The Misfits: A Film by John Huston, 1961
Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach
The Misfits is very famous for other things besides the film itself. And to me, that is just chitter-chatter and has nothing to do with the quality of the work. The only noticeable thing is the soft focus on Marilyn Monroe’s face while talking to Clark Gable in his kitchen. It’s a sharp focus on his side of the world, but she and the background are blurry. Beyond that, this film deals with masculine men at the end of their rope and hope. Monroe’s character is an emotional anchor where all three, Gable, Montgomery Clift, and Eli Wallach, are pulled into her Universe, even though they live in a somewhat waiting area before death.
Arthur Miller’s script is tight, and John Huston does an excellent job placing the camera in the right place and letting the actors swing in their fashion and pace. It’s fascinating to watch Clift work with Old Hollywood, such as Gable and John Wayne, a decade earlier. He’s like a male ballet dancer, and he’s there to support the others and catch them if they fall.
The film is about social change and the dying breed of ‘dudes’ who are not needed, nor will they be missed. On one level, it can be about Capitalism as they are on the lower end of the economic pile and deeply wounded as time runs out for them. Monroe’s character I find to be sensible in that she has an understanding of this horrific world fading out. And, of course, it is Hollywood, so there is that false ending because, in real life, all these characters would drink themselves to death. Even the horses are disappearing. There is no out, even if they realize their path to nothingness.
She's the Real Deal in this in every way. Not to mention the soundtrack by Alex North, Tosh!
A whole 'nother post...
The image of a tiny Monroe screaming her isolation ([her husband] "did not know I was there") but from a great distance near the end was powerful. The old world is indeed dying out--sort of reminiscent of the film "Hud" (and McMurtry's novel) as the older ranchers waited for the oil rigs to replace them. But there is more here than approaching doom--there is also stoic perseverance, andeven an inner joy flickering but alive, as long as the folks are.