The Misfits

“The Misfits” in my opinion, is Marilyn Monroe’s greatest performance of her career. It was really the first time we saw her play a complex character with real depth, verses the dumb blonde that she is typically portrayed as. This role was personally written for her by Arthur Miller, whom she was married to at the time. The character Roslyn that Monroe portrayed is very similar to the real Marilyn. There is sadness to her, yet there is also a childish naivety at the same time.  At times while I was watching this film, it felt like Marilyn was speaking the lines, instead of her character. It was really her best role. This film was shot in black and white, and there was a lot of beautiful camera work. I was especially brought to tears when the horses were being wrangled. It was really hard to watch. This film was really ahead of its time. But once again, out of all the Marilyn Monroe movies that I have seen, this was by far her best one. This is one film that she could be taken seriously as an actress. John Huston was the director and the camera work was very expressive of who these characters were. There was one scene in particular that I noticed a "Male Gaze".  The gaze was at Marilyn shaking her bottom and all the men gawking. There was also a scene that I felt was very symbolic of Clark Gables character wrestling with a stallion, bringing it to the ground on his own. I felt that it was symbolic of two things. One being the fact that he was an older gentleman; he wanted to prove that he still got it. And the second being the struggle within him of knowing what he is doing is wrong and the desire to put it to an end. I thought the film was shot very well; the beginning really took its time of developing the characters. But, I felt the ending was a little too rushed. Although, I find that most Old Hollywood movies tend to do that.