Annakarinaland --weekly broadcasts on San Francisco Community Radio KXSF.fm - 1st Broadcast May 31 2024

Annakarinaland --weekly broadcasts on San Francisco Community Radio KXSF.fm - 1st Broadcast May 31 2024

Annakarinaland 

minute program on women and film

Reviews by Moira Jean Sullivan

Annakarinaland is a special focus on women and film, broadcast on KXSF on Saturdays between 10:00 and 11:00 pm, with film reports from international and local film festivals and original soundtracks from the films and weekly film review broadcasts from Movie Magazine International by Moira Sullivan. Dedicated to community radio veteran Monica Sullivan, who created Movie Magazine International and Shoestring Radio Theatre. Shoestring is broadcast on KXSF on Saturdays.

Check the KXSF schedule - reports can be heard for two weeks if you click on the show.

https://kxsf.fm/schedule/

A broadcast service of San Francisco Community Radio, Inc. 

KXSF is a non-profit radio station, supporting local and independent artists, record labels, and the diverse community of the SF Bay Area.

Calendar KXSF-LP 102.5 FM Annakarinaland with Moira Jean Sullivan 

Every week on Sat at 10:00 PM–11:00 PM PST in San Francisco. All reviews by Moira Jean Sullivan with original soundtracks by various artists.

All programs are listed on  

annakarinaland-2025.10.25  mp3

annakarinaland-2025.10.19 2.mp3

annakarinaland-2025.10.11 mp3

annakarinaland-2025.10.04 mp3

September 2025

annakarinaland_2025.09.27.mp3

annakarinaland_2025.09.20.mp3

annakarinaland-2025.09.06.mp3

Annakarinaland-2024.08.24.mp3  Tribute to Gena Rowlands Memorial, Woman under the Influence, Interview with Rowland's daughter Zoe Cassavetes, film music and soundtracks by Sally Potter

BROADCAST 2025.08.09 - click to download.

Filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow and films Hurt Locker, Blue Steel, Point Break, and Zero Dark Thirty.

BROADCAST 2025.08.02 repeat of 07/26 - click to download.

BROADCAST 2025.07.26 - click to download.

Born In Flames (1983), Report from Créteil International Film Festival, Paris 2023, Interview with Lizzie Borden

BROADCAST 2025.07.19 - click to download

Women and Film: Grace Jones, Carroll Baker, Bletchley Circle: San Francisco, Girl with Hyacinths

BROADCAST 2025.07.12 - click to download.

Tipping the Velvet BBC 2002 with Rachel Stirling, Keeley Hawes, and soundtrack artists Laurie Johnson (Avengers theme), Cris Williamson, Victorian Era Music Hall, Nancy Sinatra (Bang Bang), Barbarella, Sister George, Last Night in Soho, and Harley Davidson (Brigitte Bardot)

BROADCAST 2025.07.05 - click to download.

Black Narcissus (1947) and Narcissus, the BBC TV series (2020).

BROADCAST 2025.06.28 - click to download.

Annette Bening Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, Nyad, Gloria Grahame , Femme Fatale Noir, Female Gaze

BROADCAST 2025.06.13 - click to download.

Tribute to Brian Wilson, 21st Queer Women of Color Film Festival San Francisco,

BROADCAST 2025.06.07- click to download.

Cannes film report 3  

Queer Palm Jury Julie Gayt, Sam Asher, Moira Sullivan

BROADCAST FOR MAY 31 and May 24, 2025

Cannes report # 2 

Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart

Soundtracks from Cannes films.

BROADCAST FOR MAY 10, 2025

Ladine Labaki. Khaled Mouzanar review --Capernaum, Lebanon --interview 

Cannes Jury Prize winner 2018

May 3 2025  10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM  Tribute to Monica Sullivan

April 26 2025  10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM

Chinatown 1974 report with soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith; focus on gender and race; John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China with excerpts from soundtrack by John Carpenter.

