“I am alone. I am always alone no matter what.” - Marilyn Monroe

Following countless documentaries, photos and over one thousand volumes written on the subject of Marilyn Monroe, Liz Garbus’s documentary film ‘Love Marilyn’ is remarkably fresh and revealing. Based primarily on Marilyn’s intimate and recently discovered (1999) notes and letters and poems, we get a rare and moving glimpse of her ambition, self-determination, native intelligence, poetic spirit; so undermined by self doubt, insecurity, loneliness and a constant struggle with the meaning of love.

Marilyn’s despairing moments unfold amidst self-encouragement to do better; a streaming of aspiration and hope never out of focus. Marilyn’s words are sincerely and beautifully rendered by several actors, among them: Glenn Close, Ellen Burstyn, Viola Davis, Jennifer Ehle, Lindsay Lohan, Janet McTeer, Marisa Tomei, Elizabeth Banks and Uma Thurman.  These are interspersed and redacted with select archival film footage and the recollections of Truman Capote, Natasha Lytess, D.F. Zannuck, Norman Mailer, Lee Strasberg, Gloria Steinem, Billy Wilder, Milton and May Green, Elia Kazan.

Garbus’ eye turns adroitly to what Marilyn’s words might have meant contextually and we are asked to interpret relationships anew with the help of Marilyn’s own voice. Husband’s Arthur Miller and Joe Di Maggio are sharply contrasted. Marilyn tells us of how “dignified” Joe is, “not like the Hollywood types“. We hear how she loved Miller and how much she wanted this reciprocated to the point, as she describes it, of being “out of her mind“.

Men used Marilyn from the studio bosses on down but we also see how she used them. We see a Marilyn refusing to play the ‘victim’ to the Hollywood bosses, her distaste for the ubiquitous type cast ‘dumb blonde’. Instead we see a professional determination in the formation of her own production company, a refusal to accept the type casting and exploitation of her body and person. She freely admits to her complicity in its creation but reminds us all that it was her decision, her body, her image, one that she could apparently turn off and on at will.

But it is Marilyn’s self-doubt and poetic self-understanding that is Garbus’ most striking contribution to the business of understanding this huge pop icon. This is most apparent in how she casts Di Maggio and Miller. Perhaps with the exception of Di Maggio, genuine, loving but unable to culturally handle her independence and immense popularity as a sex symbol, the rest of the cast in her life do not come off well — the endless jockeying for position and influence in her life must have been maddening and certainly contributed to Marilyn’s tragic anguish.

Marilyn trusted Lee Strasberg with her creative ambitions and this is clearly borne out in her post Actor’s Studio work in Bus Stop, The Prince and the Showgirl and The Misfits. Even her comedic roles in retrospect gained praise. And though she loathed the reprising of her ‘dumb blonde’ character in Some Like it Hot, it was here she revealed a soaring star power, maturity and control of the film despite Billy Wilder’s now famous and self- satisfying recriminations to the contrary. Watch her sing “I’m Through With Love” in the final scene. Marilyn is playing Sugar Kane while Sugar Kane is playing Marilyn/Norma Jean. This is a Strasberg moment in method acting: all unrequited love, longing and loneliness, the seam popping dress a distraction to the real tension and irony of our collective adoration for this film star whose personal life was in fact a shambles.

That Monroe finally achieved her ambition to be a respectable actor now goes uncontested although at the time it was clear from her own words that she remained somewhat unconvinced. Following Some Like it Hot and despairing of her impending break up with Miller, she then slid into a series of ailments, both physical and psychological, some induced by addiction. Marilyn’s early discovery of Miller’s personal notebook revealing his contempt for Marilyn was shattering.

“The only person I trust as much as myself.” -Marilyn about Arthur Miller

The love relationship she felt was so significant and essential once again proved to be a veil of deceptions. Garbus’ portrayal of Miller as an opportunist is not totally unfair and clearly his screenplay ‘The Misfits’ was a highly personal and acute critique of his wife.

