: ABiography of Frida Kahlo) and start over, doa new draft. I jumped right in.

Not HerBefore getting the Frida assignment in

1996, if I’d been in the same city with anexhibition of Kahlo’s work taking place, Idoubt I would have gone. Her work justdidn’t appeal to me. I’d written a screenplayon the life of French Impressionist BertheMorisot, and her art blew me away. It was ajoy to bring her alive on the page. ButKahlo? Her art seemed to me so self-involved, almost whiny and just not beau-tiful. Not that art needs to be pretty, but itneeds to focus on some truth, to commu-nicate a realness, to inspire, uplift or take mesomeplace. Some would say Frida’s artdoes all those things. And as I learned more,I would come to see they’re right.

As soon as I started reading about her, itoccurred to me that whether or not Iadmired Frida’s art was immaterial. FridaKahlo’s story was how she lived—as the titlefor her last painting “Viva la Vida” attests.It’s Frida’s indomitable spirit in the face ofadversity that has led people to revere her.

To live with joy through all that cameher way ... what strength of character shemust have had. Since great film is allabout character, I’d been given a gift ingetting this assignment.

Frida the IconThe first problem: How do you take

someone who’s become an idol to millionsand humanize her? How do you separateher real story from the folklore and idolatry?

Luckily, Herrera’s comprehensive bookdid a lot of that for me. It became my biblefor the next year.

Frida’s appeal is simply that her story is souniversal. All of us have obstacles to over-come in our lives, but few are as severe asthose thrown in Frida’s path. Frankly, if Iwalked into a pitch meeting and said “I havethis hot story about a crippled woman whoendured childhood polio, a bus accident thatnearly killed her at 16, a boyfriend whodeserted her because of her injuries, surgeriesthroughout her life to fix her back, a cheat-ing-genius-artist husband who even sleptwith her sister, multiple affairs of her own, astruggling artistic life, problems with alcohol... and then she dies young ...” I mean, canyou imagine the reaction?

But it really happened. And that’s whatmakes her story so amazing.

I begin by sitting down with Herrera’sbook and marking the moments in Frida’s

life that particularly resonate with me. I noteevents that are especially cinematic. Inthe 500 pages of Herrera’s book, obvi-ously, choices have to be made. Mymain choice? This is a love story—it’sFrida and Diego, how they affect eachother, how these two explosive personal-ities connect and grow together.

The Love Story I like writing about people who are

determined to accomplish what seemsimpossible. And when those people reallylived, there’s the great desire to do them jus-tice, to get it right. For me, there’s only oneway to do that: You try to get so close tothem that you see the world through theireyes. You don’t write “about” them—youbecome them.

There’s a stereotype of the writer who sitsin front of the computer, pounding away atthe keys, an observer of life, but not much ofa participant. I don’t think you can writeabout real people by having that concept ofthe writer, by being an observer. You need tohave the audacity to believe you can feelwhat your subject felt, to love as he/sheloved, to think as he/she thought. In theend, you lose yourself and let the charactertake over as you write.

Boy did Frida take me over! Most of thepeople I’ve written about have one charac-teristic in common: they’re not sexually

There’s a stereotype of the writer who sits in front of the computer, pound-

ing away at the keys, an observer of life but not much of a participant. I don’t

think you can write about real people by having that concept of the writer,

by being an observer. You need to have the audacity to believe you can feel

what your subject felt, to love as he/she loved, to think as he/she thought. In

the end, you lose yourself and let the character take over as you write.

ALL

PHO

TOS BY: Peter Sorel

BY DIANE LAKE

The Legacy of

FRIDASalma Hayek and Alfred Molina in Frida

(2002) NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 61s c r ( i ) p t

repressed. Nearly every screenplay I’vewritten has a main character who not onlyespouses the concept of free love but alsolives it. Frida was no exception. One of hermottos was said to be: “make love, take abath, make love again.” That made mesmile. I wanted to capture that, to let peo-ple see a strong woman, who could lovemore than one man and, far from beingpunished for it, glory in it.