April 19 2025  10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM.

This program will feature the achievements of women in the Star Wars franchise and spinoffs with soundtracks from The Mandalorian by Swedish composer Ludwig Goransson. Also there will be cuts from the soundtrack from Ahsoka by KEVIN KINER film and television scorer best known for scoring Stars Wars the Clone wars, and Star Wars rebels and soundtrack from Andor by composer Nicholas Britell.

April 12 2025  10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM.

Women in film reports from 2019 and 2016: "Bright Lights" documentary on Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds; Cannes premiere 2016, Créteil International Women's Film Festival, Agnes Varda, Euzhan Palcy, 

Soundtracks: John Williams" composer "Star Wars - A New Hope" , composer Daniel Blumberg "Agnés Varda "Gleaning Truths" 2018.

April 5 2025  10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM.

Japanese kaiju films: Godzilla (1954) and Godzilla and Mothra (1961) with soundtrack by Akira Ifukube. Vocalists Ito twins "Peanuts" - Itô Emi, Itô Yumi

March 29  10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM.

Report on Annette by Leos Carax (Venice 2021) with soundtrack by Sparks, vocals Sparks, Marion Cotillard, and Adam Driver.

Holy Motors by Carax (Cannes 2012) with soundtrack by Carax and Kylie Minogue, Akira Ifukube (Godzillla 1954), R.L. Burnside

March 22  10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM.

X Files with soundtrack by Mark Snow

March 15  10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM.

Report on Flow 2024 animated feature from Latvia, directed by Gints Zilbalodis, written and produced by Zilbalodis and Matīss Kaža. Soundtrack by Zilbalodis and Rihards Zaļup

March 8  10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM.  

The Substance, review from Cannes May 19  broadcast on International Women's Day! by Coralie Fargeat with Demi Moore plus soundtrack by Raffertie.

Feb 22  10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM. 

Special on Chinese American actress Joan Chen, with reports from past programs at Castro Theatre for Bernardo Bertolucci and Last Emperor and Italian Cultural Institute San Francisco. Grand Marshall of SF Lunar New Year Chinese Parade, Feb 15 2025. Soundtrack to Last Emperor 1987.

Feb 15  10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM 

Daughters of the Dust ; Rosa Parks Story with music by Sade, Cae, Ella Fitzgerald. and Ibeyi (rebroadcast from annakarinaland-2024.08.01).

Feb 8  10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM.  

Homage to Marianne Faithfull - 1946-2025 - report and music from Marianne Faithfull Greatest Hits, and Broken English.

Feb 1  10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM.  

Films of Jean Cocteau  Orpheus, Beauty and the Beast Soundtrack Georges Auric, Jean Cocteau

Jan 25 10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM.  

Films of David Lynch Eraserhead, Mullholland Drive, Twin Peaks

Soundtrack Eraserhead and Twin Peaks , score by Angelo Badalamenti, lyrics David Lynch.

Jan 18 10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM. 

Rebroadcast from Annakarinaland_2024_09.07 Days of Wine and Roses + Report + soundtrack Velvet Underground + Nico+ soundtrack Report on Velvet Underground documentary by Todd Haynes Interview Mary Harron, director of Daliland and I Shot Andy Warhol; soundtrack Daliland ; Amelia soundtrack by Laurie Anderson.

Jan 4 10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM. 

REBROADCAST JAN 4 Report from Dec 28 on The Childhood of a Leader by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold + soundtrack by Scott Walker from 2015.

Dec 28, 202410:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM.  

The Childhood of a Leader by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold + soundtrack by Scott Walker from 2015 --- intro to The Brutalist by Corbet and Fastvold (rebroadcast)

Dec 21, 202410:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM.

Feud  - Ryan Murphy with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford 2017. Original soundtrack Michael Stein

Dec 14 , 202410:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM. 

Cruella, 2021 with soundtrack. Emma Thompson, Emma Stone.