The difficulties on the set of ‘The Misfits’ are now part of a legend that cast Marilyn as the ‘big problem’, but Garbus effectively interprets the project as Monroe obviously ill but defiantly and once again standing on her abilities as a professional actor despite efforts to cast her as the ‘scapegoat’. When Miller and Monroe as a couple were announced with great fanfare several years before, “the American Mind meets the American Body“, few expected this union to become “the American Tragedy”, but it did and spectacularly so.

PLEASE HELP ME LEE. (to Lee Strasberg)

I DO NOT BELONG HERE.  Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic

Gloria Steinem asked Why? That this person Marilyn Monroe so dominates pop culture, we have yet to seriously ask the question Why? While Garbus does not give us an explanation, she does give us some clues through Marilyn’s notes and letters. She exuded a vulnerability to her audience: generous, loving and honest. Ultimately the audience was the one source of true love for Marilyn and even she knew that this love affair would end. At no time do you think of Marilyn in her public life as an enigma. Open and transparent, she exposed herself without regret. Notice the news reels, particularly with Miller and Di Maggio, her emotions are unguarded, laid bare. Few stars today would be so unguarded in their intimacy, so absolutely clear about their need for affirmation.

Garbus’s selection of out-takes at the end perhaps say it best as each of Glenn Close, Marisa Tomei, Viola Hope and the others try with exacting precision to carry off Marilyn’s emotional gifts through her words, bearing the frustration of the actor’s craft in capturing the essence of a character — the doubt and self deprecation that follows. Marilyn never realized or confidently embraced her hard earned abilities and she obviously never found the meaning of love in her various relationships. At one point in her notes she writes, ‘maybe work is a kind of love’, betraying one of the few things that probably gave her a sense of ‘self worth’. At every other turn it seems she was unlucky.

Marilyn’s achilles heel was that she was a screen goddess who was terrified of her own process of creation. It was her undoing. Tragedy is always tinged with the regret of what should have been but never was, and with Marilyn her persona has far exceeded her film oeuvre. She became in her lifetime the unloved and unwanted kid who became one of the most loved and popular persons on the planet. Unfortunately, her intimate life did not mirror this success, and our sense of loss has much more to do with the details of her personal struggles and unhappiness and what she gave of herself to tragic consequence than it does with the iconic idolatry that is voraciously consumed to this day. ‘Love Marilyn’ cuts to the chase with fresh words and images beautifully redacted to capture a glimpse of why we devotedly keep Marilyn in our collective consciousness. Marilyn loved her audience and as is typical with a huge persona cut short, we want to reciprocate with an expression of hope in ourselves.

“I think I am very lonely.”

Garbus’ ‘Love Marilyn’, as the title suggests, is a bittersweet and tragic love letter from her to us and history. Perhaps the why? of her popularity is simply that a screen goddess, like us, is completely vulnerable in love, generosity and friendship.

-Alfredo Romano

P.S.

Writer/director, documentary filmmaker Liz Garbus has created ‘Love Marilyn’ from the journals, papers, and poems recently discovered among the personal effects of Lee Strasberg, Marilyn’s mentor, acting coach, friend and confident. Strasberg was the Director of the Actor’s Studio in New York City where Marilyn spent two years studying before returning to LA to film Bus Stop.  Love Marilyn is a unique and refreshing presentation of Marilyn Monroe’s world and it is done in a manner that is very convincingly in her voice. The biopic is a coproduction of Studiocanal and Diamond Girl Productions and an HBO Documentary Films presentation. It was shown at TIFF 2012.

Photo courtesy of TIFF

Marilyn Monroe’s life has remained shrouded in mystery because there were many people that Marilyn Monroe had been involved with who preferred to have their relationship with her kept secret. Marilyn Monroe carried huge cache when her name was attached to anything – she sold newspapers, magazines, books, films, calendars, she was an major influencer and very outspoken not only about women’s rights and equality and but actor’s rights and equality.

Photo courtesy of TIFF

She saved 20th Century Fox from bankruptcy, her nude photos launched Hugh Hefner’s Playboy empire and Arthur Miller escaped the communist witch hunt because of her. Yet no one wanted to give Marilyn the credit or the money for her contributions.  A carefully controlled media world was created to ensure that Marilyn was contained, that this invaluable resource could be controlled and used. At the time Elvis Presley was probably the other person with the single most extensive international recognition and talent, who was also controlled by powerful people and companies that sought to exploit the talent of this individual for their own ends. The use of drugs was a common method of control. Drugs were prescribed liberally by doctors associated with the studios.

