Neil Lumbard’s detailed and insightful review of Love, Marilyn – released on DVD in the US today – has been posted at DVD Talk.
“Some might critique the documentary a bit negatively in the sense that some of the readings seem to have as much to reflect about the way the readers feel in providing narration towards the life of Marilyn Monroe, but I viewed it as another way in which our society and culture has tapped into Monroe’s life to such an extent that it has a strong connection for so many.
Working in cinema was a professional life goal of hers and one in which she had worked hard to expand her abilities and to take the kind of roles she wanted. Yet with her personality and public appearance often being summed up solely on her sexuality, she so frequently faced unfair disadvantages, both in terms of how the studio system treated her throughout the production of many films and in the way she was thought of at the time as uneducated and ‘dumb’ to many — despite her efforts to learn, her efforts to grow, and her constantly evolving ways of expanding herself in film and in life. Monroe was a incredibly intelligent and business-smart person who was often misunderstood within the Hollywood system. Yet it is to her credit that her work and her life is still at the discussion of so many individuals within and outside of the filmmaking industry.
The film also sheds light on how hard she worked to perfect things like her walk, voice, and other elements of her public persona which she even wrote about in her diaries — in one such example, she had written about how she walked to seem as if she was being lifted into the air from a pulling umbrella — and how this helped her persona in film and in public, something in which she would often ‘turn on’ somehow when trying to be the ‘Marilyn’ that the world had come to expect. Despite the fact that she was really a soft-spoken, sensitive, and emotionally resonant human being who was, in some ways, perhaps always looking for the love that she never received in her youth.
Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Mortensen, was always someone who the public — and even those closest to her — seemed to never fully comprehend. Love, Marilyn attempts to present her as herself as close as it can — through her own words and voice. As a result, I found great beauty and importance in this profoundly moving documentary work.”