Diego provided his own challenges:Namely, how do you make a disheveled300-pound guy into the Casanova that hewas? How do you get an American audienceto accept a romantic lead who isn’t classi-cally handsome? Women found Diegodevastating. Could Brad Pitt-obsessedAmerica buy that?

But I knew one thing—Frida and Diegowere my story.

Yes, Frida’s life was full of pain andstruggle, and yes, she had to fight foreverything she got. But her life was alsofull of great love—the kind of love most ofus only see in the movies. It’s that love thatbecomes, for me, the center of her story. Imean, we can paint paintings, writebooks, sing songs—the human animal is

capable of creating beautiful things—butmost of us never feel that all-encompass-ing, out-of-this-world love firsthand. Andof all the beauty that exists, it’s the beautyof two people finding each other that Iwant most to write about.

To MexicoLuckily, the studio was agreeable to

sending me to Mexico to do research. Otherthan a day trip to Tijuana, I’d never been toMexico. And Mexico City was a revelation.I was surprised at how European itfelt—spectacular museums, impressiveboulevards, lovely squares full of flowers andsurrounded by outdoor cafes. This was notthe Mexico of Tijuana. I hoped I would beable to evoke the rhythm of this city, itsenergy, in the script.

Everywhere I go I see her. OutsideFrida’s childhood home, I sit and watchtoday’s city dwellers come and go in thispleasant neighborhood. Suddenly, a younggirl in a school uniform walks by lookingjust as I picture Frida must have looked.Inside the house’s courtyard, I sit on a benchand spy on the nuances of her life, trying topicture her walking down these paths.

When I get up and walk down the stonepaths, there on a dusty stone before me I seean unusual, black butterfly with yellowmarkings. The yellow markings are remi-

Screenwriter Diane Lake

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s c r i p t m a g . c o m62 s c r ( i ) p t

niscent of the rows of black watermelonseeds in her painting “Viva la Vida.” Thebeautiful butterfly keeps trying to fly, butcan’t. There is a moment when it almostgets off the ground, but no. Still, like Frida,it keeps trying.

When I see the houses in San Angel thatDiego had built for himself and Frida, they’rebeing renovated. So when I get into theroom that would have been her studio, it’sjust wooden floors, glass windows, a veryclean, modern space for an artist who wasbeyond modern. I stand at the window,looking at the view of the lovely San Angelneighborhood that Frida would have had asshe painted. The fact that her paintingsreflect this view doesn’t surprise me at all.Part of her genius was the ability to paintwhat was inside her—the world within, notthe world outside.

When I visit the Preperatoria whereFrida went to school, I stand in the audito-rium where Frida first met Diego andimagine him painting the mural while shespied on him. Out in the courtyard I see herrunning with her friends—as one of the fewgirls at the school, she was bold enough tohold her own with the boys. I can imagineall of them pursuing her. And I can see Alex,the most popular boy in school, feeling luckyshe chose him as her boyfriend.

Here in the Preperatoria is the Frida thatcould have been ... what? ... normal?Whatever that is. But it’s not “normal” real-ly; It’s just ... free from pain. If she’d neverhad the accident, what might her life haveheld? Would she have developed the artisticstyle that she became famous for? Perhaps

she and Alex would have married and hadchildren, and Frida’s art would have been fullof happy children at play.

AccidentsI suppose it’s useless to speculate, but I

can’t help it. We’re all formed by the acci-dents of life. The day Frida left school andgot on that bus was the day her surrealisticlife began. One minute she’s the most pop-ular girl in school with a boyfriend she lovesdearly, and the next minute she’s crippled forlife and deserted by that boyfriend. A life ofsweet ease becomes a life of endless trials.And she’s only 16.

Some lives require more courage than oth-ers. Some accidents are more devastatingthan others. After their marriage, whenDiego slept with her sister, Frida was hurtmore intensely than when she’d been in thebus accident. It is the genius—and the sal-vation—of the artist to take life’s catastro-phes and exorcize them through the canvas.I wonder if there’s a way to show that onfilm ... how incomparable beauty can comeout of great tragedy.

