Marilyn, celebrity at all costs on Arte: a drama in three acts, moving but confused (review)

In three episodes of around fifty minutes, Ian Ayres’ documentary depicts the duality of an actress lost between two identities: Marilyn Monroe and Norma Jeane.

In high school, she wore her cardigans backwards, with the buttons in the back, to highlight her chest. Norma Jeane has been constructing Marilyn Monroe since adolescence, until she lost herself in this double with peroxide hair.

Filmmaker Ian Ayres portrays Marilyn as the archetypal blonde, at the crossroads with Nicole Kidman’s character in Ready for anything and that of Margot Robbie in Babylon. The first is ready to do anything to succeed (sleeping, manipulation, murder). A blonde who is both superficial and malignant, whose haircut is strangely reminiscent of Marilyn’s… The second, a young woman dreaming of becoming an actress, addicted to substances, humiliated in her childhood, uses her traumas to play. Like Monroe, she hides a mother locked up in the asylum…

These two heroines are inspired by the same legend, that of Marilyn Monroe: the little girl from the underbelly of Hollywood, the blonde, thirsty for glory…

Through a host of testimonies, from those close to him to his playing partners, including biographers, the film tells the story of Monroe. The testimonies take the viewer on a journey to the planet Marilyn, in particular that of Natasha Lytess, often forgotten in biographies. In black and white and in French, the theater coach delivers her version of the myth: an actress in love with women, giving free rein to her bisexuality.

Image after image, Marilyn smiles. Dressed or undressed, she is frozen, her mouth wide open, to show nothing. The episodes show a young woman with sparkling spontaneity, who wants more than anything to succeed. Little by little, this innocent smile will exude sensuality.

A sex symbol who built his career on his body… The first episode lays the foundations, and depicts the childhood of Norma Jeane. A childhood that contradicts the usual biographies: there is the absent father, the repeated sexual abuse, the adoptive family, but who here becomes happy and loving. A version of her childhood told by Nancy Bolden, the actress’s adopted sister, whose objectivity could be doubted…

The documentary shows a woman moving forward in life, her traumas as a basis. It depicts a society shaped by male desire.

The montage of images taken from her films reveals a dehumanized Marilyn as she is so sexualized, so foreign to herself. Norma Jeane no longer exists without Monroe. She is the one who speaks, who speaks in public and who others want to see…

But, sometimes, the flow of words, where everyone imposes their truth on their story, silences their own…”What was problematic was not so much that he was beating her (…), it was that he was interfering in her career” says a biographer about her marriage to baseball player Joe DiMaggio. Really?

In Ready for anything as in Babylonthe heroines, caught up in their ambitions, end up dying, murdered by men… This is also what asserts Marilyn, fame at all costs… The film rejects the theory of suicide, and presents as historical truth that of murder. A murder that he attributes to a mafioso, Sam Giancana, to silence the star about his relationship with Kennedy. According to whom, according to what?

Another documentary, Becoming Marilynby director Michèle Dominici, made Norma Jeane talk – particularly through her writings – without drowning her in an abundance of anecdotes. Between poems and diaries, writing occupies a major place in the actress’s life, as reported Fragmentspublished in 2010. Here, Marilyn’s words are silenced.

Smothered between voice-overs and testimonies, Ian Ayres’ documentary series is sometimes almost devoid of poetry. But the tragedy of Marilyn’s story is enough in itself…

With Marilyn, fame at all coststhe director tells his legend through the voices of those around him. If he delivers a portrait, far from her image as a sex symbol, she nevertheless appears frozen in the eyes of others, at the risk of making her own disappear.

But he retraces his trajectory with detail and emotion. This is the story of the making of the myth of Marilyn Monroe, the most melancholy of pin-upswhose legend has left a lasting mark on cinema. Everyone is shaped by this story which still resonates in the world of the 7th art. Despite an aborted career, in just six major films, the fame of Marilyn, the original pin-up, is eternal…

“She was terrified that the ground would give way beneath her feet”, says his friend Steve Hayes.

The first episode of Marilyn, fame at all costs is broadcast this Monday evening on Arte after Seven years of reflection by Billy Wilder, one of Marilyn Monroe’s legendary roles. The documentary series is available on Arte.TV until December 30, 2026. To mark the actress’s centenary, a retrospective begins this Wednesday, April 8 at the Cinémathèque française.