As much as she desired affection, as much the world desired to give it to her, Monroe was an emotional sieve. Perhaps we relate to Marilyn”s endless need to be loved and approved of, as well as her inability to truly feel either. What is interesting to think about is what that says about our own fundamental nature. There”s something about the essential dichotomy of Monroe, the darkness of her life experience and her interior landscape as opposed to the light that she projected on the world, that we cannot get enough of. Jayne Mansfield, who followed in Monroe”s blonde bombshell wake, also faced a tragic end. The Warhol face, the Madonna version of it, Lady Gaga”s version of it.” Yet there have certainly been other starlets that were as captivating and scandalous. There is also the matter of her incredible physical appeal. Her marriages, her affairs, of course her awful death, all of these things contributed to the mythology of it.” And I think with Marilyn, whether it was deliberate or unconscious, the way her life became a sort of talking point in a soap opera. “Her personality was what made ‘Some Like It Hot’ work, because with another woman playing that part, with a different sort of aura, it would have been harder to buy into her believing that these men were women. “She just had something that was special and unique,” Curtis said. “What”s exciting for our film is that there”s such a tremendous interest about Marilyn, and at the same time people don”t know that much about her.”įor some, Monroe”s appeal can be distilled down to “the x-factor,” that indefinable quality that makes it impossible to look away from her. “That”s what”s interesting,” Curtis says of Monroe”s enduring mystique. “And you just hate to be a thing.”Īnd yet that is exactly what the screen legend was, and in many ways still is. “See that”s the trouble is a sex symbol becomes a thing,” she said. Monroe herself quipped about her status as a sex symbol in her final interview: “A symbol? I always thought those were the things you clashed together.” She laughed with the journalist but went on to explore essential quagmire of being Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn, Norma Jean, the human being is often distilled to an image, a representation of an ideal, a desire, or a figurehead. Marilyn Monroe represents both more, and less, than an actress of repute or a captivating movie star in our cultural lexicon. Indeed the film’s star, Michelle Williams, is receiving consistent Oscar buzz for what many feel is a revelatory, nuanced portrayal of Monroe. Director Simon Curtis hopes that the release of his film, “My Week with Marilyn,” will provide audiences with fresh insights into the complex nature of the cinematic icon. Half a century after her passing we find that Monroe remains an enduring figure in our collective consciousness. Next August marks the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe”s death.
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