The release of the movie “Blonde” featuring the life of Marilyn Monroe on Netflix at the end of September is causing controversy.
The Netflix movie “Blonde” appeared at the second place of the top 10 movies released in France the week of its release, on September 23. But it is not unanimous.
Director Andrew Dominik takes on the legend Marilyn Monroe, whose real name was Norma Jean Baker, who died 60 years ago. The film presents the neuroses and traumas of the young star, but in a very (too ?) romantic form.
To play her, Andrew Dominik had first thought of Naomi Watts or Jessica Chastain, but it is finally the Cuban actress Ana de Armas, 34, who appeared in the last James Bond movie “Dying Can Wait” who was chosen for the role.
“Blonde” is based on the eponymous novel by Joyce Carol Oates, in which the author remodels and reinvents the tears and tragedies of Marilyn’s short life, between a miserable childhood, a father she never knew and a schizophrenic mother and various sexual assaults.
On this basis, the filmmaker has obviously had a free hand to deliver his own version of the star’s life. It is an odyssey into the psyche of the actress, with two angles of attack: the absence of the father, traumatic, which leads the star to call her husbands “daddy” and the toxicity of the men she meets.
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Norma Jeane Baker is immediately raped by a studio boss, then beaten by her husband Joe DiMaggio, forced to have an abortion, subjected to degrading sexual injunctions by President Kennedy… Her neuroses are accentuated and the film highlights a personality disorder.
There is of course, a part of truth in these stories, but the film makes an obsession of it: Marilyn spends her time to see her father everywhere, to undergo atrocities, rapes, a horrible abortion which seems forced.
“Blonde” passes under silence many essential details of the life of Marilyn Monroe. It also highlights points of her life that have never been proven. For example, the actress never had an abortion in her life but she had several miscarriages. The film also takes liberties with her life by inventing her as a couple with Edward G. Robinson Jr. and Charlie Chaplin Jr.
Several celebrities such as model Emily Ratajkowski spoke out against the film: “I’m not surprised to hear that this is yet another movie fetishizing women’s pain, even in death. We do it in many different ways, but I want this to change,” she said in a video on social media.
But not everything is black in this film, Ana de Armas delivers a strong performance and we are disturbed by her resemblance to the star. The photography is very beautiful, often accompanied by black and white shots and the film is carried by the disturbing music composed by Nick Cave and Warren Elis.
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Featured photo : © Netflix
