Ellen Burstyn, the actress who plays Marilyn Monroe in a new short film that premiered at the Venice Film Festival this week, says Monroe's enduring appeal 64 years after her death comes down to the persona she built for herself.
"It was deep and innocent and sexy and all of those things at once," Burstyn said.
That is not the only theory. Dana Carpenter, an executive at Authentic Brands Group, the company that controls and profits from Monroe's image, believes Marilyn's appeal to a new generation of fans stems from her being the "anti-nepo baby," in an era when the children of famous parents, from Dakota Johnson to Brooklyn Beckham and the Gallagher brothers' children, are so visible.
Carpenter spoke at Venice, where a 17-minute short called Flesh Impact, directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, president of this year's festival jury, is showing. "Marilyn really had an incredibly rough upbringing," Carpenter said. "When you look at her appeal to a new generation, a lot of people take inspiration from that; that she came from nothing, or worse than nothing. She was a wonderful comedic and dramatic actress, but was always pushing to have more control over her career and her life."
Flesh Impact imagines that Marilyn did not die. Aged 100, she walks into an audition room, played by 93-year-old Burstyn, with flashbacks to Marilyn in her 30s played by Dakota Johnson.
AI and Marilyn's Image
Marilyn's estate was sold to Authentic in 2011. This year, to mark what would have been Monroe's 100th birthday, the company has authorised a run of commercial initiatives, including a clothing line with Lee jeans and a seventh Marilyn Barbie doll from Mattel, alongside ongoing advertising campaigns for Chanel perfume, Tiffany and Blancpain watches.
Carpenter said AI image generation has made protecting Monroe's legacy "like whack-a-mole" at times, as her team stamps out fakes. She would not rule out Authentic one day authorising a film starring an AI-generated Marilyn. "We will see how things evolve," she said, adding it was not part of the 100th birthday plans, which are aimed at "trying to create a new family of fans."
Gyllenhaal revealed that an AI Marilyn had almost featured in Flesh Impact. The people who commissioned the project asked her to place Monroe's likeness over Johnson's face using AI. "I did try working with AI on this project," Gyllenhaal said. "We worked very hard at it, and in the end threw it away because what was coming through Dakota playing Marilyn Monroe was so much more moving, human, alive... it fundamentally did not work."
Burstyn recalled meeting the real Monroe only once, in a nightclub. "She was such a magical creature. And then she looked at me, and nodded. I was very early in my career, and I thought: 'I've just been recognised by Marilyn Monroe.' I carried that in my heart." Burstyn was also close to Monroe's masseur and confidant Ralph Roberts, who told her Marilyn had said her whole persona was "a construction; that was not the way she was at all."
Phoebe Bridgers Makes Her Acting Debut
Singer Phoebe Bridgers ruled the red carpet in Venice this week in a diaphanous grey McQueen dress. She features in the film Primetime, which stars Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen, host of the American television show To Catch A Predator. Earlier, at the press conference, Bridgers wore a severe Gucci suit that revealed bare, unshaven legs and a tattoo.
The 32-year-old, from California, has no acting training or experience and admitted she felt intimidated by filming. "I was like: 'No way!' I just can't get over being natural with something that I already know is happening. But it turns out that working with these incredible people makes it much easier. I thought I was going to wither, but it was so fun and free."
Pattinson praised his co-star, a four-time Grammy winner. "She's so relaxed always, and so good at improvising. She didn't seem nervous at all." Pattinson darted in and out of Venice, as he is now filming The Batman: Part 2 in London, and did not attend the post-premiere party held on a superyacht. Meanwhile the real Chris Hansen, whose show aired on NBC from 2004 to 2007, has criticised the film's depiction of his work, calling it "an insult to the thousands of men and women who work hard every day to protect children from predators."
Andrew Scott Tipped for Oscar Glory
Andrew Scott's performance in Elsinore, playing actor Ian Charleson, who was starring in Hamlet on stage while secretly dying of AIDS, set the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado alight this week, with the raves from critics there felt in Venice. Word quickly spread that Scott, who many felt was unlucky to miss an Oscar nod for his 2023 film All Of Us Strangers, now looks to have the Best Actor category sewn up.
Italy's film cognoscenti had only just finished anointing John Malkovich as this year's Oscar front-runner for his performance as a dying CIA agent in Wild Horse Nine, which premiered in Venice last week. Malkovich was asked at the press conference whether he was preparing his Oscars acceptance speech, which he batted away graciously.
The race looks tight, with some still backing Matt Damon in The Odyssey and Ryan Gosling in Project Hail Mary, both commercial hits, while a contingent favours Tom Cruise in the comedy Digger, which premieres later this month. Elsinore will open the BFI London Film Festival on October 7.
Scott wowed London theatregoers with his own Hamlet in 2017, but this film tells the story of Charleson, best known for playing Eric Liddell in Chariots Of Fire, who took over the role from Daniel Day-Lewis at the National Theatre in 1989 and died two months after the run ended, aged 40. "The idea that Ian was doing this when he was so sick is still, to me, just completely mind-blowing," Scott said. "Being a gay actor, it's still so moving to me that I get the opportunity to play a part that Ian and his contemporaries would not have gotten while they were working actors. I wanted people to be able to understand that he was trying to live, it's not about fetishising his death. He was so full of life and fun, and he did this extraordinary thing."
Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem's Bunker
Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, married in real life, play an unhappily married couple in their new film Bunker, which premiered on Tuesday. The architect husband takes a job building a survivalist bunker for a tech billionaire, straining the marriage further.
The film is written and directed by Florian Zeller, who cited Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, which starred the then-married Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and was widely panned on release, as his inspiration. "That permeability, between reality and fiction, seemed to me a truly fascinating project," Zeller said.
Bardem was asked whether he and Cruz ever argue about work. "No, no, never," he replied. Cruz laughed and teased: "I know you for more than 30 years! Imagine if we had never had an argument."
