Although there are numerous tales about the male-dominated tradition of drug lords like Pablo Escobar and Joaqun “El Chapo” Guzmán, much is written about the female Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco.
“Every tale you’ve ever heard about Griselda is that she’s a beast and monster, but it’s never that basic,” says senior producer and director Eric Newman. According to Newman, there had to be an emotional beat to the figure as they cut back her layers when telling her story. The audience’s support for her was important to us, and we immediately intervened because she does some pretty bad things.
Netflix’s six- piece minimal line “Griselda” celebrities as a person who flees Colombia and rises in 1970s Miami. There, she builds her cocaine kingdom and graphs a death marred by anxiety, power and, finally, tragedy.
Vergara, who likewise professional produces the collection, found that mental heartbeat by showcasing the character’s parental side.
“She wasn’t your regular gangster”, she says. “It was interesting for me that she was a girl in that time — more ruthless, terrible, intelligent and brave, but also a mother. I believed that she had all the right intentions when it came to providing, surviving, and caring for her home, and that her only goal was to help her home and save herself.”
She continues, “But then you realize that there was a lot more to it, that there was a lot of things that she was doing just for herself or her ego.”
Griselda was seen by artist Carlos Rivera as a person who was larger than life and who could be treated operatically, especially given her numerous inspiring speeches to ruffle the audience. With that in mind, he opted for great “orchestral and extraordinary chords”. In the movie’s starting field, he also played songs against type. “When we reveal her wound, I put an American horn sound that was really lovely against the physical, which was really almost grotesque”, he notes.
At the height of Episode 5, Griselda’s electricity comes into its peak as the drug industry leader in South Florida grows.
The show’s look was created by cinematographer Armando Salas using the European widescreen aspect ratio of 1.66 :1. “I got thinking about framing and composing her and giving her a lot of energy, and in the body, she’s the primary stage, but also being able to isolate her from various figures”, says Salas. That feature ratio allows us to make this one figure and how she moves within it, so to speak.
Salas harkened up to the aircraft for the movie’s opening shot. “We did a version of that techno crane shot that takes us through the dance floor, picks up with Rivi ( Martín Rodríguez ) moving through the crowd, past the bouncers and the camera keeps gliding through until it lands on Sofia’s close- up, and she’s dressed in white. The tones have shifted, and she’s dead facility in shape with these people catering to her.”
He continues, “Without a single moment of exhibition, she runs this city then … when that picture kicks in, you understand the power framework.”
Griselda’s fear has intensified. She may be celebrating power, otherwise, she’s destroying her connections. The scene’s anchoring group gets even crazier and crazier. That occasion is “the start point for her downfall,” says writer, publisher and co- showrunner Doug Miro.
“Every picture was created using her emotional and intellectual viewpoints.” Every day we’re composing people around her, it is to offer this feeling that maybe they are conspiring against her even though they’re not, “Salas explains, noting that the colours shift to” a bit more terrible” to represent that.
Rivera’s report becomes over the top with polytonal sounds and various harmonies happening concurrently, which, the artist says, “reflects the lunacy that she’s going through”.
In contrast, he used a guitar whenever Griselda was surrounded by her kids to show off her loving side and highlight her connection to her family.
“She’s the most ferocious mama bear”, he says. It was a way to make the empathy machine work with the audience.
It was also one of the few times Griselda wears white, a metaphor for cocaine. Safowa Bright Bitzelberger, a costume designer, says “She had this darkness in her that was related to her desire for power and her resentment of the male-dominated arena across the board.” That will all turn a dark on your soul and spirit, so having her in white represented a polarity between the two.
Griselda’s style was defined by Bright Bitzelberger and Vergara as a woman who saw wealth as a means of opening doors, especially when it came to gaining power. So, they opted for subtle prints.
“I wanted vintage stuff from the era”, says Vergara, who added that she used costume to further delineate between Gloria Pritchett, her “Modern Family” character, and Griselda, as well as herself and Griselda. She never looked too attractive or attractive. I would choose colors that I would never be able to wear and those that were not Gloria’s.
Vergara’s mesmerizing performance and physical transformation, which took three hours each day, also played a key role in telling the story. Todd McIntosh, a makeup artist, used prosthetics to conceal Vergara’s most distinguishable features, including her nose, smile, and eyebrows. He “gave her that “70s arch in place” by using eyebrow covers and thin laced brow pieces to give her a “less pretty and scraggly” look and to “create a thin laced brow piece.”
Because Griselda was a smoker, McIntosh created a pair of fake teeth, but they had to make adjustments when Vergara couldn’t pronounce what she meant. He claims, “I painted the bottom teeth in different shades of brown and nicotine for the rest of the show.”
As events erupted around her and the noose tightened, Griselda moved her family and self-removed to Los Angeles. Mentally, she was waiting to be murdered by her rivals or picked up by the police.
Salas explains: “She’s already in a prison. We’re framing her within frames. She’s in this blue and white environment, and that transitions us into her time in jail.”
