Andrew Dominik has addressed his use of foetal imagery in his new Marilyn Monroe film Blonde, saying he wasn’t “concerned with being tasteful”.
The director’s Netflix psychological drama, which stars Ana de Armas as the late Hollywood icon, is based on Joyce Carol Oates’s 2000 novel of the same name.
However, The Independent’s Amanda Whiting argued that Dominik’s movie takes the original story “somewhere even darker and even more invasive”.
Since its theatrical release, the film has received mixed reviews from critics, with Whiting further writing that Marilyn “never feels more like a Hollywood plaything than when Dominik is subjecting her to gory sexual and medical violence, probing her literally, and barbarically depicting what it feels like to be one of the 20th century’s most famous women from the inside out”.
In a new interview with Sight and Sound, Dominik spoke about his grisly depiction of Monroe’s unwanted abortion, claiming: “I’m not concerned with being tasteful.”
“Blonde is supposed to leave you shaking. Like an orphaned rhesus monkey in the snow. It’s a howl of pain or rage. Of all the films I’ve made, it’s the one that strikes me the most differently each time I watch it.”
Ahead of the film’s streaming release, Blonde received attention for its rating for sexual content in the US, which means no one under the age of 17 can see it, and with which de Armas has strongly disagreed.
“It’s a drag to get [an] NC-17 because it means people freak out. And we can’t get billboards,” Dominik said.
“Personally, I feel like the film does colour within the lines. Now people are expecting something a lot more salacious.”
Blonde premieres on Netflix on Wednesday 28 September.