Original Score composed by Nicholas Britell.

Dec 7, 202410:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM. 

Cabaret 1972 with Liza Minnelli and soundtrack. Vocalists Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey.

Nov 30, 2024 10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM. 

Last Night in Soho 2021, Diana Rigg's final film with soundtrack. Report on film by Edgar Wright co written with Krysty Wilson-Cairns  starring Thomasin McKensie, Mat Smith, Anya Taylor Joy, Diana Rigg, Terence Stamp, and Rita Tushingham  with soundtrack by original artists such as Cilla Black, Sandy Shaw, Peter & Gordon.

Nov 23, 202410:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM.

Special tribute to performance artist Laurie Anderson. Dedicated to my sister Monica Sullivan and my mother Imelda Sullivan who died last year at this time and inspired Monica and myself in the arts.
Compositions by Laurie Anderson from her album Heart of a Dog, with review by Moira Sullivan for Monica’s show Movie Magazine International (rebroadcast on KXSF 102.5 FM Saturdays at 10am.)
Laurie Anderson’s sovereign hit O Superman from 1981 and a techno remix of O Superman based on an aria by Jules Massenet’s opera Le Cid with the refrain “O Superman / O Judge / O Mom and Dad".

Nov16 2024 10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM. 

Women in James Bond Films part 2 Diana Rigg

Nov 9, 2024 10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM. 

Maggie Smith Tribute Jane Fonda Interview

Nov 2, 202410:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM. 

Women in James Bond Films part 1

Oct26 202410:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM. 

     Program Oct 26 All Saints Day Special 

     Review: Audition with Eihi Shinnan 

The Exorcist and ‘Exorcist Believer’ Soundtrack ‘The Exorcist’ Interview Ellen Burstyn  San Francisco international film festival 2016.  Broadcast on KXSF.fm 102.5 

Ellen Burstyn ©Moira Sullivan

Oct20 2024 10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM. 

Queer Women of Color Film Festival reports

Finding Her Beat
Dawn Mikkelson & Keri Pickett 

Oct 12 202410:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM  

Maggie Smith Tribute;  Jane Fonda Interview with Moira Jean Sullivan, Stockholm.

Oct5  202410:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM  Special on Jane Fonda

Sept 30 202410:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM

Sept 23 202410:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM  

Program:

• Focus on Jane Fonda with reviews of Barbarella, Julia, Klute.
• Report from 2023 Cannes Film Festival as guest of honor. Promotional visit to Stockholm 2006 for "My Life So Far" and interview with Moira Sullivan.
• Music from soundtracks Barbarella and Klute.

Sept 16 202410:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM  

Special focus on 81st Venice Film Festival with Sigourney Weaver, soundtracks from Alien films and Avatar, Birthday homage to Ingrid Bergman,

Sept 9  202410:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM  

Sept 2  202410:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM  

Aug  5 202410:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM  

Special tribute to performance artist Laurie Anderson. Dedicated to my sister Monica Sullivan and my mother Imelda Sullivan who died last year at this time and inspired Monica and myself in the arts. Compositions by Laurie Anderson from her album Heart of a Dog, with review by Moira Sullivan for Monica’s show Movie Magazine International (rebroadcast on KXSF 102.5 FM Saturdays at 10am.) Laurie Anderson’s sovereign hit O Superman from 1981 and a techno remix of O Superman based on an aria by Jules Massenet’s opera Le Cid with the refrain “O Superman / O Judge / O Mom and Dad".

Aug 10 2024 10:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM  

Repeat

Special tribute to performance artist Laurie Anderson. Dedicated to my sister Monica Sullivan and my mother Imelda Sullivan who died last year at this time and inspired Monica and myself in the arts. Compositions by Laurie Anderson from her album Heart of a Dog, with review by Moira Sullivan for Monica’s show Movie Magazine International (rebroadcast on KXSF 102.5 FM Saturdays at 10am.) Laurie Anderson’s sovereign hit O Superman from 1981 and a techno remix of O Superman based on an aria by Jules Massenet’s opera Le Cid with the refrain “O Superman / O Judge / O Mom and Dad".

