Netflix has released a new trailer for its first NC-17 original, Blonde, starring Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe. The film is based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates and touches on the public and private life of the star.
Blonde is not a traditional biographical film, as the film will blur the line between reality and fantasy, Netflix said. It tells the story of how a woman, Norma Jeane Baker, became the incredibly popular celebrity Marilyn Monroe in the ’50s and’ 60s.
said de Armas to one Interview on Netflix that director Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James) wanted to make a film that would allow people to see both Marilyn and Norma Jeane. “I found it to be the most daring, non-apologetic and feminist view of her history that I had ever seen,” she said.
Dominik said that Monroe is a “deeply injured” person and that Blonde will dig in Norma Jeane to come to terms with herself and her personality, Marilyn. This duality is “both her armor and the thing that threatens to consume her,” Dominik said.
Blonde will feature a depiction of Monroe’s true interpretation of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” from the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It will also require great creative freedoms and will include characters based on historical figures and “amalgamations of people he may have known”.
The second cast includes Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale and Julianne Nicholson.
De Armas also talked about the lengths that she, Dominik and the rest of the creative team in creating Blonde did. “We worked on this film for hours, every day for almost a year,” de Armas said. “Each scene is inspired by an existing photograph. We wanted to tell the human side of its story. Fame is what made Marilyn the most visible person in the world, but it also made Norma the most invisible.”
De Armas underwent a major physical transformation to play Monroe, which included nearly three hours of hair and makeup each day of the film’s 47-day filming.
Blonde has an NC-17 rating, making it the first Netflix original movie to receive that rating. Dominik said that people perceive him as “provocative”, but that is not his intention. “I’m just trying to say it as clearly as I can. My ambition is to make you fall in love with Marilyn,” he said.
Dominik has previously said that Blonde will “offend everyone” who sees it. Viewers can decide for themselves when Blonde will hit Netflix on September 23rd.
The products discussed here were selected independently by our publishers. GameSpot can receive a share of the revenue if you purchase anything that appears on our site.
