Blonde (2022)

Carrion, Marilyn ("What Business of Yours is My Life?")

or

"Isn't Love Always Based on Delusion?" 

 

The controversies surrounding Blonde, the new Netflix film about Marilyn Monroe*—with the "about" tending towards the "somewhat surrounding" meaning—have been many and manifold.

 

There's the casting of Ana de Armas, the Cuban born actress of Knives Out, Deep Water, and Balderunner 2049 as Norma Jeane Mortenson that generated many a plucked eyebrow to raise in a reverse of the usual "black-on-white" kvetch-mishegoss. And when the film was completed, it was smacked with an NC-17 rating, which promised some salacious material—to which those looking for it will be disappointed—that limited what venues could advertise the film. The fact that its subject is Monroe, one of the most recognizable (and marketable) icons to come out of Hollywood shouldn't slow down the anticipation or the rush to judgment that such a film would engender.

 

But, we already know the story. Or, at least, we think we know the story—as far as anything gleaned from the entertainment press can be informative. And that is of Norma Jeane, the poor waif from questionable circumstances, rising to fame to achieve ultimate Hollywood stardom—men want her, women want to be her—only to find that happiness in the stratospheric air up there is just as illusive to find as down among the mortals who crave it. But, it's also a story of Hollywood as meat-grinder. Of exploitation as a never-ending cycle. Of the predatory nature of the patriarchy. And of never being able to fight back against "The Wisdom of the Tribe."

Blonde is based on Joyce Carol Oates' "fictionalization" (the author's word) of the accepted and/or whispered Monroe story. Which, in itself, is one more craven attempt to exploit the person. Oates took stories, legends, and gossip and created a creative narrative to make it neat and tidy. But, she was making things up as she went along, only hewing to the facts that have been seen in newsreels and in Cinemascope.

Dominick begins with the harsh glare of klieg lights and flash-bulbs, the one harsh and blinding and strong, the other fast, temporary, and with the aftermath of corruption; it is the scene of Marilyn Monroe filming the "subway grate" scene of The Seven Year Itch and she pirouettes incandescently in slow motion in the glare. The main title pops on, the title filled with embers and waves. And we're in Los Angeles 1933, where 7 year old Norma Jeane (Lily Fisher) lives with her mother (Julianne Nicholson), a "studio employee" who blames the child for the absence of the child's father (another more well-known "studio employee') in her life. On Norma Jeane's birthday, her present is to be allowed to see a photograph of her father—a studio "head-shot"—but whether this is the father or not is a matter of question. Her mother will soon be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia to spend the rest of her days in an asylum, and Norma Jeane's in an orphanage.

"The press" has been saying that folks turn off Blonde after a few minutes, and one can see why, as these scenes are raw, deal with an unprettified version of mental illness, and involve child endangerment—there is much verbal abuse and when a wild-fire breaks out nearby, the mother is determined to escape to the absent father's house "in the hills" attempting to drive through the flames before being stopped by police. Returning to their boarding room, she kicks the child out, leaving her to fend on her own. Of course, people want to turn away at this point—this is tough stuff—the same way that they want to turn away from the homeless on the street. Why should they watch this to feel bad? Well, sadly, that's the story.

And it's not the story, either. The opening sets up a "Daddy Myth" for movie-Marilyn, that she will seek throughout the entire run-time of Dominik's film. The marriages—the ones portrayed, anyway (the first one's missing)—she constantly addresses her husbands as "Daddy." Is this true? I don't know, I wasn't there. But, Oates and Dominick use it as a through-line for Marilyn's entire life, in ways that she seeks father-figures (which could be true, but there may be something else to it?) and in a life-long hope that she might meet her actual father some day; letters from him are concocted to sustain that story arc, but it ultimately proves to be the cruelest part of this exercise. It is psychological speculation of the most specious, coming to conclusions from mere impressions and another example of "Fake News" from over-active imaginations.

The story then leaps from Norma Jeane's childhood to her career in modeling- seeking-acting-roles, and it is at this point that Ana de Armas enters the movie. Whatever one thinks of the movie itself, its best asset is de Armas. At 34, she still evokes the waif-like qualities that become the Marilyn persona, and her physical resemblance is uncanny enough to deflect "Monroe-memory," something extremely capable past performers have been unable to do. The voice-work is well-done without being a parody and even includes the variations between her "breathy" stage-voice and her still-vocal-coached but more natural tones.