Aug 19 202410:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM   Tribute to Gena Rowlands 

Aug  24  2024 10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM  

Tribute to Gena Rowlands

• A Woman Under the Influence, 1974 directed by John Cassavetes, soundtrack La bohème AIDA, Verdi
• Interview with Zoe Cassavetes
• Orlando Sally Potter
• Dance Girl Dance Dorothy Arzner 1940 soundtrack
• Maureen O'Hara
• Sidewalks of New York 1928
• Soundtrack: The Party Sally Potter, Orlando and new album Pink Bikini

Aug  31 202410:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM  

Female Actors from Four Films: Reviews and Soundtracks The Group Spencer

Barbra Streisand Nancy Sinatra

July 1  202410:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM  

July 8 202410:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM  

July 13 202410:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM      Maya Deren six Avantgarde films  Teiji Ito 

July 20 202410:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM      Anna Karina tribute and interview

July 29 202410:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM 

June 15 2024 10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 FM 

Cannes Film report: out of competition film Furiosa by George Miller. Homage to Monica Sullivan, San Francisco radio host for 30 years, founder of Shoestring Radio Theatre and Movie Magazine International.

Reports on two films by Chantal Akerman whose birthday was June 6: Jeanne Dielman and Rendez-vous d'Anna 1978.

Tribute to Françoise Hardy who died on June 11.

Report on The Red Shoes by Michael Powell 1948 with extended version of Red Shoes Ballet.

June 3 202410:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM  

June 10 2024 10:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM  

Dorothy Arzner Dance Girl Dance

Music from Nicolodeaon 

June  17 2024 10:00  PM KXSF 102.5 FM 

•    Cannes Film report: Out of Competition film Furiosa by       George Miller (2024). Original score is composed by Tom     Holkenborg

• Tribute to Monica Sullivan founder of Movie Magazine International and Shoestring Radio Theatre,  San Francisco radio host for 30 years (repeat).
• Tribute to Françoise Hardy who died on June 11.
• Report on The Red Shoes by Michael Powell 1948 with extended version of Red Shoes Ballet.
• Reports on two films by Chantal Akerman whose birthday was June 6: Jeanne Dielman and Rendez-vous d'Anna 1978.

May31st - Broadcast June 8 2024 10:00 PM KXSF 102.5 first broadcast

Annakarinaland:  a weekly 60 minute program with focus on Women in Film by host film critic and scholar Moira Jean Sullivan 

Monica Sullivan

Queer Women of Color Film Festival centerpiece film
Taiko Drumming : Finding Her Beat
Dawn Mikkelson & Keri Pickett 

• Tribute to Monica Sullivan founder of Movie Magazine International and Shoestring Radio Theatre,  San Francisco radio host for 30 years.
• Radio play by Monica Sullivan: The Closet
• 77th Cannes Film Festival Report
• Queer Women of Color Film Festival Interview with Festival director Mad Lim

2nd Broadcast of Annakarinaland on San Francisco Community Radio KXSF.fm

Program: 2nd Broadcast of Annakarinaland, a weekly 60 minute program with focus on Women in Film by host film critic and scholar Moira Jean Sullivan KXSF 102.5 FM June 15, 10pm. Cannes Film report: out of competition film Furiosa by George Miller. Homage to Monica Sullivan, San Francisco radio host for 30 years, founder of Shoestring Radio Theatre and Movie Magazine International, KXSF 102.5 FM , San Francisco Community radio (Saturdays 10-11am) by Steve Rubenstein. Lineup:

Reports on two films by Chantal Akerman whose birthday was June 6: Jeanne Dielman and Rendez-vous d'Anna 1978.

Tribute to Françoise Hardy who died on June 11.

