This paper analyzes the portrayal of Frida Kahlo’s subjective “drives” (Triebe) in Julie Taymor’s biopic Frida (2002). Drawing on Christian Metz’s concept of the cinematic scopic drive and Laura Mulvey’s theory of visual pleasure, I argue that Taymor’s film constructs Kahlo’s artistic impulse as a sublimation of bodily trauma and sexual desire. By examining key sequences—the bus accident, the immobilization in plaster corsets, and the surrealist tableaux—I demonstrate how the film’s aesthetic strategies (tableau vivant, mirror shots, and surgical framing) externalize the drive’s circuit (active → reflexive → passive). Ultimately, Frida transforms the biopic genre into a study of how drive becomes form.
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, this documentary premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and offers a more personal perspective. This paper analyzes the portrayal of Frida Kahlo’s