De Armas also has a quality that helps—the camera loves her, which is that undefinable fairy-dust that shows an actor to their best advantage, but also allows the audience to read any emotional shift in their face—a quality she shares with Monroe. And Dominik has such faith in the actress and her resemblance—but, more importantly, her performance—that he risks the most brutal close-ups in emotional scenes. And they are frequent. De Armas is in such full command that she allows her face to crumple into ugliness at extreme moments—her humiliating exit from a an office meeting with a studio head (a "Mr. Z" because "lawyers"**) that is more of a pretense for rape, for example. It's one of the most brutal performances—while under scrutinized control—of any actress I've seen. De Armas has the best luck (prominent movies where she's singled out) but also the worst luck (being heavily cut out of movies) that, hopefully, casting types will see her amazing range.

If only it was in service to something better. Oates posits the newly re-christened Marilyn meeting up with fellow acting students, who also have a "Daddy" complex, but 180° opposed to hers, as they're only too well-associated with their fathers. They are Charles Chaplin Jr. (Xavier Samuel) and Edward G. Robinson Jr. (Evan Williams). The namesakes involve her in an extended ménage à trois in which they ply her with booze, sweet nothings of devotion, all the while sexually using her. They're the true villains of the piece, narcissistic, privileged Hollywood kids who can't be successful on their own but only by making a living parasitically. Later, the two will use nude pictures they've taken of her to blackmail "The Athlete" (Bobby Cannavale) who marries Monroe, and...as mentioned...have a direct correlation to Monroe's fatal overdose. Indications in the real world are that Monroe may have encountered them in her career, but whether there was a threesome relationship or that it resulted in a pregnancy (as the film depicts) is just conjecture. I don't know, I wasn't there. Neither was Oates, or Dominik.

At least, the director-screenwriter eliminated Oates' scenario that Monroe was killed by assassins at the order of the then-Attorney-General. As it is, they merely suggest an assignation with the President (Caspar Phillipson)—that might have resulted in a pregnancy and a forced abortion which is played out like a "horrible dream." What he's replaced it with isn't much better, even if it hues closer to the actual autopsy report, although even then its casting for a reason for "why" centers on manipulation and cruelty, which seem to be the mainstays in this sensationalistic re-imagining of her life.

The pacing seems off as well. There is short-shrift given to her marriages to "The Ex-Athlete" (the issue seems to be she's too much a celebrity) and "The Playwright" (their attempt to create a simple life is hampered by her difficulties carrying a child to term and his writerly penchant to betray confidences) and her dependence on drugs and alcohol to maintain her schedule. It was probably more complicated than that. By this time, Monroe had her own production company and was wrangling creative control with her former bosses and potential new ones. Dominik has her throwing tantrums, but as far as being a tough businesswoman in a male-dominated town? Nothing.

Two opposing views: Monroe filming The Seven Year Itch; 

"The Ex-Athlete" witnessing in disgust.

Enough. The script, the attitude, the promiscuous, indiscriminate character assassination, the utter cruel tone of the entire project can be parsed for a week of posts. One could get sick of it. But, aside from de Armas' gutsy and (one would even go so far as to say) heroic performance, is there anything else to recommend even a casual glance at this?

Sure. Blonde is a marvel, visually. Dominik moves through formats, aspect ratios, gradations of color and and depths of black and white all to the service of making it look authentic to the period and our cultural memory, despite the lack of any matching veracity in the script. Complementing de Armas' "you'd-swear-it-was-reality" performance, the creative team endeavored (and you can compare their efforts to real pictures above***) to reproduce the appearances of one of the most photographed women from the Hollywood era. It's chilling, really, how much they get the visual right while the story has so much wrong. When the movie jack-knifes into surrealism towards the end, you're willing to believe it.

I will applaud the dedication to detail to recreate those touchstones that any schlub off the street would recognize. Poster images, movie recreations, photo recreations are done meticulously to pass muster. But, one could also see it as an attempt to give all the rampant speculation some legitimacy.

