Dakota Johnson has traded her familiar dark hair and bangs for a platinum-blonde bob to play Marilyn Monroe, but she is not the only actress stepping into the Hollywood icon’s carefully constructed image.
Ellen Burstyn portrays an imagined older Monroe in Flesh Impact, a 17-minute short written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. The film asks what Monroe’s voice, work and perspective might have become if she had lived beyond age 36.
First-look photographs show Johnson with Monroe’s signature beauty mark, red lipstick and fitted 1950s clothing. Burstyn appears in a black-box theater, playing a version of Monroe that audiences never had the opportunity to see.
The project will have its world premiere at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, where Burstyn will also receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.
Gyllenhaal Stopped Worrying About an Exact Resemblance
Johnson portrays Monroe at the height of her fame, although Gyllenhaal initially questioned whether the actress looked enough like her subject. The filmmaker eventually decided that physical resemblance should not determine the casting. “Then I thought, That’s ridiculous. Who cares?” Gyllenhaal told Vanity Fair.
Gyllenhaal argued that Monroe’s appearance has been reproduced, commercialized and transformed into a cultural myth so extensively that the person beneath the familiar image has become difficult to define.
Johnson had remained in Gyllenhaal’s thoughts while she was writing the screenplay. The two previously worked together on Gyllenhaal’s feature directorial debut, The Lost Daughter, in which Johnson played Nina opposite Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley.
Ellen Burstyn Plays the Monroe Who Had Another 60 Years
Gyllenhaal began developing Flesh Impact after researching Monroe’s performances and wondering what kind of actress she might have become if she had been given another six decades to live and work. Burstyn, now 93, plays that imagined possibility.
According to the official Venice listing, her character is a mysterious older woman auditioning for a play in a small New York black-box theater. As she discusses her acting experience, details about her identity and the public’s misconceptions about her life begin to surface.
Gyllenhaal described Burstyn’s part as resembling a 15-page monologue. Burstyn also brought a personal connection to the material, she had met Monroe and moved within some of the same professional circles during her early career.
Peter Sarsgaard and The Pitt actress Sepideh Moafi play the two people watching the audition. Gyllenhaal described the completed film as a mixture of Monroe and her own imagined version of the woman she might have become.
‘Flesh Impact’ Comes From Marilyn Monroe’s Screen Presence
The title refers to a phrase attributed to director Billy Wilder, who used “flesh impact” to describe Monroe’s unusually vivid presence on camera. She appeared so luminous and physically immediate that viewers felt they could almost reach through the screen and touch her.
Gyllenhaal uses that quality to examine the contradictory position of an actress whose image can make her powerful and internationally recognizable while also leaving her vulnerable to judgment, ownership and misunderstanding.
An official announcement said the project was made with the approval of Authentic Brands Group, which holds the Monroe estate rights. Flesh Impact will screen in Venice’s out-of-competition program during the festival, which runs from September 2 through September 12. The Golden Lion will be presented to Burstyn on the occasion of the film’s screening.