Report on The Red Shoes by Michael Powell 1948 with extended version of Red Shoes Ballet. https://kxsf.fm/ 

 KXSF is a non-profit radio station, supporting local and independent artists, record labels and the diverse community of the SF Bay Area.

Review of Sunset Blvd by Monica Sullivan

Monty Python's Eric Idle interviewed by Monica Sullivan 

Here is a great review of Sunset Boulevard that is so well written full of details you may not know. Written by my sister Monica Sullivan who founded Movie Magazine International San Francisco and Shoestring Radio Theatre.

Monica died July 21, 2023 in San Francisco and was a maverick in community radio and a prolific film critic. 
"Shoestring Radio Theatre" and "Movie Magazine International" first aired on KALX in Berkeley from 1988 - 1991. The show moved to KUSF, San Francisco in October 1991 where they aired through January 2011 when the station closed down.
The programs debuted on the Public Radio Satellite Network (which reaches hundreds of public radio stations across the country) in July, 1993.
Over time, distribution of the programs has grown to a confirmed line-up of 111 stations in North America. It can be heard  on KXFM 102.5 San Francisco Community Radio.

https://www.shoestring.org/mmi_revs/sunset-blvd.htmlLinks to an external site.

Sunset Blvd. USA - 1950

Movie Review By Monica Sullivan

One of the most difficult things to explain is a phenomena that is ground into our collective consciousness so deeply that it becomes an instant cliche. The shock of recognition is immediate, intense & irreversible. We can never go back to seeing the world as we did before. Prior to "Sunset Blvd.," only employees within the film industry knew the truth about stars like Norma Desmond. They were rich, isolated & unemployable, but why make a film about such a depressing subject? When Billy Wilder did make a film about the twilight world of Norma Desmond & her live-in lover Joe Gillis, Louis B. Mayer told Wilder that he'd disgraced the industry & should be run out of town. Wilder gave Mayer a two-word dismissal evocative of Mayer's dismissal from MGM the following year, after a 27 year reign. The future belonged to harshly critical mavericks like Wilder: Mayer was history.

Originally, Wilder intended for Joe's ghost to tell us the story of his wasted life from a slab in the mortuary, surrounded by corpses. Instead, we get the story from the bullet-riddled body in Norma's swimming pool. The body might have been played by Montgomery Clift, but the story of "Sunset Blvd." evidently hit too close to home: Clift was living with a fading star from the flapper era, Libby Holman, & he turned down the revealing role. William Holden had never played such a sleazy role as Joe Gillis. He knows that spoon feeding hope to a doomed & desperate woman is wrong, but he doesn't care. After all, Max the butler is doing the same thing & Max used to be a great director. So was the Oscar-nominated star who played Max Von Mayerling: Erich Von Stroheim. Von Stroheim, who once insisted that film extras wear meticulously accurate underwear, plays a supporting role with all the autocratic swagger he can muster, but Wilder's pitiless dialogue reveals the truth: Max was Madame Desmond's husband before he became her butler.

Youth is represented by Nancy Olson as Betty Schaefer & Jack Webb as her fiance Artie Green. Betty & Artie are bursting with unjaded artistry & untested idealism, & are thus the perfect pigeons for a cynic who wants to forget that he's already sold his soul. The past is represented by glorified versions of Hedda Hopper & Cecil B. DeMille, who play themselves as savvy survivors, & by silent stars Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson & H.B. Warner, who appear as musty, if still breathing, waxworks at the altar of Gloria Swanson's Norma. The bright-eyed young girl who'd first bounced around a movie set in 1918 & would still be making movies over 65 years later, gives Norma a jolt of satire amidst the sparks of restless energy. Earlier choices for Norma included Mary Pickford (who could not have played Norma to save her soul) & Pola Negri (who might have been able to give Norma a uniquely exotic spin), but no one was better at capturing a woman who lived in the past than Swanson, who really didn't give a damn about the past. "Sunset Blvd." nurtured a new mythology about Hollywood which has persisted since its release in 1950. It fuels the content of tabloids & chat shows. Movie stars do not live happily every after in the year 2000. They can't gain a pound at the waist or lose a dime at the box office without whispers of their sad last days being routinely recorded with all the delicacy of an ambulance siren. Billy Wilder, who left Hitler's Germany to toil in the blinding California sun, came, saw & showed us ourself in striking & unforgettable ways. "Sunset Blvd." drives his indelible observations home.

