Andrew Dominik says Blonde is a ‘masterpiece’, filmmaking is ‘boring as shit’ and derides state of cinema
Andrew Dominik has come out swinging for his forthcoming Marilyn Monroe film Blonde.
The Aussie director, promoting his second Nick Cave documentary This Much I Know To Be True has been grilled by ScreenDaily on Blonde, it’s NC-17 rating and the film’s long-awaited release. Dominik, as is usual for an Australian, didn’t hold back.
“Blonde is the best movie in the world right now,” Dominik told Screen Daily. “Blonde is a knockout. It’s a masterpiece.”
He confirms the film, scored by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and starring Ana de Armas as Monroe, is now picture-locked and may even premiere out of competition at Cannes (festival laws mean Netflix films are effectively barred from Palme d’Or consideration).
There is still no word on a release for the general public.
Dominik has denied there’s a menstrual oral sex scene but confirmed there is a rape scene (something present in Joyce Carol Oates’ book and in Dominik’s screenplay which has been circulating online).
Perhaps most interestingly, considering the backlash from Monroe acolytes online, is that Dominik said the film wouldn’t have been made without the #MeToo movement:
“It wouldn’t have got done” without the social movement, “because nobody was interested in that sort of shit — what it’s like to be an unloved girl, or what it’s like to go through the Hollywood meat-grinder,” he said.
Oates, who saw a rough cut way back in 2020, described it as a “brilliant… feminist interpretation”.
He confirms it will be NC-17 (seen as box office poison in the USA, but hey this is Netflix). And far from criticising Netflix, Dominik actually speaks of them in fairly glowing terms:
“I have nothing but gratitude for Netflix,” he says. “They don’t want an NC-17 movie. But when it counts, they are supportive. And Netflix are the only people that would pay for Blonde. It would not exist without them.”
And asked about the state of cinema he doesn’t hold back:
“Filmmaking is fucking boring as batshit. I see a movie I like maybe every two years. I just don’t think cinema is a vital artform anymore.”
Unfortunately Dominik has only made four features, including Blonde, since bursting onto the scene with Chopper in 2000.
But he says an agreement is already in place for his 5th film, with a script written but he can’t discuss it due to a ‘tricky rights issue’.
He’s been connected to adaptations of Jim Thompson’s Pop. 1280, Cormac McCarthy’s Cities of the Plain and a remake of Tell No One in the past.
But he remained tight-lipped on the future as we await Blonde and This Much I Know To Be True finds a distributor.
And if Blonde flops?
“It’s a demanding movie — it is what it is, it says what it says. And if the audience doesn’t like it, that’s the fucking audience’s problem. It’s not running for public office.”
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