Marilyn Monroe After his untimely death at the age of 36, rumors about the legendary woman are rampant. Biography of varying quality carries rumors to supplement your eyes and ears. Revealing Marilyn Monroe, apparently the wish of Andrew Dominic, director of "Blonde Monroe". From the director who directed "Handling Swordsman's Death " to starring in "007 Girl" Anna de Armas , and then to being shortlisted for the main competition unit of Venice, the early appearance of "Blonde Monroe" is very good.
However, since the premiere of "Blonde Monroe", the film quickly turned from a mixed reputation to a "destroyed" half, and the Douban score was frozen at 5.6 points. Those who don’t like this movie think that the film’s description of Monroe is seriously inaccurate, and the most influential actress in Hollywood was filmed as a helpless "silly white sweet" who was deeply involved in the Oedipus complex. Some supporters also said that the film's "male gaze" is precisely to expose Hollywood's exploitation of female celebrities' bone sucking and marrow, and believed that the film used special shooting style and editing techniques to establish "media reflexivity", forcing the audience to discover the absurdity of the male perspective.
movie "Blonde Monroe" poster.
In the view of the author of this article, the more essential question behind "Blonde Monroe" filming Monroe as a victim of Hollywood and patriarchal society is: What kind of person is Marilyn Monroe? Many people are offended by "Blonde Monroe". The main reason is not that it films Monroe very "miserable", but that it films Monroe very "stupid". Meanwhile, although the director repeatedly declared that "I am not interested in the truth, but the image", the film's separation effect is not obvious. In a time different from Monroe's time, they are all worth telling their own stories.
is badly fabricated,
may it be completely incorrect?
What kind of person is Marilyn Monroe? The first impression that most people come to their minds is symbolic and fragmented: it is blonde, a mole on the lips, and the wind from the underground passage in " Seven Years Itch ". What I think of is a wonderful detail in the documentary "Less Life Record":
Due to the Cuban revolution, the United States has locked the country on Cuba for decades. When diplomatic relations eased, Cuban bands came to New York for a tour, and the elderly recognized Chaplin in the street windows, but could not recognize Marilyn Monroe. The cross-section of the times and the decades when they were not heard of each other, Wenders underestimatedly revealed it with such a leisurely pen. To put it another way, there are only characters like Marilyn Monroe who are worthy of endorsing the entire era. Stills from the documentary "Les Floating Life Record".
But what kind of person is Marilyn Monroe? Removing the veil of idols is something that many people dream of, from biographers, to tabloid reporters, from peers, to movie fans. Especially after Marilyn Monroe died young at the age of 36, rumors about the legendary woman were rampant. Biography of varying quality carries rumors to supplement your eyes and ears: "The Life of Marilyn Monroe and His Bizarre Death" "Who Killed Marilyn? 《Goddess: Marilyn Monroe's Secret Life》…
reveals Marilyn Monroe, which is also obviously the wish of Andrew Dominic, the director of "Blonde Monroe". From the director who directed "The Death of the Sharpshooter", to starring "007 Girl" Anna de Armas, to being shortlisted for the main competition unit of Venice, the early appearance of "Blonde Monroe" is not bad. Although he is a Latino, Anna, who has dyed blonde hair and red lips, freezes her close-up on the poster, as if she is Monroe herself.
However, after its premiere, the reputation of "Blonde Monroe" quickly turned from a mixed reputation to a "destroyed" half, and the Douban score was frozen at 5.6 points. Those who don’t like this movie think that the film’s description of Monroe is seriously inaccurate, making Hollywood’s most influential actress a helpless "silly white sweet" who is deeply involved in the Oedipus complex. The shooting of female star underwear at 360 degrees is even more than that of Monroe when she was alive.Some supporters also said that the film's "male gaze" is precisely to expose Hollywood's exploitation of female celebrities' bone sucking and marrow, and believed that the film used special shooting style and editing techniques to establish "media reflexivity", forcing the audience to discover the absurdity of the male perspective.
Stills of the movie "Blonde Monroe".
The noise of the crowd aroused my curiosity about Marilyn Monroe. To be honest, my previous understanding of Monroe has not been deeper than the symbolic blonde and red lips and the gossip circulating at the corners and alleys. After "Blonde Monroe", I urgently watched and read a series of Monroe-related works, trying to strip away the subjectivity of the narrative and piece together a Monroe that is closest to the reality. I want to know: It is said that "Blonde Monroe" is inaccurate, but how inaccurate is it?