© 2000 - Monica Sullivan - Air Date: 5/3/00

Linda Haynes and Rolling Thunder - an actress worth a retrospective.

Quentin Tarantino likes to revitalise actors from film classics. His time working in a video shop gave him the opportunity to see films that are otherwise not very well known to todays Netflix and other popular streaming outlets. He not only knows them well but his film sets often pay homage to the films of the 70s and 80s.  Today's pop streaming culture caters to a whole generation of young film fans do not have the opportunity to enrich their knowledge of film with cult classics. Tarantino can't rediscover everyone. Two actors he has helped are not my favorites - John Travolta (Saturday Night Fever 1977 to Pulp Fiction 2004) and Christophe Walz (nothing comes to mind from before to Inglorious Basterds (2009). They will always have Tarantino to thank for their rebooted careers. 

When it comes to female actors Tarantino brought Pam Grier to the forefront in Jackie Brown (1997) who was a vital presence in B films such as Coffy (1973)  and Foxy Brown (1974).  She has remained current in an entourage of TV series since the 70's such as The L Word  and really did not need Tarantino.

In 1977 Paul Shrader wrote a mesmerizing script for the film Rolling Thunder directed by William Flynn starring William Devane, Tommy Lee Jones and Linda Haynes. Haynes who was brilliant in this film worked through the 70's and 80's including Coffy and later retired to become a legal secretary. There are so many female actors who ' retire' from the screen since the shelf life is nearly as short as a ballerina. Her solid acting abilities deviates from male actors made new by Tarantino.  He has written about her enthusiastically but didn't put her in any films.

Linda plays Linda Forchet, a barmaid at a local pool hall who has the honor of delivering $2555 worth of silver dollars for every day that US Air Force Major Charles Rane (William Devane) spent as a POW in Vietnam.  The major and US Army Master Sergeant Johnny Vohden return home to San Antonio to the airfield in Texas and to a crowd of flag waving citizens. While away Rane's wife has taken up with the local sherif who calls his son a 'runt' and was a toddler when he left.

 Rane runs into Linda with no fireworks going off for him but she has worn a bracelet the entire time he was held prisoner and tortured in Vietnam. Baddies from Mexico invade Rane's home to get the coins, kill his wife and boy and put his arm in the garbage disposal. Rane asks Linda to go on a road/revenge trip with him in his shiny red Cadillac that was given to him on his return. Her endurance during this time and her perseverance in trying to steer Rane away from violence while maintaining her self-respect is a powerful performance. She gets left at a motel and forgotten after a shootout with Rane, Johnny Vohden and the Mexican bandits. While Rane and Vohden are back in their saddle from their war days alleviating for a period of time their post-traumatic stress, Haynes shines brightly in Rolling Thunder. Film critic Molly Haskell wrote: 

"The men... come off better than the women because they are excused from ever uttering a word. Linda Haynes, who was so exciting and authentically rural in Robert Mulligan's Nickel Ride, has that most thankless role of the adoring and impossibly patient woman who must babble on to fill the silences."

When looking back on Rolling Thunder Haynes role serves as a meditation on violence in an otherwise bloody tale. Such devotion and care to the spoils of war makes a chilling statement that endures long after the carnage.

Blonde's sacrifice to Valhalla

 Blonde (2022) converts the  'Marilyn prose' of the novel by Joyce Carol Oates (2000) into imagery in a relentless travesty devoid of integrity and ridden with clichés. Oates calls it a "penetration" of the fictitious self of Marilyn Monroe and was used by Andrew Dominik as a "bible" for his film. 

