The film itself, directed by Andrew Dominik, is likewise a virtuoso cinematic offering but nonetheless fails as a film. Maybe it fails, and maybe it doesn’t; I’ll get to that later. Regardless, while it might fall into the category of entertainment, it’s anything but entertaining—it’s brutal and seriously depressing.
Adapted from Joyce Carol Oates’s novel of the same name (a work of fiction), the real and the imagined intermingle, which of course begs the question—is a filmmaker morally bound to honor the legacy of a historical figure on screen? What if the portrayed events are fictional? And, like the filmmakers who make films of writers’ works, don’t the writers need to ask themselves the same question, in the first place?
And how much is too much? Where’s the line? As Dominik mentioned in a recent interview, he isn’t “interested in reality, he’s interested in images.” And so “Blonde’s” narrative is built around the historical images of Marilyn in an attempt to capture Marilyn’s life visually.
What makes these reenactments an emotionally jangling experience for the viewer is that the context is starkly different from the tiny narratives we’ve all built up in our heads, having, all of us, seen Monroe’s images for decades. Marilyn laughing and smiling with joy and exuberance is a mainly a stepping-off point to underline her underlying, near-constant grief and tragic suffering, with a big red magic marker; to hammer home just how dreadful things were for Marilyn, as she gave the world those iconic images.
Norma Jeane
The film begins with little Norma Jeane Baker’s (Marilyn’s original name) many tribulations as the daughter of an emotionally destroyed single mother, and a mysterious, absent father, and then hammers on the pain for the next 2 hours and 46 minutes. Except for the occasions when it allows Norma Jeane hope and happiness. This hope exacerbates the effect of having the rug yanked out from under her—it lends that action the vicious acceleration of a bullwhip.“Blonde” is a difficult watch due to this horrible dearth of joy, and we’re taken through an endless string of tragic scenes, with plenty of sexual assault thrown in. And although, as mentioned, Ana de Armas is an amazing talent and seamlessly transitions between Marilyn’s manufactured joyful facade and Norma Jeane’s despairing interior, you can stick ball-point needles under your fingernails for the same effect. It’s also cheaper than a Netflix subscription.
Chattel
“Blonde” makes it clear that, across the board, public and private, Marilyn’s the ultimate #MeToo victim; she was an asset to be owned, with hordes of men letching after her due to her sexpot image. But they then use that same image to degrade and shame her, and even though the rapes and degradations are visually restrained, they nevertheless have the effect of making this particular viewer feel the need for a shower.The only exception is Marilyn’s marriage to “The Playwright” (Arthur Miller, author of “Death of a Salesman” in real life) played by Adrian Brody, but even he, in referring to Marilyn as his “secret Magda” serves notice that, yet again, it’s her image he’s infatuated with, and not who she really is.
The Main Problem
“Blonde” would appear to have zero sympathy for its subject; every single image is an exhibit of how exploited she was. In addition to the various forms of abuse, there are graphic scenes of her suffering forced abortions, not to mention multiple scenes where’s she’s topless and on drugs. The movie wants to criticize Hollywood and the archetypal Harvey Weinsteins of that universe, or underworld, but in doing so, it pretty much does the same thing to Marilyn, to the point where one wonders if director Dominik loved or hated her. Why drag her legacy through hell in such a manner? He’s definitely using her.She was a real person. One of substance and sensitivity, who studied with the great acting coach Michael Chekov, cared deeply for her art and craft, and studied the spiritual writings of Rudolf Steiner. But she was also no saint, as Lawrence Olivier’s descriptions of having to work with her attest. But here she’s being used as “art” while retaining her name and image, much the same way Salieri was depicted in “Amadeus.” Orson Welles at least renamed William Randolph Hearst, Charles Foster Kane.
He sees us cherishing the iconography, bowing down to it, framing it and hanging it on our walls, and dressing up as it for Halloween, despite blithely glossing over what we know about Norma Jeane’s tragic life and early death. It appears he’d like to deconstruct and destroy all that. Which is a noble gesture.
But the result is overkill; one could almost call it some kind of degradation porn. He may be well-intentioned, but in forcing the issue with all this emotional assault and battery of the audience, he abuses us rather than enlightens us. He uses her to get to us, but it can’t be said that that’s a work of art. Because true art is a gift.
