Netflix and Andrew Dominik battling over ‘graphic’ Blonde final cut
Netflix is reportedly aghast at Andrew Dominik’s vision for Blonde — testing the studio’s pledge to support ‘artistic vision’ for perhaps the first time.
The Marilyn Monroe biopic, based on Joyce Carol Oates’ book of the same name, has been punted from the Venice Film Festival schedule with its release date likewise kicked into the long grass (2022).
The problem? Well, if WorldOfReel is to be believed, the film as delivered to Netflix from production company Plan B will be NC-17, features a rape scene and also ‘bloody menstrual cunnilingus’.
Netflix had perhaps been expecting a rather safe if ‘arty’ biopic about the iconic movie star, instead it’s a “vague, obtuse arthouse film”.
The streaming giant, desperate for awards recognition, has being throwing money at auteur directors to make their dream projects (Martin Scorsese’s £200m The Irishman the case in point) and offer them full creative freedom.
But does that creative freedom stretch to Dominik’s dream project?
If the reports are true that Netflix have been caught off guard by the film questions have to be raised about whether they read the book (which author Oates admits is a work of fiction), the script or Dominik’s own thoughts.
He’s been speaking about Blonde since 2010 when Naomi Watts was first attached to star (she was replaced by Jessica Chastain and then by Ana de Armas).
He has said:
“It’s a film about the human condition. It tells the story of how a childhood trauma shapes an adult who’s split between a public and a private self. It’s basically the story of every human being, but it’s using a certain sense of association that we have with something very familiar, just through media exposure.
“It takes all of those things and turns the meanings of them inside out, according to how she feels, which is basically how we live. It’s how we all operate in the world. It just seems to me to be very resonant. I think the project has got a lot of really exciting possibilities, in terms of what can be done, cinematically.”
Also:
“It’s about her whole life. It starts when she’s seven and it ends when she dies.”
“It’s sort of a Polanksi descent-into-madness-type movie. It’s about this orphan girl who gets lost in the woods.”
Lastly:
“It’s like my dream film. Marilyn Monroe… it’s like the orphan-that-got-lost-in the-woods-type story.
“It’s a fairytale and my obsession with Hitchcock is based on how to do that movie, which I imagine is kind of like… that movie — it’s set inside her and we are from her point of view, the whole story and even the way she sees the world, it’s totally shown from inside her.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about Hitchcock from that point of view and also Polanski movies like The Tenant.
“All movies should be some kind of externalisation of an internal drama I think, I think that’s why stories appeal because they dramatise some emotional or psychological concern.”
Also in screengrabs circulating on social media it appears the original script featured a scene where Monroe’s unborn fetus pleads with her not to be aborted.
There’s also this rather ominous quote regarding violence:
“I like violence, I like to feel something when I see a movie, if something’s violent I want it to effect me and I want it to be distressing, if it’s distressing I feel really happy.”
Seriously, what sort of film did Netflix expect? Another My Week With Marilyn?
Oh and for what it’s worth Oates said she’s seen a rough cut of Blonde and described it, among things, as ‘feminist’:
On Twitter, the author wrote,
“I have seen the rough cut of Andrew Dominick’s adaptation & it is startling, brilliant, very disturbing & [perhaps most surprisingly] an utterly ‘feminist’ interpretation… not sure that any male director has ever achieved anything [like] this.”
And now, for perhaps the first time, Netflix find themselves at loggerheads with a director. And not just any director, a director who is on record at saying this is his “dream project” — and who has history fighting with studios before.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford — way back in 2005 — ran into similar issues with Warners Bros ‘hating’ Dominik’s initial cut.
It languished in post-production hell for a year before finally being quietly given a low-key release and losing money (it’s since been acclaimed as a masterpiece although Dominik thinks his version, just five minutes longer, is better).
Asked about that he said: “We fought over the movie, what it should be. It was like warfare, basically.”
How did he get his way in the end? He threatened to take his name off it, which would have caused Warners too much professional embarrassment.
Will he go the same way with Blonde?
