The year 2022 marks the 60th anniversary of the death of Marilyn Monroe, one of cinema’s most iconic, examined and enduring sex symbols. To commemorate the occasion, CNN is rolling out the new four-part documentary series, Reframed: Marilyn Monroe, which takes a very different, and original, approach to its subject.
During her career, and for decades after her death, Marilyn was objectified, scrutinized and judged—mostly by male writers, biographers and historians. The 1973 book, Marilyn: A Biography, paired a skeevy, sexist essay by Norman Mailer with pictures of the actress taken by photographer Lawrence Schiller.
Schiller does appear in Reframed, but here he’s talking about Monroe’s acute awareness of the camera—how she posed, what images she selected and how she used them to enhance and leverage her own celebrity status.
But most of the time, the voices we hear in this new documentary are female. Actor Jessica Chastain narrates, and an all-women editorial team headed by Sam Starbuck reexamines Marilyn’s movies, marriages and career moves from her point of view. And we hear from women film critics and historians, including the always informative Alicia Malone from Turner Classic Movies.
We also hear from several women actors. Some younger ones share why they find Marilyn inspirational both on and off the screen. And peers like Joan Collins and Ellen Burstyn, who competed in the same sexist studio system as Marilyn did in the 1950s, reflect on how women were treated in Hollywood back then. It’s a revelatory new take on some familiar ground.
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