Andrew Dominik, who took over the direction of the film “Blonde”, which explores the life and figure of the actress Marilyn Monroe, spoke for the first time about the negative comments that the production received from critics and the public.
The filmmaker spoke about the subject during his speech at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia. There, Dominik noted that he loves the idea that footage of him has been a bitter pill to swallow for many, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
Likewise, he suggested that the American audience is capricious and that is why they did not receive what he presented in the final product with a good reception.
They hated my movie! The American public presented the greatest rejection; we now live in a time where it is important to present women as empowered and they want to reinvent Marilyn Monroe as one of them. That’s what they want to see and if it’s not like that, then they get upset,” said the filmmaker. “It’s kind of weird given that she’s dead; the movie won’t make any difference for better or worse in that regard,” he added.
“Blonde”, based on the novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates, shows a little-seen side of Marilyn that, according to some, puts her down and humiliates even in the smallest aspects, leaving all her talent and qualities completely aside. Dominik pointed out in this sense that she does not intend to create “bedtime stories”, but her film is extremely discouraging and even morbid.
Defend your work tooth and nail
Likewise, the creative, who is of Australian origin, specified that he extracted real elements to create his own fiction, something that he obviously defends. “What they really mean is that the movie exploited their memory and image of her, which is fair enough. But that’s the whole idea of the movie. It’s trying to take the iconography of your life and put it at the service of something else, things that you’re familiar with and turn the meaning around. But that’s what they don’t want to see.”