50 years without the temptation of upstairs

For 50 years, 5 August 1962, at 4:55 am, Dr. Greenson, Marilyn Monroe's psychiatrist, called the head of the police department of Los Angeles, Jack Clemmons. And the call revealed a reality that would shock the world of film: Marilyn Monroe was dead. The police arrived immediately to the scene, and the first autopsy indicated as a possible cause of death from an overdose of barbiturates.

However, some clarifying the circumstances of his death have led to much speculation as to whether, in fact, this would be a possible murder case. Hypothesis being considered as an order from JFK to prevent reveal information supplied in confidence, or an order of the mafia to lock the publication in the press, illegal business known for his friendship with Frank Sinatra. But these theories, the most revealing is that the figure went beyond his death, it had become a myth. What is interesting is to investigate, why became immortal symbol?

Despite the timelessness of this icon, Marilyn is the spearhead of a series of transformations that were taking place in American society. It is, above all, the visible head of a change in the idea of female beauty. Looking at the stars of the talkies of the previous decades, are almost an inversion of the symbol Marilyn: actresses are wafer thin, with a natural beauty, elegant behavior and based their fame primarily for her acting skills. His talent was beyond her beauty. Even had a taste for androgyny, as shown in the figure of Marlene Dietrich. The thirties is the time of the close-ups, pop seeking the face of the viewer and hypnosis by an extreme proximity to the light. The face is the hierarchy of the body.

But this model began to veer from the forties, and the turning point was, no doubt, Rita Hayworth. Rita was the first woman made ​​by a study to stimulate male desire: it underwent several operations to alter her figure , and the hair root rose a few inches because it lacked an attractive front for the cameras. Thus, the actress becomes a product: if before fame came from a powerful interpretations, there is now the first factory modeling. This does not prevent develop some great performances, but it requires the authority of the study, through whom has come to stardom.

Marilyn comes in the wake of Rita, as she underwent a rhinoplasty and transformed her figure considerably, as can be seen by comparison of the before and after: he became what he was looking for a male audience, a blonde bombshell with a mole of mischief on the lip. Why this archetype was so popular in the fifties? In my opinion, the voluptuousness of Marilyn's body is a perfect reflection of American morality of the fifties: the time macthartismo Boom, censorship and sexual repression, the whole society is based on an unconscious obsession with sex. The male sex drive was as tense as the figure of Marilyn: everything is a game of hide and demonstration unsubtle mitigated.

That explains why the myth of the scene of the skirts airlifted subway in The Seven Year Itch (The Seven Year Itch), Billy Wilder. This scene is an emanation of the sexual obsessions of the society of the time and narrative construction is perfect for this myth: it is a scene without feature narrative film spectacle of the female body decomposed into fetishes. Also, the characters are archetypes that allow easy identification of male spectator: the clumsy man against a woman sexually explosive that, paradoxically, be conquered. All male fantasies about sex come together in these little planes.

By then it was a transformation in the cinematic staging of femininity. Previously, the foreground was the culmination of the scene: everything was organized to explode in his face light of the actress, it was a transition from shot to the fore. Now, the foreground is still relevant, but the body claimed its position in the frame: more slip planes that focus directly, hips or eroticized female body parts, as is gaining importance on the behavior of the actress ( much more essential in the thirties). Hence access to the fame of Marilyn, for her voluptuous body allows the camera to easily interact with it to constitute a fetish.

The problem came when the symbol is imposed on reality. Build a symbol on a personality is still alive impose archetypal features of a life that, by definition, is spontaneous. Create a fixed idea about a person who needs to experience a space of freedom to develop their behavior, is a complete castration. The symbol is a wall, a yard, which prevented the free movement and, therefore, we generated anxiety. Moreover, it had become what, in principle, rejected: a sex object. Sexually abused a child, who lived at a faster objectification of her body now, abuses were social and objectification of her body came from the media.

She seemed unable to fulfill social expectations, so I was in a constant tension that led to seizures. Moreover, their partners did not support this social care either wake your body, and her second husband, Joe DiMaggio, who always loved her, abandoned her after the filming of The Seven Year Ith. Marilyn is more than a symbol of Hollywood in the fifties, a symbol of the excesses of Hollywood. And it was the myth, abstraction, leading to the abyss of a being who, for a difficult life was fragile and unstable. Perhaps the best definition you can give it are contained in a sentence of Miss Collier, his acting coach, compiled by Truman Capote in his interview with the actress entitled An adorable creature, made ​​in his book Music for Chameleons. I leave you with this beautiful definition:

It has something. It's a beautiful girl. I do not mean the obvious, perhaps too obvious. It is not an actress at all, in the traditional sense. What she has this presence, this luminosity, this dazzling intelligence, could never come to light on stage. It is so fragile, so subtle that only the camera can capture it. It's like a hummingbird in flight: only the camera can freeze his poetry.