Marilyn Monroe, Mulholland Drive, Kim Stanley

Sixty years on from her untimely death, Marilyn Monroe remains the definition of a Hollywood icon. Her films, her look, her voice and her persona all are forever etched in the annals of movie history – which means any actor hoping to step into her shoes really has their work cut out. For Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ fictionalised story of Monroe’s life, Ana de Armas is tasked with embodying the blonde bombshell – and it’s a responsibility that came with considerable pressure. Speaking to Empire about inhabiting Marilyn Monroe, de Armas admits she felt insecure. “I was insecure about my voice, about the accent, about the choreography, about working with American actors who know her better than me, everything!” she says. That reaction, she explains, became part of the performance. “All of that was exactly what she would be feeling. So it was incredible. Even though it seems like everything was very sad, and a lot of traumatic things were going on, we had a great time.” 

The actor had a wealth of material to draw from when crafting her performance – not just Oates’ novel, but a tome consisting of iconic Marilyn Monroe photos curated by the director. “Andrew gave us a bible of 700-and-something pictures,” de Armas says. “The whole movie was in this bible, picture by picture, every scene.” That stack of photos informed the film’s formally-playful presentation, switching between aspect ratios, and from colour to black-and-white. “That’s the relation between the black-and-white and colour; it’s because of the pictures, it’s not random,” de Armas explains. “You want the audience to immediately engage, even in their subconscious, to something that they’ve already seen, and get them into the story.” Norma Jeane shared her mother’s love of movies and the escapism that they provide, and Marilyn Monroe became her mythical alter ego. De Armas points out that Monroe wanted to be taken seriously. “She wanted to have control of the material she was going to work on. No one was thinking like that at the time.” Source: empireonline.com

C.S Lewis has written extensively on the concept of Sehnsucht, a German word which signifies "sense of deep, inconsolable longing, yearning, the feeling of intensely missing something when we don't even know what it is." Perhaps no film conveyed this sense more powerfully than David Lynch’s MULHOLLAND DR. Roughly, the first four-fifths of the film are immersed in a kind of dream-fantasy-haze, spawned within the mind of an unstable actress named Diane Selwyn. The surreal alternative universe of Selwyn’s fantasies ranges in style and mood from comedy to romance to horror to absurdism to ‘art film’. There are some funny bits, especially with the old couple with frozen faces in the limousine and the cocky movie director who finds his wife in bed with another man and later confronts the ‘cowboy’. Likewise, the story of Betty Elms (the fantasy alter ego of Diane Selwyn) goes from light comedy-drama to romance to dark romance to something approaching suspense and tragedy and finally horror. Betty is Diane’s main alternative character, much like the Norma Jeane/Marilyn Monroe dichotomy. 

Though ‘Rita’ is based on or ‘inspired’ by Camilla, a real-life person, she has certain attributes that are closer to Diane’s mind-set. And the movie director, Adam Kesher, faces obstacles in the fantasy that echo the problems faced by Diane herself in real life. Diane could only hate what became of Camilla, but she’s still in love with the Camilla whom she once knew. Also, as Camilla was beautiful and glamorous with or without stardom, she served as a psychological crutch for Diane. Even if Diane didn’t make it in Hollywood, the mere fact of being best friends and lovers with Camilla would have sufficed in filling her life with some degree of happiness. 

But a woman like Camilla is bound to be discovered by the industry sooner or later, since she's a perfect sex-symbol, a temptress. Paradoxically, men hanker for the greatest loyalty from the alpha female or temptress even though the allure of such a woman rests in the very qualities that are dynamic and hyperbolic, therefore most unstable and potentially disloyal. There’s something about Camilla that says, “I’m a born winner who must seek another born winner”, so to be associated with her charisma and beauty is to feel as a winner oneself. It is also true that the very unstable quality of Camilla/Rita is what turns Diane/Betty on the most. Through her death, Camilla now belongs to Diane alone, at least in her fantasy. 

As Camilla is gone from the world, she can only exist as a ghost, a phantom, a figment of imagination. No one can own her as a person in the flesh. Yet, what Diane now possesses of Camilla also haunts her. When Camilla was alive, Diane couldn’t have her because she ‘lost’ her to the Hollywood elites. After Camilla is dead, Diane can take possession of Camilla’s ‘soul’ as Diane, more than anyone else, has the obsessive need to weave Camilla into her elaborate myth of hope, love, and promises. But then, no matter how many times Diane resurrects Camilla as ‘Rita’ in her mind, the fact remains that Camilla is gone. 

Betty and ‘Rita’ are alternates of Diane and Camilla. Though Betty is physically the same as Diane, her radiance and talent (noticed by Hollywood casting directors) makes her more like the real-life Camilla. Though ‘Rita’ is physically the same as Camilla, her seating in the limousine in the opening scene is a variation of Diane’s situation in a limousine to Kesher’s mansion later in the film. ‘Rita’ (suffering from amnesia and unable to remember her real name) has attributes that refer to both Diane and Camilla. One of the first images of the film is the subjective view of someone moving toward a bed and laying her head on a pillow. Presumably, it’s Diane going to sleep to plunge into another stupor. In her dream, she, as Betty, is an ideal young woman. 