Conclusion First of all, "Blonde Monroe"'s performance of Monroe is not completely distorted. The film does exaggerate the shameless Hollywood and the weak Monroe in the patriarchal society. It is not those scenes that are entangled by power and violated by "boss" or "president" - in fact, their authenticity is the most worrying - but a rare clip of Monroe speaking and expressing her thoughts in this film:
When facing the former athlete (the identity corresponds to Monroe's second husband, baseball player Joe DiMaggio ), she said: "I want to go to New York to learn performances, serious performances." However, because the other party did not give positive feedback, she immediately changed her tone and said that she was more in line with the "personality". "But I mainly want to settle down and have a family like every girl. I especially want children." This smart transformation talked about the habitual suppression she encountered.
Stills of the movie "Blonde Monroe".
A conversation I prefer happens between her and the playwright (identity corresponds to Monroe's third husband, writer Arthur Miller). They were discussing the playwright's work, and the heroine Magda's prototype was his girlfriend who died young. Monroe said that this character reminded her of Natasha in Chekhov "Three Sisters" because she is "strong, cunning and calm." The playwright asked her quite unexpectedly: Who told you this? He did not believe that Monroe had read books, nor did he believe that Monroe interprets female characters.
Monro hesitated for a moment and added a guess: "Magda should be illiterate. When reading the poem written by her lover, she just pretended to read it." The playwright suddenly realized and shed tears. Why did he believe in the explanation proposed by Marilyn this time? Because he doesn't believe that the perfect woman in his memory will be smart or cruel. He only accepted that she was stupider and affectionate than he thought.
Monroe has always had a sensitive understanding of her weak position in Hollywood, which is a man. In the film, she repeatedly emphasizes the distance between Norma Jane (her original name) and Marilyn, who is an orphan: "I am this Marilyn's slave" and "Dad, the girl on TV is not me." She consciously plays "Monroe" and wins the public's love with her image as a blonde beauty.
Stills of the movie "Blonde Monroe".
This subtle relationship between Norma Jane and Marilyn also appears frequently in Monroe's autobiography. For example, Monroe has a bad reputation for being late for love. She was late for the president’s birthday party, and the host joked that she was “Late Monroe.” Fox even fired her from the crew of her last work "The Legend of the Two Phoenixes". The apparent reason is that she is often late and absent from work to affect filming. But in the autobiography "Marilyn Monroe: My Story", she explained her lateness this way:
I finally started to wear clothes, and I can be as slow as I can. I began to feel a little guilty because there seemed to be an impulse inside me to be as late as possible. Being late makes me happy—people are waiting for me. They were desperate to see me. They need me. I thought of my childhood when I was disliked. Countless times, no one wanted to see this little maid—Norma Jane even her mother.
In the process of punishing these people who are waiting for me, I gained a deformed sense of satisfaction. But what I really punished was not them, but those who abandoned Norma Jane years ago. I think it's more than just a punishment.I was excited as if it was Norma Jane who was going to the party, not Miss Monroe. The longer I am late, the happier Norma Jane is.
Monroe is Norma Jane’s weapon of empowerment and “revenge”, and it is also her suffocating mask. In the documentary Marilyn Monroe: The Last Day, one interviewee recalled that Monroe once said that she wanted to be an ordinary staff member, which surprised the other party: "Everyone wants to be Marilyn Monroe!" And Monroe said: "But I hope to get the same respect as you." This is something she could never get as a top "pornstar". In her autobiography, she also wrote: "I want them to treat me as a person. After getting rid of the identity of orphans, this person finally gained some rights."
There is a line in "Blonde Monroe" that is well written - I didn't find out whether this really comes from Monroe's mouth - Monroe said: "In the movie, they cut you into pieces, but this piece is not yours, you are just part of the puzzle." This painful perception coincides with a scene in "The Beauty of Comet" in which Monroe played a supporting role in the early days:
Even though everyone, including the director, admits that female stars are geniuses, when quarreling with her, the male director still said furiously: "No piano would think that the masterpiece was written by himself." Female stars are just materials, musical instruments, inspiration, and objects that are stared at. Only through the hands of male artists can they become masterpieces. There is no more scene that can better show women, especially middle-aged women in the art world, the structural aphasia and helplessness behind hysteria.
documentary "Marilyn Monroe: The Last Days".
