Eve Arnold, 1960
Deanne Stillman, author of Mustang, Twentynine Palms and Joshua Tree, and an expert on the American West, attended a 50th anniversary screening of The Misfits at the University of Nevada last week, as part of their ‘Honoring the Horse’ exhibition.
She has written an essay on this ‘iconic and underrated’ film, considering what The Misfits can tell us about the West today and why it has often been described as a ‘doomed’ project.
‘As I see it, what doomed the cast was the story—the act of re-creating it, living with it and inside it, bedding down at night with the dark heart of the country, having coffee with it in the morning, and, in the end, not telling the truth. For as mighty as it was, “The Misfits” was essentially another Hollywood lie…In the weeks after “The Misfits” wrapped, Marilyn would sit for hours in a disguise and watch the horse carousel at the Santa Monica pier. We do not know what was on her mind and in her heart as the gaily painted animals turned forever. A fragile soul on and off the screen, she may have given great thought to what was really going on in Nevada, and to the fact that her lover, Arthur Miller, had torqued the truth to resurrect her career and, because she was in love with him, she had played along. “I don’t know where I belong,” she tells Perce in the movie—and perhaps she found a moment at the carousel.’
You can read the article in full at Truthdig