So much of what I saw in Mexico made itinto the script: the places Frida and Diegolived, the Canals of Xochimilco, the pyra-mids at Teotihuacán, Diego’s murals at theNational Palace and the Palace of Fine Arts.I read about her trips to New York and Paris;I know they, too, need to be dramatizedbecause they, too, helped shape her.

The writing is the best part. It’s just ... somuch fun. I’m sorry. I don’t agonize or haveto get drunk or avoid deadlines. I don’t getwriter’s block. I love it. I love sitting in front

(From left to right seated at table) Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Ashley Judd and AlfredMolina in Frida, written by Diane Lake

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of the keyboard and letting Frida, Diego andall the rest of them start talking.

I smile and laugh and frown and evencry as I recreate their world. I get soinvolved I forget to eat. I’m in a basement,a windowless room, so I lose all track oftime. I’m in heaven.

I happen to be at a friend’s house inWashington over Christmas as I write thescript, and the computer I work at is next tothe laundry room. I interrupt my writing tomove a load of clothes from the washer tothe dryer, taking a second to hang up ablouse that can’t take the dryer’s heat.Being too lazy to take the blouse upstairs tohang it in a bathroom or somewhere to dry,I hang it from a cabinet handle near thewasher. I sit back down, read over the lastscene I wrote before laundry broke in,where Frida and Diego are in New York andshe wants so badly to go home to Mexico.Then I look up and see the hanging blouse.Frida’s painting, My Dress Hangs There,pops into my head. That provides theimpetus for my favorite visual, almost surre-alistic, technique in the script.

Since Frida’s art came from her life, Iwanted to do something that would help theaudience see how Frida’s life affected her artand vice versa. I could see her looking at herMexican dress hanging on the clothesline outof her New York window, and so wanting tobe in Mexico and not New York. What ifthat dress then turns into her painting, whichgives the film the transition it needs to takeher and Diego back to Mexico. It works. Sowell, in fact, I use it more than once.

An EndAll good things do come there. Soon the

script is finished. I think it’s beautiful. I justlove it. I head to FedEx® and send it off tothe producers. Then I sit back down andread it, intending to bask in my brilliance.

And I hate it.Now, this is my first writing assignment,

so I don’t know that this is my pattern. But itis. When I’m writing and when I finish ascript and read it over and rewrite and fine-tune, I end up with something of which I’mvery proud—something I can’t wait foreveryone involved with the project to see.But the minute I send it off and read itagain, I always think the same thing: Howcould I have thought this was any good?How could I have let it go?

I’m OK with that, though—now, any-way—now that I know it’s just my

method. I think it’s like sending yourdaughter off to school for the first time. Youwere happy with her while you could see her,knowing what she was up to, helping her ifshe needed it. But once out of your sight,who knows how the world will treat her?Will they see how wonderful she is? Willthey take time to get to know her? What ifthey’re too busy at school to give her theattention she deserves?

But they do tend to her. In fact, for thenext five years, foster parent after foster par-ent tends to her. She’s out of my sight, cer-tainly out of my control, and I just hope forthe best.

“We’ll Always Have Paris.”No matter what happens to your script

out there in the real world, you alwayshave the writing. You gave those worldslife. You.

So remember what you have: Writing isturning cartwheels naked in the yard on asoft summer night with a full moon above ina starry sky. It’s the most fun you can havealone. I swear.

(2002) NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 63s c r ( i ) p t

Since Frida, DIANE LAKE has gone on to write

Nancy, an original screenplay for Paramount

Pictures based on the life of British aristocrat

Nancy Cunard; Picasso, a mini-series for NBC; and

A Thousand Cranes, an original World War II

screenplay for Digital Domain. In addition to pro-

jects she has in development with Wendy

Finerman and Viacom Pictures, Diane is putting

together financing to develop the acclaimed

Katie Schneider novel, All We Know of Love.

When I’m writing, and when I finish a

script and read it over and rewrite and

fine-tune, I end up with something I’m

very proud of—something I can’t wait for

everyone involved with the project to see.

But the minute I send it off and read it

again, I always think the same thing: How

could I have thought this was any good?

How could I have let it go?

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