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Marilyn in Eden: still mesmerizing, still heartbreaking
Interview, Sept, 2005 by Patrick Giles
Has an apple reposed in so lovely a mouth since Eve was first tempted? The photo on this page is one of several previously unseen ones to appear in a reissue of photographer Eve Arnold's Marilyn Monroe (Abrams), which is not only a moving tribute from one visual artist to another but a window into the life of a star who, perhaps more than any other, never fails to fascinate movie lovers. In roles written and directed by men, Monroe struggled to exert her own artistry, to be more than the latest blonde bombshell or a relic of a time when American women were never more objectified and commodified. (She once joked her epitaph should be her measurements, which everyone seemed to know.) But Arnold, one of the star's favorite photographers, found Monroe's tenderness and spontaneous grace, aspects much more beautiful and cherishable than the Harlow-esque hair and teasing halter top. This repository for men's dreams had hungers and desires (some grand, some simple) of her own--as this shot of Marilyn taking a big bite out of life on a lazy spring day, far away from the Hollywood where she'd been born and would within a few years die, reminds us.
Patrick Giles is Interview's editorial associate.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
