El misterio de Marilyn Monroe: Las cintas inéditas

Released no doubt to coincide with the 60th anniversary of Monroe's death, this new Netflix documentary film relied largely on audio tapes made back in 1982 by British journalist Anthony Summers with several people who either were friends, associates or colleagues of the ill-fated actress. These tapes were made by him as the background to a high-profile L A. Court case of the time which sought, no doubt under public interest if not pressure, to ascertain once and for all, the reason or reasons for her death. That verdict was the same then as that reached twenty years previously, i.e. That Monroe had died of an accidental overdose, but just like the JFK assassination or even the death of Princess Diana, speculation and conjecture still surround her death today.

Naturally however, to pad out its running-time I suspect, we get a potted history of Marilyn's life and career up to the point of her passing. Although mostly known to me anyway, it was still interesting to see contemporary news footage of her and if you think that today's paparazzi are uncaring and invasive, just get a load of the press mobbing her and inconsiderately pressing her for a comment even as she's leaving an asylum where she'd just been treated for something of a breakdown.

We get the familiar story of her abandoned childhood and Hollywood breakthrough in John Huston's "The Asphalt Jungle" feature from 1950, the short-lived marriages to baseball star Joe De Maggio and playwright Arthur Miller, her aspirations to be a serious actress in attending the Strasberg method-acting school and finally her fateful, at least so it's argued here, entanglement with the Kennedy brothers, one the President and the other the Attorney General of America.

The film at least draws a very clear conclusion but of course it's both controversial and speculative. The director's technique of having the verite audio-tapes with long-dead interviewees like Huston and Billy Wilder amongst many others, lip-synced by actors in reenactments, I must admit I found strange and off-putting, especially when used with fuzzy out-of-focus shots of the actors themselves reciting their lines, There are surely more than enough images of Monroe to act as a backdrop to just playing the audio on its own.

Also interspersed throughout the movie were carefully selected tapes of the actress herself speaking in her own voice, some from the private collection of her last psychiatrist, but these are too often taken out of context just for effect. At one point we hear her talking about the pursuit of truth almost as if she's foreseen her own death which struck me as bizarre and certainly contrived. Strange and inconsistent too not to follow-through by having an actress lip-synch Monroe's own words as every other interviewee in the film was, even if I disagreed with this particular device. In the end, it was difficult not to come to the conclusion that the film merely served to feed the Marilyn-obsession of Summers himself and that the director should have exercised a lot more objectivity.

Me, I'm not convinced this film served its subject well. Yes, it put a different spin on her death of which I hadn't been aware and gave me some pause for thought, but overall I found this production to be rather slipshod, sensationalist and almost trashy at times in its execution.

Goodbye Norma Jean, but after this, I still don't think I knew you at all.

An intriguing documentary which uses the real life voice recordings of Marilyn Monroe and the many people who knew her both before and after she became a mega star. Though we ultimately know how this tragic story ends, Marilyn is still ravishing and lovely enough to hold our attention. When one sees her remastered film clips in this documentary, it's easy to understand why the world fell in love with her and why she continues to captivate so many to this day.

Nothing at all new here, though the tapes of her voice are touching, though the gimmick of actors lip-syncing the audio tapes of other voices is a poor decision and distracting. This absolutely gorgeous woman was damaged goods due to her horrid childhood and was used by many in wrong ways to succeed in show business, but she bares some responsibility for that part too, but she had no say in her upbringing making her chronically insecure with barely an ounce of self confidence, though she could turn on for a camera and man, was she ever photogenic. For better or worse, she did indeed live a short and sensational life with huge stardom, marriages to one of the biggest sports heroes in history along with one of our greatest playwrights. We will never, ever know the details of her connections to the Kennedys, but she was clearly closely associated with them as has been talked about since the 1960's. Some of the speculation here of how she died is valid, but so is suicide, the legal reason for her death, but no one then or now is talking, which in itself is interesting. She was fascinating and she was in a few good films, though none come close to the heights of Some Like It Hot. This film seems just like some cheap cash in by the author of the book Goddess, but at least we get to see some pictures and video of her, which is nice, but there is not even nearly enough of that for one of the most photographed women in history.

This is a riveting and well-produced documentary of a fascinating story. The incredible thing is that it's a real story. "I would say that it was covered up because of her connection with the Kennedy Brothers." Only half of the reality. Clearly (from these accounts) Marilyn Monroe was dangled as an unwitting conduit to the highest offices of the US Government by the Soviets during the cold war. This connection was known by a very anti-communist FBI whose machine forced the Kennedy brothers to sever ties rapidly and cleanly. Marilyn--an ideal candidate to be dangled--was very insecure, emotionally susceptible, and in need of being needed, and she was unable to sustain the emotional quagmire she had gotten herself into. A last attempt on Robert Kennedy's part to try to intervene into her emotional break was unsuccessful. In times like this there is no recourse but to clean up a horrid mess that ensued. It happens more than we want to know. Kudos for this investigative reporter to put this story straight, though he dances too lightly around the Soviet involvement, mostly because he can't puncture that sphere. So, there it is. "She killed herself either intentionally or accidentally. This case is closed." That is true.

There isn't much in this documentary that warrants a distinct visual approach. As many rightfully remarked, the material is befitting a podcast more than a Netflix piece. To be honest, the actors' lip-syncing to the tapes didn't add anything. Also, the tapes pose a few relevant questions but none that insist on a deeper study. All the information we see (or hear) in this piece is, more or less, already out there in some form or the other. It's always blissful to see the charismatic Monroe on screen, and her presence is genuinely undeniable. But I couldn't figure her out as a person here, let alone understand more about her untimely death.