EVE ARNOLD
Marilyn Monroe on the Set of The Misfits, 1961
Marilyn Monroe stands in the Nevada desert, staring at nothing, surrounded by nothing. The sand stretches to dark, distant hills. Clouds gather overhead. A boom mic hovers above her head. Even when Monroe was alone, she wasn't alone.
The Misfits was the last film Monroe completed. By the time shooting began in July 1960, her marriage to Arthur Miller was ending, her acting career had typecast her in roles she no longer wanted, and she was struggling with addiction. A year after this photograph was taken, she died of an overdose.
Monroe is performing solitude for Arnold's camera: aware of being watched, yet genuinely alone. This is a staged moment of authenticity, but the staging doesn't make it less true. Arnold, one of the few women photographers in Magnum, had built a relationship with Monroe that allowed for this kind of intimacy. Where male photographers often emphasised Monroe's sexuality or fragility, Arnold's lens finds something more complicated: a woman who understood that her loneliness was also her product. The mechanics of the industry are visible in the frame because they were inseparable from Monroe's existence. She couldn't stop performing even when the performance was her own isolation. Arnold captures this without judgment, woman to woman, both operating within an industry that demanded everything and gave nothing back.
Arnold places Monroe at the centre of attention, where she spent most of her life. She dominates the frame but is strangely diminished by the vastness of the desert. When Arnold took this photo, Monroe's story was not complete. The elegiac qualities of this photograph have become more pronounced with the passing of time. It's a document of the vulnerability that lies behind bombast, and the performance that could never stop.
Eve Arnold (1912-2012) was a pioneering photojournalist and the first woman to join Magnum Photos. She photographed Monroe extensively throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, developing a working relationship built on trust and intimacy.
More on Arnold: Magnum Photos | National Science and Media Museum