Photo courtesy of TIFF

Born June 1st, 1926, Norma Jeane Mortenson died at the age of 36, August 5th 1962, supposedly of a self-administered overdose of barbituates at her home in California. She changed her name to Marilyn Monroe in 1946, age 20 at the suggestion of Barry Lyon Twentieth Century Fox. He sent her to Dramatic coach Natasha Lytess in 1948 who spent 6 years and 22 pictures with Marilyn and was responsible for working with Marilyn to create the Marilyn persona (the whispery voice and wiggle seen in ‘Niagara’).

Marilyn, the actress became a star in 1952 because of the notoriety of the nude photo shoot in 1949 with Tom Kelly. She fully acknowledged that she took the photos because she was broke and needed the money. She was paid $50.00 for the photos, which Hugh Hefner used for free to launch his Playboy Empire. She refused to deny the scandal when it broke. Darryl Zanuck insisted after this notoriety that she be place in major roles even though it was well known that Zanuck detested Marilyn but he realized her star power and what it meant to the box office. Marilyn was at the vanguard of the sexual revolution.

Marilyn’s photographer friend Milton Greene from LOOK magazine helped Marilyn escape 20th Century Fox’s clutches. She moved to NYC and it was there that she met Lee and Paula Strasberg. She formed Marilyn Monroe Productions.

Marilyn made Some Like it Hot to support Arthur Miller. It won 6 Academy Nominations. Marilyn won the Golden Globe for Best Actress Musical or Comedy.

She had a miscarriage just after filming wrapped. Billy Wilder was an unsympathetic director and the filming was very unpleasant for Marilyn although Wilder later described the movie as his biggest success.

The Misfits written by Arthur Miller and directed by John Huston was shot in the Nevada desert.

It was supposed to have been a valentine to her from Miller but she was disappointed. The lead character Rosalyn was made into a stencil of Marilyn’s own life. Miller met and later married his next wife during the shooting of The Misfits. The studio did scapegoat Marilyn with this film. Everyone was using her. Arthur Miller wanted to humiliate her, to make her confess to the world that she had cooperated with her persecutors.

Huston, the director spent his time and the studio’s money gambling. Montgomery Cliff was frequently unable to come to set due to illness; Clark Gable complained of not feeling well, missed the wrap party and died of a heart attack 10 days after Marilyn and Miller announced the end of their marriage. Again, the press tried to insinuate that Marilyn was some how to blame. Kay Gable, Clark’s wife remained her friend and did not blame Marilyn. Many consider The Misfits to be Gable’s finest performance including Clark Gable.

Photo courtesy of TIFF

Marilyn’s health deteriorated terribly and her dependence on drugs and alcohol became alarming.

When Marilyn was committed to the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic where she did not realize she would be held like a prisoner, she was scared to death. Arthur Miller did not contact her at all. 500 reporters and photographers were outside the hospital. Finally she got a message out to Joe DiMaggio who came and rescued her.

‘On May 19, 1962, Marilyn sang Happy Birthday Mr President at the early birthday celebration of President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Gardens, NYC although 20th Century Fox felt they had the power to tell her that she was not allowed to go. She broke her contract with 20th Century Fox and fired her agent and MCA in 1961. Fox began a smear campaign against Marilyn. Much later after her death, a new contract was discovered in the vaults of 20th Century Fox, negotiated by Marilyn dated just a few days before she died that showed they re hired her for the film Something’s Got To Give and paid her the money that she had originally asked for.

“The happiest time of my life is now. There is a future and I cannot wait to get to it.” -Marilyn’s last letter to Lee Strasberg.

Marilyn’s Brentwood home was sold in 2010 for 3.6 million dollars. The letters left to Lee Strasberg were discovered by Anna Strasberg in 1999 and the documents published in the book Fragments in 2010.