The Director Of “Blonde” Called “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” A Movie About “Well-Dressed Whores”
Even though Tom Hanks started the pandemic, I don’t think there’s an actor in Hollywood whose career has been more affected by it than Ana De Armas. Just as she was about to soar to new heights like a phoenix rising from the ashes of Ben Affleck’s back, lofted up, up, up to the stars by Daniel Craig’s propulsive Knives Out Foghorn Leghorn accent, the entire industry fell out of the sky and landed squarely on Daniel’s Peppa Pig No Time To Die accent, which was supposed to be Ana’s next big break, delaying that film’s release two entire years. Then came the snails *shiver*. Now, as if two cursed projects weren’t enough, in walks Blonde to a chorus of “BUT WHY?”s, and I’m not just talking about the talking fetus that gave Netflix the vapors. Well, unfortunately for Ana, her Blonde director Andrew Dominik answered that question in an interview with the British Film Institute in which he reduces Marilyn and Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to “well-dressed whores.” Ana, I know you believe in ghosts so believe me when I tell you— Ana you in danger, girl!
We’ve been talking about this damn movie since before Joyce Carol Oates showed us what Marilyn did to her foot from beyond the grave for writing the 2000 book of the same name, so it’s not like Andrew hasn’t had plenty of time to familiarize himself with Marilyn’s short yet iconic career. And he has. He just doesn’t seem to care for or about it. All he cares about is her pain and “adapting the feelings that the book gave me.” Ah yes, glad Marilyn got dragged from the grave for the umpteenth time so some Australian dude could anoint her with his feelings about a book she would have been mortified by if she hadn’t already been anointed into the ground by men’s unsolicited feelings about her in life. According to The Los Angeles Times:
Andrew Dominik spent more than a decade making a movie about Marilyn Monroe. So you’d think he would hold her in higher esteem. Apparently not.
In a new interview with the British Film Institute, the director let it rip about the background work he did in adapting Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 novel, “Blonde,” for the screen. Apparently, the NC-17 film’s script was in large part about him and his feelings?
“I’ve read everything there is to read about Marilyn Monroe,” the New Zealand native told BFI in a video call from his home base in Melbourne, Australia. “I’ve met people that knew her. I’ve done an enormous amount of research. But in the end, it’s about the book. And adapting the book is really about adapting the feelings that the book gave me.”
As for Marilyn’s accomplishments, talent, and seemingly eternal appeal, Andrew’s not impressed, saying “that’s not so interesting to [him].” If Marilyn really were in the business of haunting, Kim Kardashian would be pretty low on her list of motherfuckers who need to be shanked with a bedazzled dagger from Tiffany. And I don’t mean rhinestones. I’m talking diamonds. Razor sharp diamonds that could gut a fish are a girl’s best friend, after all.
& here, I'm afraid, is an outtake. pic.twitter.com/1WxLzIKZh6
— Christina Newland (@christinalefou) September 27, 2022
Well, sir, one of those so-called whores taught me what “red corpuscles” are so who’s the genius now? Andrew says he doesn’t want us to enjoy his movie; instead, it should “leave you shaking like an orphaned rhesus monkey in the snow. It’s a howl of pain or rage.” And that, my friends, is the magic of the cinema Nicole keeps telling us about. And as if you needed another reason to make the effort to see Blonde in the theater instead of at home on Netflix (out today), I hear Andrew is so committed to the power of dazzling images on a huge silver screen that he’s instructed that the air conditioning in all theaters screening Blonde to be turned up to an arctic sub-zero. William Castle’s The Tingler could never!
Pic: Netflix via YouTube