So, what is the problem with "Blonde Monroe" making Monroe a victim of Hollywood and patriarchal society? In fact, the essential question it guides us to think about is: What kind of person is Monroe?
Video inside and outside:
What kind of person is Monroe?
Many people were offended by "Blonde Monroe". The main reason is not that it made Monroe very "miserable", but that it made Monroe very "stupid".
The reality of Monroe is really not going well in Hollywood, even though she has been informed. In her autobiography, she wrote: "When people all over the world look at this man named Marilyn Monroe, Mr. Zanuk, who controls my destiny, can only see Norma Jane." Zanuk was the real power of Fox, who was signed by Monroe at that time. Regarding their unpopularity, Monroe was very insightful attributing to : "They (the senior executives of the film company) like to promote their candidates like government officials. They don't like the public to stand up and throw a photogenic person on their thighs and say, 'This is the girl we like.'"
can overcome personal grudges and see through the core of this struggle is Game of Thrones. Marilyn Monroe is not a stupid girl. It is regrettable that "Blonde Monroe" only allows her insight, passion for performance, and the Dostoevsky that she has read stay in a few lines. She always laughs in front of the camera, crys in life, and is frightened in dreams. In the dramatic emotional spectrum, she lacks anger only because anger drives change. There are almost no active actions related to career initiated by Monroe as the main body. The only time I felt Monroe's career edge in the film was when she learned that the income gap between herself and the male star as a female star: "So Jane Russell can get one million?!...Go to your Marilyn!" I wonder if the director thinks she is too merciless, so this unhappiness about money has never reappeared. But anger is more down-to-earth than other feelings, which makes her vent her dissatisfaction with herself the only time she has. Monroe, who was not angry at other times, was just a fragile orphan.
Stills of the movie "Blonde Monroe".
This little anger, which is completely unfinished, is also a witch compared to Monroe's power in reality. What does Monroe want? She wanted to have the power to choose the script herself, but the company didn't even show her the script before filming started. She was arranged to play some of her own "shamed characters".
The real Monroe does not hide her desires. In the film, she will also evasively face her intimate partner and replace her career goals with family goals; in reality, she says: "Because I want to be an artist, not a pornographic monster. I don't want to be sold to the public as porn. Let them look at me and then tremble." The sense of crisis comes from a sober self-awareness: "If I don't fight, I will become a commodity and be sold on a DVD cart." She began a long-term struggle with the film company. Even in the last moments of her life, she was working hard to revitalize the crew and restart filming.
director Andrew Dominic said in an interview with BFI: "I think she (Monroe) is an outstanding and powerful woman, but I don't think she is born successful as people today imagine. Everyone has some powerful moments, and people tend to say that she has control over life, but what she actually wants is to destroy her life." This interpretation is concretely reflected in Monroe in the film: helpless and disabled, and has a strong tendency to self-destruct. Faced with the poisonous relationship between the two sexes, she trembled and kissed her red lips, and the painful accusation turned into a erotic moan, dealing with it as a "pseudo-father-daughter relationship" that the audience wanted to refuse but welcome.
In "Blonde Monroe", Monroe is not only "stupid" but also "crazy". And this "crazy" is connected with her feminine bloodline. Monroe's mental instability is first considered a legacy from her psychopathic mother. When it comes to her mother's illness, others first kept silent, and then evasively said: "She has a mysterious illness." Monroe asked in fear: "Is my mother's illness inherited? Is it born?" The blood from the maternal lineage is poisonous, while the father is "Clark Gaibo" who lives on the wall forever, hidden and indestructible.