The ultimate tragedy of Marilyn Monroe is that, even after her death in 1962, people are still taking advantage of her, making a buck off her, and dragging her through the mud, just as much as they were doing while she was alive. Usually after a passing, there can be some perspective where one "never speaks ill of the dead", or a charitable view will become the one agreed upon. Not so with Marilyn, evidently. Her afterlife is one composed of the same exploitation foisted upon her while she was alive, a Hell of our own making...and marketing...for all eternity.

It all feels like dancing on her grave...if not outright pissing on it. That's a fate best served to mass-murderers, serial killers and autocrats.

 

But, what did she ever do to us, except entertain us?

Traditionally, movie reviews end with the ranking of stars—5 stars, 4 stars, whatever—and I usually don't do that. But, Blonde made me want to say three Hail Mary's and make a good Act of Contrition. 

 

And, maybe, light a candle.

* Up to a few weeks ago there was a www.marilynmonroe.com web-site that seems to have disappeared into the ether, and now re-directs to an Instagram account. Seems apt.

 

** The studio head is never named but given that Monroe's career was mostly for 20th Century Fox (run by Darryl F. Zanuck) the implication is clear without spelling it out. This "supposedly" didn't happen with Zanuck (according to the always trustworthy entertainment press) but Zanuck was known for having (what was once known as ) "proteges" who were usually beautiful young women, but also usually from Europe. Still, the production did have to get its clips (to reproduce) from 20th Century Fox, didn't they?

 

 *** Oh. The ones on the LEFT are the real Marilyn, while the ones on the right are from Blonde.

She's scary-good.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Written at the time of the film's release with a 2016 post-script

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford  (Andrew Dominik, 2007)

Poor Jesse had a wife to mourn for his life,
Three children, they were brave;
But the dirty little coward
that shot Mr. Howard*
Has laid Jesse James in his grave

That's from the old song "The Ballad of Jesse James" which I remember from my youth, forever enshrining James and the "dirty little coward" Robert Ford in my memory. It was written by one Billy Gashade (who took pains to include himself in the lyrics, naturally) soon after the outlaw's death. As with so much in the Jesse James business, it is reflective of the myth of Jesse James rather than the reality. 

For instance (as the Ford character points out in the movie) Jesse only had two kids. 

The fact behind the myth was that Jesse James was a vicious little punk—racist, paranoid, just as capable of killing friends as enemies, and women and children in the bargain. And while it's true he did rob from the rich—his target was banks and trains (or Union veterans)—the legend that he gave to the poor only extended to himself and members of his gang. 

Besides, you rob from the rich because that's where the money is.

No one who sees Jesse James as a folk-hero, or seeks to profit from that image, mentions the mutilations he would perform on his victims. It kinda gets in the way of the "fun." Yet, folks in Missouri still talk of the history of Jesse James (I once stayed in a hotel that advertised he slept there), and there's even a feud going on about whether Jesse really did die, and there are folks who want to dig him up to check DNA evidence to claim family affiliation. The myth rolls on. The lies that were sold in the pulp-magazines during his life are still at work, and as the line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance goes: "This is the West, sir. If the Legend becomes Fact, print the Legend." Even if it is a god-damned lie and the guy was a scum-bag.

It is the yin and yang of truth and fiction that suffuses The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, but then it did in reality, too. The conceit of the film (and the book by Ron Hansen on which it is based) is that Robert Ford was a product of a pulp-western inspired hero-worship, that Jesse had his eye on the stories, too, and their mutual attraction and loathing of the truth behind it was the music to the dance of death they engaged in. Robert Ford was a nobody, and, in the film's words "Jesse James stood as tall as a tree." And that set up a love-hate relationship with the unstable hoodlum. "I can't figger it out," says Brad Pitt's Jesse to Casey Affleck's Bob Ford. "Do you wanna be like me, or do you wanne be me?" 

In the film, Ford doesn't know himself and the answer changes depending on his fortunes...and his fears. But as the cliche goes there's only room for one of them, and if there's no doubt that the strong will prevail, there is some question which one that would be. Maybe it will merely be a case of who is the least weak. Ironically, both will go on to greater fame and infamy.

