This year marks the centenary of Norma Jeane Mortenson’s birth. Yet in a perfect encapsulation of the Hollywood dream—and nightmare—that identity was overtaken by a character that is part reality (Norma Jeane’s) and part fiction (Hollywood’s): Marilyn Monroe. Like many other orphans, the woman who would become Marilyn Monroe saw in cinema a way to compensate for a traumatic youth without a family and a home. After working as a pin-up model, she made the transition to film, and gradually built an audience by always making a major impact in minor roles. Then, in 1952, she helped bring sex into American homes when Playboy published nude photos of her in its inaugural edition. Monroe admitted to having made them without shame, revealing a sexual candor that infused the unforgettable persona she introduced in the torrid Niagara (1953), her first film with top billing. Though she is frequently described as the greatest sex symbol of all time, that distinction fails to capture the true depth of her talent.
For Hollywood, Monroe was the perfect “dumb blonde” bombshell, an embodiment of the wildest fantasies of a male audience. For Norma Jeane, “Marilyn” was a persona, crafted by an actor who dreamed of playing Dostoevsky’s Grushenka, that masterfully exposed the inanity of those male fantasies by becoming one of the greatest comedic performers of all time. Though she was mocked by the industry and besieged by her own insecurities, her desire for dramatic roles and greater creative independence led her to leave Hollywood for the Actors Studio and create her own production company. She was, in essence, denouncing an outdated studio system whose death was poetically portrayed in The Misfits (1961), her final completed film role.
Following her tragic death at 36, Marilyn’s fascinating complexity—now entwined with the bright and dark elements of cinema, the predatory machinations of a crumbling studio system, and our insatiable, morbid curiosity—would fuel innumerable (re)incarnations. Few are as affecting as those sprung from the imagination of David Lynch: the tragic Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks, and nearly every frame of Mulholland Dr. (2001), the latter of which is included in this series as a tribute to Monroe’s continuing influence.
The brief double life of Norma Jeane Mortenson is perhaps best described by her own poetry: “Life– / I am of both your directions / Somehow remaining hanging downward / the most / but strong as a cobweb in the / wind–I exist more with the cold glistening frost / But my beaded rays have the colors I’ve / seen in a painting”
Organized by Francisco Valente, Curatorial Associate, Department of Film.
Film at MoMA is made possible by CHANEL.
Additional support is provided by the Annual Film Fund. Leadership support for the Annual Film Fund is provided by The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Agnes Gund through The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), and The Young Patrons Council of The Museum of Modern Art.