Stills of the movie "Blonde Monroe". Monroe in
film murmured on her mother's sickbed: "You did the right thing, you gave birth to a child, you gave birth to me." Although it was comfort, it was only the mother's fertility. The film shys away from mentioning Monroe's mother's career—the film editor—and the possible impact she has on her daughter's career. If I didn't know about this, I would really think that Gladys Baker, like the crazy mother in all literary works, was just an ominous crazy woman, who had never done the third thing except having a baby and going crazy.
inherited the gene of "crazy" from his mother. Through Hollywood exploitation, Monroe's madness in "Blonde Monroe" was forced to maximize it from several miscarriages. Every miscarriage emphasizes that Monroe’s greatest regret is to become an ordinary mother rather than a serious actor. If you want to propose the most exciting scene from "Blonde Monroe", many people may think of the following paragraph: Monroe startled from the operating table for abortion, ran outward, and ran into the fire scene where her mother set fire in her memory. Montage links childhood shadows with premature babies. Monroe frequently returned to the trauma site, like the murderer who was on the scene of a crime. Inserted into the video's computer animation, the baby is twitching in pain, like a prophecy of mysticism.
Stills of the movie "Blonde Monroe".
In history, crazy, especially "hysterical", has always had a strong femininity. In Sidnham's "Experimental Medicine" in the 18th century, the doctor said with confidence: "When some women consulted me about a disease that I could not judge, I asked them if it only caused the disease when they were in a sad mood... If they generally acknowledge this, then I can conclude that they are suffering from a hysteria." How rigorous! A woman who is physically unwell and has a down mood can be stamped as crazy.
" Madness and Civilization ", Foucault further reveals the relationship between women's body and madness from ancient times to the present. A series of female physiological reactions such as pregnancy, childbirth, and menstruation are regarded as signs of women's "extra-sensitivity", and "extra-sensitivity" represents the possibility of hysteria:
"Generally speaking, patients with hysteria have extremely keen feelings of introversion, while patients with hypochondriasis have less sensitivity.Of course, women belong to the former category, because the uterus and brain are the main organs that sympathize with the entire body. ‘Uterine inflammation is usually accompanied by vomiting; pregnancy can cause nausea, nausea and ; vaginal diaphragm and abdominal muscles will contract during delivery; headaches, mild fever, back pain and abdominal pain will occur during menstruation. ’The whole body of women is filled with incredible blurry and direct sympathetic channels. The female body is always in communication, thus forming a place that is absolutely beneficial to sympathy. The female body space always contains hysterical possibilities. The sympathetic sensations of a woman's body scattered throughout her body, making women susceptible to mental illnesses called depression. "
In "Blonde Monroe", the chest, lips, thighs and uterus are all carrying desires, and they become a breeding ground for madness. Women who give birth to childbirth inherit madness, while infertile women face miscarriage and lack of posthumous as the ultimate curse. I think many viewers have strong discomfort because they see not only the twisted Monroe, but the millions of "crazy women in the attic".
In the last moments of life, Monroe did suffer from depression . But she stayed working and was even considered to be "peaking". In the last few interviews in her life, she was like a never-ending warrior, and even the end of her film and television career would not knock her down: "I am very disgusted with the media saying that I suffer from depression and fell to a trough, just like I was finished. Nothing can silence me, even though I was done with filming, it was also a relief for me. That kind of work is like a hundred-meter running. You finally reached the end. You sighed and said that you finally succeeded. In fact, you will never reach the end. There will always be the next scene and the next movie, and everything has to be started over again. ”
From Monroe’s era to the present:
They are worth telling their own stories
In fact, director Andrew Dominic repeatedly declared: “What I am interested in is not the truth, but the image. "Switch between black and white and color, hallucination and reason, film and reality, "Blonde Monroe" also plays the media game. Cuban heroine Anna always retains some Cuban accents, all of which reminds the audience that what you are watching may not be realistic.
However, why, this effect has not convinced the vast majority of viewers? I think one of the objective reasons is the alienation effect of the film Effect) is not obvious. As early as more than 20 years ago when filming " Ruan Lingyu ", Kwan Jinpeng used historical materials, actor interviews and performance interlaced editing to achieve better results. Compared with the Cuban accent of non-native English speakers in "Blonde Monroe", "Ruan Lingyu" sometimes displays the Maggie Cheung , which is interviewed as an actor, and sometimes displays Maggie Cheung who plays as Ruan Lingyu, allowing the audience to more clearly identify the distance between Ruan Lingyu and Maggie Cheung, reality and fiction. In this way, the "flow left by Ruan Lingyu before his death is avoided. The words are terrifying" together.
Stills from the movie "Ruan Lingyu".
The second objective reason is that we are indeed in an era that is highly sensitive to gender issues.