Many Netflix spectators describe that they reached a saturation point after 20 minutes. Oates' first chapter is mirrored in these opening scenes:  the leitmotif of closeups of Monroe in her white briefs forced into unsolicited sex in casting auditions or twirling on the set of The Seven Year Itch; growing up as an infant in a bureau drawer with a mentally unstable mother Gladys (Julianne Nicholson); receiving  a birthday present, a photograph of her absent father placed over her bed by her mother; the fire set that results in the child being placed in an orphanage.

The language of Blonde is torpid and  dramatic: "I will punish myself, despite your love" is one of the fantasmagorical constructions of the novel that finds its way into the film.  Oates describes Marilyn as a "defeated" child, "sacrificed" to an institution as ward of Los Angeles County. Her "Oakie name" Norma Jeane adapted from "movie people" - Norma Talmadge and Jean Harlow is changed to Marilyn by a studio executive and she takes her mother's maiden name Monroe. Her hair is bleached and her teeth straightened. She is a woman, according to Oates, "burdened by her body"; her natural beauty commodified by the studios.  She is not shown reading for serious roles in Ibsen or Chekhov. Blonde cherry picks the roles which gave her less money, less versatility and dwarf her real acting register.

 Ana De Armas, Blonde (2022).

©La Biennale di Venezia

Oates communicates that the psyche of the novel is about a "creature desperate to survive". She calls her 'a goddess visiting in disguise' for screen tests, films and public appearances but otherwise is just 'plain Marilyn'.  In Dominik's Blonde ritual enactments of 'goddess murder' are shown through objectification and sexual abuse.  Oates said that Monroe was aware of her predators like the Kennedy's but claims she  took the stance: "I won't interfere with the world that is trying to exploit me but see how far it will take me".  Yet, Blonde shows Monroe's complicity and rebellion against her subjugation in scenes where she is screaming,  reeling from pills and alcohol, dissasociating from trauma and speaking in her inner voice in a daunting and tragic downward spiral. It is one punch after another from the burning house to the orphanage to abusive marriages, to the White House.  

Oates regards the film as "feminist" and extraordinary for being made by a man. The film is neither feminist nor is the novel. The reactions from the general public are overwhelmingly negative since its debut at Venice in September.  It did not win any awards. Almost every scene of Blonde is embedded with misogyny towards Monroe, her mother, or any woman with a role in the film. Blonde is a  relentless dismissive portrait of a mythologized woman crammed with as many legends as possible from the annals of Monroe worship. 

Blonde populates Marilyn Monroe's world with predators in a cycle of abuse. Ana De Armas as Monroe infantalizes and subjugates her character in homage to a caricature that is a copy of a copy  incarnate from hell. She consistently uses a baby doll voice and is unable to register anything other than being a victim, seemingly unaware of the largesse of her character. The acclaim accorded to Monroe in her life is never shown, nor the respect of her peers. Her personal accountability for her career with media savvy smarts and entrepreneurship  that made her successful is non-existent.  The film seems to push her as far into her crypt as possible in Valhalla as a fait accompli. De Armas revealed that she visited Monroe’s grave in Los Angeles to ask for her permission to play her (after Jessica Chastain and Naomi Watts had already turned it down). It seems like director and actress knew nothing about her career and relied on a 20 year old novel to tell the story.

