A new Netflix documentary, The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes, dives back into the lurid lore surrounding Marilyn Monroe's death in 1962 at age 36.
Directed by Emma Cooper, the documentary is based on Anthony Summers' book Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe. The documentary showcases recordings, which feature words from members of Monroe’s inner circle, aim to show a new side of Monroe to the one the world is familiar with.
This is not the first time Monroe’s life has been examined. Alongside several documentaries, 2011 film My Week With Marilyn examined Monroe’s life in the middle of her career during the shooting of The Prince and the Showgirl. Based on the diaries of filmmaker Colin Clark, it starred Michelle Williams as Marilyn – a role for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
In addition, Ana de Armas will play Monroe in the upcoming film Blonde, based on Joyce Carol Oates’s novel about her life.
Check out what critics are talking about the Netflix documentary:
Despite the teasing promise that Anthony Summers’ bunker full of ancient cassette tapes will offer some rare insight into the life of America’s most self-evident celebrity — and the even more tantalizing hint that they might shine new light on the “mysterious” circumstances of her death — Cooper’s film does no independent research of its own, and therefore can’t possibly offer any tidbits that weren’t first reported in the pages of Goddess.
What saves the doc to some extent is the wealth of fabulous archival material, expertly assembled by editor Gregor Lyon and accompanied by Anne Nikitin’s melancholy score. And of course, there’s Monroe herself, whose magical allure and haunting loneliness transcend even this ham-handed treatment.
I came away from The Mystery of Marilyn feeling not just incredibly sad but also a little dirty. Maybe our collective fascination with her makes us all a little complicit. Maybe I’d just rather not be reminded.
As well documented as all that was, it's hard to avoid a certain sleaze factor in the telling, and the cheesy reenactments surely don't help.
Though Cooper and Summers touch on conspiracy theories — including the idea that Monroe was, perhaps, murdered for her associations with the Kennedys — no great weight is given to any of them, just minutes on screen. The result is not some great revelation so much as it is a repetition of misery. How much longer will the suffering of Monroe be re-litigated and reaffirmed?
Decider
As a big-boom expose, The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes whiffs. But as a Monroe biography that lands on a more complete and detailed conclusion, it works. So stream it, but only if you can withstand its tabloid tone.
The Mystery of Marilyn: The Unheard Tapes is streaming on Netflix.
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