Andrew Dominick's film meanders between an informative narration** spoken over landscapes beneath time-lapsed speeding clouds, as if Nature is careening to a foregone conclusion, while the figures take their own sweet time getting there. Dominick has a formalism going with those fleeting clouds and shots that are framed by a time-distancing diffusion. But it's very inconsistent, and rendered meaningless--no doubt due to post-production cutting by Producer Ridley Scott and star Pitt to punch up the pace. 

If it's not all Dominick wanted it to be, at least there remains some terrific performances all-around. Pitt is at his enigmatic best here, an unreadable half-smile on his face in all occasions. Sam Rockwell as Ford's older brother and fellow gang member gives another off-kilter performance that is spot-on. Along the way there are terrific cameos by Sam Shepard, Michael Parks and Ted Levine (and one distracting one by James Carville), but the stand-out is Casey Affleck. Affleck is every insecure, withdrawn kid who talks big, with a defensive smile on his face, and eyes that roll protectively up into his head when challenged. He's a train-wreck waiting to happen. And Jesse James specialized at trains.

If you're of a patient frame of mind, and have a taste for an unromantic West with heavy-handed irony then The Assassination of Jesse James is for you. But if not, it's a rental.

Narration: He was growing into middle age, and was living then in a bungalow on Woodland Avenue. He installed himself in a rocking chair and smoked a cigar down in the evenings as his wife wiped her pink hands on an apron and reported happily on their two children. His children knew his legs, the sting of his mustache against their cheeks. They didn't know how their father made his living, or why they so often moved. They didn't even know their father's name. He was listed in the city directory as Thomas Howard. And he went everywhere unrecognized and lunched with Kansas City shopkeepers and merchants, calling himself a cattleman or a commodities investor, someone rich and leisured who had the common touch. He had two incompletely healed bullet holes in his chest and another in his thigh. He was missing the nub of his left middle finger and was cautious, lest that mutilation be seen. He also had a condition that was referred to as "granulated eyelids" and it caused him to blink more than usual as if he found creation slightly more than he could accept. Rooms seemed hotter when he was in them. Rains fell straighter. Clocks slowed. Sounds were amplified. He considered himself a Southern loyalist and guerrilla in a Civil War that never ended. He regretted neither his robberies, nor the seventeen murders that he laid claim to. He had seen another summer under in Kansas City, Missouri and on September 5th in the year 1881, he was thirty-four-years-old.

The view from 2016: 

I was writing less and faster when I did this and there are some things that are remiss. In hindsight, I should mention it's an early film, not only of Sam Rockwell, but a pre-fame Jeremy Renner, the wonderful Paul Schneider, and Garret Dillahunt, as well as brief cameos by Nick Cave and Zooey Deschanel.

But, I think the biggest sin here is there isn't even a mention of Roger Deakins, who did the cinematography. One thing that DOES stand out about The Assassination of Jesse James, besides its rather astringent presentation—narration over tableau/scene/narration over tableau—is the beautiful imagery Deakins pulls out of his camera, to the point where it's almost trying to create myth in its own manner, by the sheer beauty and care of the images, some even diffused at the edges to give it a "magic camera" feel. 

Deakins, the go-to cameraman for the Coen Brothers, Sam Mendes, and so many others, knows that the images will become as communicative as the narration in those tableaux and he has a great ally in Dominick (who is also a cinematographer, working with Terrence Malick on The New World) in achieving amazing images throughout the film, but none more so than when the world is still and actors are not having to hit marks.

Narratively, the film is still a bit of a mess, but a second look recently struck me how beautiful the thing looks. It truly one of the best examples of Deakins' work in a storied career.

* "Thomas Howard" was the alias Jesse James was using at the time of his death.

** The narration has its own problems. One is not too sure of its reliability. For instance, in describing Jesse it states that he had "granulated eye-lids" which caused him to blink excessively, though part of Brad Pitt's performance is a protracted concentration, where he stares but does not blink. Then, the narration goes all flowery on the subject "...caused him to blink as if the world was too big to take in for too long." The film has its own problems with truth and myth.