'She had Magic and You Can't Act That'—More About Marilyn Monroe

Much has been said. More will be said.

It is difficult to even discuss one aspect of Marilyn Monroe in an article. Someone so  famous.  So complex. So photographed and so adored.

Her heart which was always on her sleeve, the camera absorbed like a giant microscope. Native American’s believed the camera robbed ones’ soul.  Regarding  Marilyn, this opens up a new subject for debate. Did the camera rob Marilyn’s soul which she was so much in search of, had so much of and yet like a distant mirage never able to get ahold of it. 

Regardless, in Marilyn’s case it froze a moment in time of her soul. And there are literally thousand of those moments captured. Within the mosaic that Marilyn is, what have remained above all are qualities that are:  ethereal, transparent and with a luminosity, that I believe came from a deep place in her spirit made apparent from her brokenness. The essence of that continues with the interest in her today.
 
She knew how to make love to the camera.  And the camera loved her back. And so have people for now 50 years after her death. Men fantasized about her. Women wanted to protect her, as a mother or sister. She was one of the few and probably first really full-fledged sex symbols, that did not intimidate her own gender, because her spirit, heart and her sweetness were so apparent. A certain part of Marilyn was everywoman. 

Now the reality is, that many women did NOT experience many of the things which  Marilyn did.  But because she never forgot her roots or lost her common touch, which she was so comfortable with, that is what an average person can identify with.  In that sense,  Marilyn was EVERYWOMAN, trapped in a celebrities’ life.  As Marilyn would tell her stand-in, Evelyn Moriarty regarding set parties, “You go. I’m a working woman.”

Yet she was also larger than life. Theresa Russell played Marilyn, in her husband, director Nicolas Roug’s artsy film Insignificance, about an imaginary and surrealistic encounter that Marilyn and Einstein have. Theresa Russell, said after performing as Marilyn, “She had magic and you can’t act that.”
 
This year’s Oscar nominated film, My Week With Marilyn, which was wonderfully acted and written, did not do justice to the extraordinorary glamour and magic that only Marilyn had. Capturing that in its totality, remains part of the reason that Marilyn has remained inimitable 50 years after her death. One woman cannot capture every aspect of someone who is so multifaceted.  As to the best version of Marilyn’s beauty and glamour is Marilyn.  However, My Week With Marilyn, was historic in the world of Marilyn’s legend, in that this was the first film that really depicted the depth of the tortured artist that Marilyn was, usually in private. Also her comfortably being common and with common people.  Michelle Phillips did an excellent job, excluding the musical numbers,  and in one freeze frame shot in the film, there was a positive likeness that was uncanny in its closeness to Marilyn. This film revealed the extreme sensitivity  like  Vincent Van Gogh , that could work to her advantage professionally, and to her disadvantage in her personal life; ( though I do not believe the suicide theory, and I’m glad Marilyn kept her ear) .  In the recent Sherlock Holmes series regarding his brilliance, Holms said, “I can’t just turn it on and off.”  Perhaps Norma Jeanne could turn on and off the performance of Marilyn. But what made Marilyn: Marilyn; perhaps that genius within her, could not be turned on and off.
 
For a character tribute to the attributes of Marilyn, the film, The Misfits, is  a wonderful, allegorical portrait of Marilyn; written by husband, playwright Arthur Miller who had already has his huge success, with his play, Death of a Salesman.  The couple was ironically heading to a divorce during the filming of Misfits. Miller had already lined up the film’s, still–photographer; as the next, Mrs. Miller. Fortunately the script was written from better moment s with Marilyn. So many lines and little vignettes are a character study and valentine to Marilyn. It begins to reveal the paradoxes in Marilyn’s life. While, The Misfits caught the some fears, isolation and loneliness of Marilyn, but it poignantly triumphs in its encapsulation as well as of her  hope and optimism and child-like wonder and innocence  and radiance that Marilyn could express.  Actor Eli Wallach’s character says to her,  “You’re just like the sun. Whenever you enter a room, it all lights up.”

Having written, directed and produced a documentary about Marilyn, I continued for many years doing extensive research on everything I could about Marilyn.
 
At the hallmark 50th Anniversary of her death, after a day of all things Marilyn, the evening concluded with a screening of River of No Return at the Egyptian Theater as part of their  American Cinematheque on-going series of a variety of genres and times. Delighted by Marilyn’s little musical ditty’s in this, sung by Monroe; this CinemaScope spectacle  can ONLY be done justice when viewed on the big screen. A yearning for this lost art, which is so much more real and magnificent than anything digital; was momentarily replaced by being enthralled as Marilyn and Robert Mitchum actually went over white-water rapids. Discussed in Mitchum’s biography is his admiration of Marilyn actually doing that, and her concern in stopping the set, as one of the cinematographer who was tied to the outside of the raft was turning blue with hypothermia.

 There will always be more to be said about Marilyn.