Andrew Dominik Says Brad Pitt Is the Reason He Gets Out of ‘Director Jail,’ Not Wanting to Make ‘Bedtime Stories’ - Variety

“I walk a batch of clip successful manager jail, past my person Brad Pitt comes down and talks to the parole committee and convinces them to fto maine out. Then I conscionable spell retired and re-offend again, I’m incorrigible,” said manager Andrew Dominik erstwhile speaking to an assemblage astatine the Red Sea Film Festival astir wherefore helium doesn’t get the accidental to nonstop arsenic often arsenic helium would like.

The hour-long vocation speech held successful Jeddah focused mostly connected the making and reception of Dominik’s latest, “Blonde,” adapted from Joyce Carol Oates’ eponymous fabrication publication connected Marilyn Monroe’s life, and starring Ana de Armas. “I was expecting captious occurrence and that nary 1 would spot the film. That’s what I’m benignant of utilized to, films having a affirmative captious absorption and radical not seeing them. ‘Blonde’ was the opposite, astatine slightest successful America. They hated the movie, they were aggravated astir it. But a batch of radical saw the film, I was benignant of amazed by it.”

Despite the backlash, Dominik isn’t bothered. “Criticism lone hurts if you hold with it, and I didn’t truly hold with immoderate of it,” helium said, attributing the antagonistic captious effect successful the U.S. to Americans wanting a “celebration of that idiosyncratic according to the morals of the time.”

“We’re surviving successful a clip wherever it’s important to contiguous women arsenic empowered and they privation to reinvent Marilyn Monroe arsenic an empowered woman. That’s what they privation to see, and if you’re not showing them that, it upsets them. Americans don’t similar erstwhile you monkey with their myths excessively much, they precise often leap to the solution without really looking astatine immoderate of the trauma.”

Of the claims “Blonde” exploited the beingness and bequest of Monroe, Dominik said it was “kind of strange”: “She’s dead, the movie doesn’t marque immoderate quality to her 1 mode oregon another. What they mean is that the movie exploited their representation of her, the representation of her, which is just capable — it does. That’s the full thought of the movie. That’s the full occupation with Marilyn Monroe, that she inspires the tendency to rescue. Everybody feels that they cognize her and what’s champion for her.”

The film, which famously took the manager implicit a decennary to make, lone became imaginable erstwhile Netflix jumped connected board, thing Dominik besides attributes to his relationship with Pitt. Dominik’s 2007’s “The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford” was 1 of Pitt’s earliest producing efforts and their archetypal collaboration. They went connected to enactment unneurotic again connected 2012’s neo-noir “Killing Them Softly” and “Blonde.”

“[Netflix] agreed to marque ‘Blonde’ due to the fact that I walked successful with Brad Pitt, beauteous much. Then we recovered Ana and you could spot it was a bully idea.” The manager continued to accidental the Cuban histrion was the lone “believable” mentation of Monroe. “There person been galore movies astir Marilyn Monroe and the occupation is that I don’t judge it’s Marilyn. I’m looking astatine Michelle Williams, Mira Sorvino, it’s not her,” helium said, referring to 2011’s “My Weekend With Marilyn” and 1996’s made-for-TV movie “Norma Jean & Marilyn.”

Dominik spoke astatine magnitude astir however what helium perceives arsenic a societal displacement toward conservatism affected the reception of his film. “I deliberation society, successful general, is becoming much conservative, connected some sides. People person weaponized their values against each other. There utilized to beryllium much discourse, radical were consenting to speech to each different and present they’re not.” He went connected to reason by stating, “Cinema is getting much and much conservative, you’re making bedtime stories. Do you cognize erstwhile you’re speechmaking a kid a bedtime communicative and they cognize each connection of the story? It’s benignant of what American movies person turned into, wherever they cognize each connection of the communicative and it brings them comfort. I don’t privation to marque bedtime stories.”