Joyce Carol Oates response to the overwhelming negative reaction to the NC-17 rated Blonde is don't watch it (albeit read her novel).  For those who are tired of the character assassination of Monroe it is good advice.  Oates and others attribute the negative reaction to the "artistic" way the film is made since it deviates from  Netflix' s standard entertainment. This assumption is an affront to the eclectic and sophisticated tastes of viewers.  Blonde mixes black and white with color cinematography, shows a superimposition of Marilyn having sex atop a gushing Niagara Falls,  dialogue with fetuses,  and POV shots of OB/GYN procedures. This is not why the film is controversial. Blonde's  framing of an ostentatious fantasy of Monroe drugged, dragged  and presented to Jack Kennedy’s room for sexual services while he watches sci-fi on a TV console is an egregious and pretentious turnoff  in league with Vincent Gallo's Brown Bunny.  "Death" arrives with a package to the actor's home in Brentwood two days before her death, a stuffed animal dressed up like a  "Rosebud". Montage and elliptical editing suggest Monroe dies allegedly from the horror of the experience.

After being subjugated, dissected and and colonized  by the camera and editing in the film's myopic and intrinsic misogyny nearly three hours have gone by. Monroe's body is central in the framing of the film, passive, erotic, and dismembered for the male gaze,  adhering to the embryonic blueprint of women in film. 

Netflix waited a year to release September 23 hoping for the NC-17 stamp to rub off,  hoping that a standing ovation at Venice in September would redeem it (all films with the director and stars present at Venice get standing ovations).  The film shows an actor without a single ally to support her.  She is surrounded by a sea of exploiters much like the exaggerated and massive extras on the set of The Seven Year Itch in Blonde.  

Andrew Dominik's films are seldom about women and he admits he knows little about them and would like to even be one to understand, so why make a film about one of the most complex, least understood women in film history? 

Fortuitously the gates of Valhalla today are laden with the lipstick kisses of women who esteem Marilyn Monroe - her being -  intelligence,  humor, entrepreneurship, artistry, and humanity, whose ambitions as a serious and gifted actor were often thwarted but who always conveyed a presence fueled by a powerful inner light.

 

Brad Pitt producer, Ana De Amas, Andrew Dominik and Adrien Brody at premiere of "Blonde"
Venice September 8, 2022. ©La Biennale di Venezia

© 2022 - Moira Jean Sullivan -  09/30/22

Movie Magazine International

Maria Schneider, 1983

By Moira Jean Sullivan - May 18, 2022

by Moira Jean Sullivan

The Festival de Cannes Directors fortnight premiere of Maria Schneider, 1983 (16mm) by Elisabeth Subrin will be held May 26 featuring Manal Issa, Aïssa Maïga, and Isabel Sandoval. Together with other filmmakers, Subrin said she was asked to work on an experimental adaptation  for Antonioni's film Technically Sweet  from the 1980's to be shot on video - Sweet Ruin (2008).
Antonioni's film was never made when Jack Nicholson refused to shoot on location in the Amazon. He  instead made The Passenger (1983) with Maria Schneider and Nicholson. 

It wasn't until 2014 that Subrin started a blog dedicated to Maria Schneider called Who Cares About Actresses. This was prompted by a media interest in Schneider's negative experience on the set of Last Tango in Paris directed by  Bernardo Bertolucci. The #METOO movement got behind Schneider's story that she was sexually abused by Bertolutcci and the story was brought to international attention along with similar experiences of other women in the film business.

 Maria Schneider was open about her exploitation a long time ago. The truth was well known to the women who knew her and the organizers of Créteil International Women's Film Festival. Schneider was the guest of honor in Créteil 2001 and Movie Magazine International ran an exclusive interview with her in April 2001.

In Subrin's film three actresses repeat word for word a section of an interview made for Cinémas Cinéma with Anne Andreu and Raoul Sangla in 1983. It is also credited to Maria Schneider. It is the same part of the interview interpreted by Manal Issa, Aissa Maiga and Isabel Sandoval (who speaks English). The section is about how being an actress is dangerous, and how she was exploited by Bertolucci and Brando in Last Tango in Paris and that it was a rape on screen. This is a part of a larger film according to the filmmaker.

Maria is not in the film, only her voice in the end credits.

© 2022 - Moira Jean Sullivan: 05/18/22
Movie Magazine International