So pretty, so nice, so full of promises. She’s so sunny and cheerful that the whole world seems to be smiling down on her and on her side. The sun seems to exist just to radiate its heavenly rays on her. Like Doris Day. Even when she finds her suitcases missing outside the airport, it turns out that a friendly cab driver picked them up and is placing them inside the trunk as if it’s only natural to treat her like Hollywood royalty. It’s as if Los Angeles and Hollywood just can’t wait to greet her, indeed as if they are just as excited about her as she is about them. It’s Los Angeles of her mind where everything rolls out before her like a red carpet. But no matter how bright and blooming a fantasy may be, elements of doubt and doom are always hiding just around the corner. Little by little, Betty’s idealized dream fantasy begins to crack and erode. But then, the cracks are cemented and ‘repaired’ with her imaginative ‘rationalizations’ as to why things are getting weirder.

Her mind plays on three narrative threads. A confident and even principled movie director who is hounded by some sinister conspiracy that he must cast a certain woman in his new picture. He is not only pressured by a strange network of ‘gangsters’ but also a victim of marital infidelity who finds his wife in bed with some beefy working class type that is a staple of Hollywood movies. The second narrative thread involves a strange, mysterious, and beautiful woman(who is later known as ‘Rita’) who has lost her memory and has taken shelter at Betty’s place of residence. And the third thread is about Betty’s adventure for fame and fortune in Hollywood. Betty is brimming with pity and warmth for the disoriented and pitiable ‘Rita’. Indeed, she even leaves before the second audition — her first, for a soap opera, was a smash — to pick up ‘Rita’ to check out an apartment that might be Rita’s. Betty might as well be Cinderella. 

She would even risk her career out of her concern for Rita. She never reneges on her promises. When Diane is in the world of reality, she wants to escape into fantasy. But as alluring and beautiful as the fantasy is, there’s also forces within the mind that gnaws away like a sewer rat at the fantasy, thus creating a hole/portal back to reality. So, Diane is simultaneously running from and returning to reality. But both reality and fantasy are dead-ends. There’s no bringing back Camilla in the real world. She is gone forever from the real world. No matters how many times Diane awakens afresh from her dream/nightmare, the reality it that she finds herself lost, living in a desolate world without Camilla. 

Though Diane Selwyn’s dream/fantasy has elements of whimsy and romance, it also has horror-istic elements of paranoia, diabolic conspiracies, nightmarish surrealism, and lurking dangers. The horrible things in the dream/fantasy have an element of dark mystery that seems either unsolvable or inaccessible. She could also make believe that Camilla-as-Rita is a woman of beautiful soul who’s dependent on her love and support, someone whose rejuvenation is made possible by Betty’s kindly angel-like intervention. Of course, this Betty is the perfect girl who has the talent to be both a great actress and a great star as well a heart of gold that goes out of its way to help her muse. In a way, the fact that the two women are lesbians (or bi-sexual) underline Selwyn’s dilemma. In Chayefsky’s 1958 movie The Goddess, the Marilyn Monroe–type heroine (Kim Stanley) sought movie stardom, fame, and adulation in order to compensate for her inability to love, and ends up dependent on her lesbian secretary's care and adoration. Also Marilyn Monroe was rumored to depend emotionally on her friend and publicist Patricia Newcomb. 

Chayefsky said in 1958 that his heroine Emily Ann Faulkner “represents an entire generation that came through the Depression with nothing left but a hope for comfort and security. Their tragedy lies in that they never learned to love, either their fellow humans or whatever god they have.” Diane Selwyn in MULHOLLAND DR. has a scar that cannot be fixed. So, whenever her mind, via many detours, arrives at the dark truth, it doesn’t lead to clarity and luminance but greater horror and abject darkness. When she opens up her deepest scar, it just festers and hurts to the point of unbearableness. Truth doesn’t set her free. It just deepens her bruises. It just makes her infection fester even more. Source: medium.com

Kim Stanley: I remember that Newman was something of a joke--an erotic joke--at The Actors Studio, because he was so handsome. Frighteningly handsome. He caused as much physical commotion as Marilyn Monroe did. He created a lot of tension, jealousy and competition among the men--merely by showing up. He is a kind, patient and careful man--and he is a patient and careful actor. His incremental method of working can give some the impression that he doesn't know what he's doing, but he usually does: He investigates stealthily, and he gets things done. He waited a long time to prove that he was a real actor. And he found his soul mate in Joanne Woodward, a splendid actress. I don't know how to speak to people about acting if they don't recognize it as an art, as a high calling, as a terribly demanding pursuit that will require not only more than you realize but more than you will ever possess. For the entire life of an actor, you are burnishing and sharpening and replacing tools that you need to have at your highest levels of performance--over and over again. 

It is never enough. Your heart has to be broken. Your mind has to be challenged and stretched and adapted. It is an almost impossible task. Actually, it is an impossible task, but in bravely attempting to fulfill it, you might achieve truth or greatness or inspiration. I just don't see that passion as much as I used to. I see the aching wants, but I don't see the dream, the passion to give up everything else to become a warrior of the art of acting. Religious orders remind me of how I lived when I first began to realize the challenge that was ahead of me. When I was working with Herbert Berghof, Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman, I began to see how hard it would all be, but also how gratifying, how ennobling. When you see what is demanded, you think of bolting, and many are right to do so. Most of the time I know I fail. Because what I'm after is perfection, truth in art. This is exceedingly rare. It's very hard to achieve and overwhelming to maintain. –Follies of God: Kim Stanley Interview with James Grissom (1992)