what i noticed during frida & what i think about it :)

-Right away, we get to see Frida’s identity and surface level essence when she says that she doesn’t think marriage is for everyone. She also dresses like a man for the wedding picture. Her father’s reaction to this is to laugh and say “I always wanted a son,” so we also get the sense that her and her father have a deeper connection. This is confirmed by how her demeanor differs when she is around her father – she always has a sense of humor around him.
-Silence when Frida first started to paint when she is in her body cast with the easel on the bed and the mirror on the ceiling.
-Silence of family as she takes her first steps after her injury.
-She immediately has an attitude around Diego; they relate on a completely other level.
-Silence as Diego and the other man at the party each take a big swig after the gunshot goes off to see who gets to dance with the party’s host.
-Silence while Frida and the photographer party host dance.
-When Frida shows Diego her scar there is a moment of silence. Then he says “you’re perfect.”
-We see another level of Frida’s complexity when she throws out the food that Diego’s ex-wife made them for breakfast.
-We get a deeper look at the ex-wife when she makes the scene during the wedding, and then when she tells Frida about what went wrong with her and Diego’s marriage (how once he didn’t come home for three days), and then when she teaches Frida to cook his favorite meal.
-Frida gets into a bar fight and we get an even deeper sense of who she is.
-“Diego’s like he is and that’s how I love him.” Frida tells this to the woman in New York that both her and Diego slept with when she asks Frida why she puts up with it.
-When Frida tells Diego “I’m pregnant,” he just says “Oh” and then there is silence.
-There is silence when Diego comes in one night and finds Frida bleeding in bed.
-More silence as Frida paints the dead baby.
-Silence as Diego looks at the painting and cries, then more silence as it cuts to them spooning and sleeping in bed later.
-Silence while Diego’s mural is torn down.
-Frida even brings up how people act differently around different people when she tells Diego “I’m tired of these people and I’m tired of who you around them.” She is speaking about the people in New York that Diego is painting the mural for.
-We witness a deeper level of character with the intimacy between Frida and her sister when she tells her that Diego thinks people in Mexico are stupid and blames Frida for making him come back.
-Silence as furniture is being moved and Frida cuts her hair.
-Trotsky lets us see his identity below the surface level when he confides in Frida that all of his children are dead.
-Silence as old man singing, violent dream sequence of painting
-We get more of Frida’s essence when she says “Burn this body, I’ve spent enough time lying down.”
-We get more of Diego’s essence and insight into their relationship and the love and respect he has for her during his speech at her art gallery opening in Mexico.

So basically from all those notes, what I’ve taken away is that the silence in this film is really during the traumatic/dramatic moments. It ups the drama. I think it does so in the same way that authors practicing restraint in their writing does. By not telling us the emotion the characters are feeling, the authors let our own emotions fill in that void. I’ve written a lot about that this semester because it is something that I’ve really been trying to do. I think silence serves the same function in films – by not having characters speaking, just showing us the traumatic event unfolding, we viewers can really experience it with the characters.

I also noticed that what characters choose to share with other characters is what really helps us viewers to understand not only their identity, but also their essence. In writing, sometimes an author or narrator can come in and give us more information, but in film this is often not possible, so a lot of that really comes through dialogue. Also, we get to know the characters better through seeing their interactions through other characters - how they act around them, their comfort levels, their spatial boundries, their attitudes. You definitely get this in prose as well, through scene, but it seems to come through more through film, simply because your eyes are constantly on the characters. You can’t cut out to a description of place, for example, because we are always seeing it in the background anyway. So all the body language really comes through and gives us hints about these people.

-kris