Before describing this era, I want to talk about Monroe's era. When reading Monroe's autobiography, I found that she was a very wise and powerful woman. But to be honest, there is one thing that made me feel uncomfortable, that is, Monroe's occasional "misome" remarks. For example, she said: "In fact, my popularity is limited to men." Women either pretend to like me or just say that I angered them without any concealment. "When she was studying at the University of Southern California, , there was a female teacher who said, "At first, it disappointed me because I didn't think a woman could teach me anything." "Of course, the talent of the female teacher later impressed her.
Here, I didn't want to criticize Monroe's "female competition". What I feel is how typical Monroe's mentality was. At that time, women became widely used objects of consumption, and lacked same-sex alliances in order to compete for resources in the hands of men.The world at that time was far from ready to respect a "pornstar", both men and women. Monroe is indeed envied by many women. In her autobiography, she wrote more homosexual people who had conflicts with her than women with good relationships.
"Marilyn Monroe: My Story", written by Marilyn Monroe [US], translated by Song Hye, Pu Rui Culture | Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House, July 2015.
But is it really impossible for the female alliance to exist? Are women like Monroe destined to live between the consumption of men and the exclusion of women? When I was watching Marilyn Monroe: The Last Days, what moved me the most was a passage from Monroe's doctor: "(After Monroe's death) I received several calls from ordinary women. Their reaction was that if they had known Marilyn was in trouble, they would do everything they could to help her. Only then did I understand that Marilyn not only attracted the attention of men. Women understand the lost little girl in her heart, and they reacted to this situation."
Such a voice might have been weak at the time, but fortunately, it is now gradually becoming a trickle to form a sea. As Virginia Woolf repeatedly mentioned in "HTM1 Mrs. Dalloway ", what is popular now is "girls help girls". Perhaps, now we are finally beginning to learn to understand Marilyn Monroe. Therefore, people today feel furious when they see the outdated character portrayal in "Blonde Monroe".
It is also mentioned above that compared to the biopics that restore Monroe's life, director Dominic is actually more inclined to position "Blonde Monroe" as an adaptation based on Joyth Carol Ottz's novel of the same name. Restoreing reality not only becomes hopeless in the multiple transformations of "reality-novel-movie", but it is not the director's intention from the beginning. What Dominic wanted to create was originally a narrative trick that was both true and false.
Stills of the movie "Blonde Monroe".
But this still cannot relieve the audience's anger. Not only because the movie, as a mass media, will participate in the public's memory reshaping project to a great extent, but also because this is the story of Marilyn Monroe - this woman has been told too many versions of the story during her lifetime, and the fantasy and rumors are booming. In her short 36 years, she didn't have much time to let her speak in her heart. The remaining half of the autobiography is left, and the last manuscript was written when she met her second husband. She has no further writing and has not been completed in this life.
In "Blonde Monroe", Monroe said to the playwright: "Dad, you will never write me, right?" But she immediately found that she was still part of the playwright's manuscript. The film screenwriter should have thought that it would be cruel to write the real Marilyn Monroe like this. Many times, becoming a narrator is a privilege, and becoming a narrator is a disaster. There is such a clever metaphor in "The Mad Woman in the Attic: Female Writers and 19th Century Literary Imagination": "As a creation 'created by a man', women are 'incarcerated in the pen'."
has just finished watching the famous historical musical "Hamilton". I like this drama very much, but I always have a small regret throughout the whole viewing: even though history has been subverted and I am so bold that I let people of color play the role of the founding father of the United States, the female characters in the drama are basically revolving around the family unit. However, at the end of this drama, a moving song "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" turned the tide and made up for this regret: when the hero dies and the contemporaries grow old one after another, who told his story and let him live in the memories of his younger generations? The answer is his wife Eliza: "I write myself back into history books." With the identity of a narrator, this woman is finally no longer just a supporting role in a hero, a wife who was betrayed and a widow who lost her son. Breaking out of the story, she becomes the storyteller.
Stills of the musical "Hamilton".
The surprise given to me by "Hamilton" is just like the regret given to me by "Blonde Monroe". The former liberates women slightly from the narrative and becomes the creator of the narrative; the latter imprisons women back into the pen.Monroe, who died young, never had the chance to tell her story again. My wish is just not to seal more of their mouths.
They are all worth telling their own stories.
Author/Yancheng
Edit/Qingqingzi
Proofreading/Liu Baoqing
