The Tamesis
Perhaps no actor has been as completely consumed by his own image as Marilyn Monroe. More than 60 years after her death, her image remains instantly recognizable, even to those who have never seen one of her films: half-smile, platinum curls, flowing white slip dress. “A student once said to me, ‘I was surprised to find out that Marilyn Monroe was an actress,'” said Foster Hirsch, author, film historian, and film professor at Brooklyn College Fashion. “‘I thought she was just famous.'”
But reviewing Monroe on screen (she appeared in some 30 films in the 15 years before her untimely death) reveals something even more surprising—she was not just a movie star, but a consummate performer with impeccable comic timing, emotional intelligence, and a gift for making even the most carefully crafted images appear natural.
However, Hirsch noted that even during her lifetime, these talents were underappreciated. “A lot of people think they watch Marilyn Monroe movies just to admire her beauty, or because she’s a movie star. Does that require acting? Of course it does! She had an instinctive feel for what the camera needed to make an impact. But I don’t think she gets a lot of credit for it, even among critics.”
As Filmforum marks the centennial of Monroe’s birth with a sprawling retrospective, Hirsch details five of Monroe’s performances that further complicate her mythology: a dangerous femme fatale quickly discarded by Hollywood, a dramatic actor buried beneath studio types, and a performance that suggests Monroe’s greatest roles may have been playing the version of herself the world wanted to see.
Niagara (1953)
Photo: Courtesy of Film Forum
I’m old enough to have seen these movies when they came out Niagara Almost immediately after the film’s release, there was talk of the birth of a great new movie star. But she was presented in that film in a way that the studio never presented her again. Here she is a film noir femme fatale. She is dangerous. Her beauty and sexiness are literally fatal to the men around her, and Marilyn’s character knows this. Her studio, 20th Century Fox, decided to present her primarily as a light comedian. They created the image of a sexy blonde for her, which in the 1950s meant a certain kind of sexual repression. They didn’t want her to have a threatening sexual image, but one that was more flattering and attractive.
