Natalie Wood (2021)
Natalie Wood's story became more than her; I feel like that’s completely unfair because that seemed to be the narrative of her life. She never was given autonomy over what her director, boyfriend, or the media saw, thought, or wanted her to be. The pressure and claustrophobic nature of the ever-watching eye on Hollywood stars is something as consumers we are well aware of and, in turn, complacent with. This is what makes it so appalling of human nature that we allowed her to be cast as a benevolent accessory to her male supporting role, even in death. Her entirety, talent, motherhood, and life have never been worth more than supporting and protecting the reputation of Hollywood’s oh-so-essential men.
My goal was to show her in scenes that did not centre around her appliance to men. But instead, in the viscous melancholy of periods of privacy, when she can look with the clarity of the present and be forced to sit with life as we all are. Unlike the media, this film forgives the coping mechanisms that are all too common in the Hollywood system. For men, drug and alcohol abuse is trivialized and glorified, but this coping for Natalie was vilified by the media in the most severe circumstances regarding her death.
I wanted to capture Natalie in the duality of beauty and pain caused by the Hollywood system. The film visuals are unapologetically feminine and intimate. They focus on her surroundings instead of her face. An overwhelming and confusing storm of objects she surrounds herself with describes how she feels in the private world of the film. The film tries to give voice to the stunning, intoxicating and paralyzing nature of life for young women in Hollywood.
The film’s audio is my first experimentation with creating a score. I wanted the building of anxious tension but, more importantly, to incorporate found footage audio clips. The first clip and others throughout are from the original news broadcast in 1981 when Natalie passed. As well as some of the footage from the scene in the empty theatre. She always had an audience, not one that saw her as a person but a counterpart to a man.
I wanted the opportunity to show Natalie in a contemporary light that could at least acknowledge on my small level that we will no longer be silent in complacency with a system that destroys women’s lives from the time they are forced into it as little girls. We certainly will not allow their lives to be stolen any longer; Marlin Monroe is a keystone figure in this system of abuse. There is a page dedicated to her in Natalie’s scrapbook featured at the end of the film. Her story is similar to Natalie’s; their stories can be compared to contemporary versions like Britney Spears.
This cycle shows only recently signs of change because of recognition and nonconformity to this system. To learn more about Natalie Wood’s case reopening, I highly recommend visiting the source listed.
LosAngeles, ABC 7, director. Natalie Wood Case: 'We're Closer to Understanding What Happened,' Detective Says. YouTube, 5 Feb. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14qXHUFIE8&t=263s&ab_channel=ABC7. Accessed 7 Nov. 2021.
My goal was to show her in scenes that did not centre around her appliance to men. But instead, in the viscous melancholy of periods of privacy, when she can look with the clarity of the present and be forced to sit with life as we all are. Unlike the media, this film forgives the coping mechanisms that are all too common in the Hollywood system. For men, drug and alcohol abuse is trivialized and glorified, but this coping for Natalie was vilified by the media in the most severe circumstances regarding her death.
I wanted to capture Natalie in the duality of beauty and pain caused by the Hollywood system. The film visuals are unapologetically feminine and intimate. They focus on her surroundings instead of her face. An overwhelming and confusing storm of objects she surrounds herself with describes how she feels in the private world of the film. The film tries to give voice to the stunning, intoxicating and paralyzing nature of life for young women in Hollywood.
The film’s audio is my first experimentation with creating a score. I wanted the building of anxious tension but, more importantly, to incorporate found footage audio clips. The first clip and others throughout are from the original news broadcast in 1981 when Natalie passed. As well as some of the footage from the scene in the empty theatre. She always had an audience, not one that saw her as a person but a counterpart to a man.
I wanted the opportunity to show Natalie in a contemporary light that could at least acknowledge on my small level that we will no longer be silent in complacency with a system that destroys women’s lives from the time they are forced into it as little girls. We certainly will not allow their lives to be stolen any longer; Marlin Monroe is a keystone figure in this system of abuse. There is a page dedicated to her in Natalie’s scrapbook featured at the end of the film. Her story is similar to Natalie’s; their stories can be compared to contemporary versions like Britney Spears.
This cycle shows only recently signs of change because of recognition and nonconformity to this system. To learn more about Natalie Wood’s case reopening, I highly recommend visiting the source listed.
LosAngeles, ABC 7, director. Natalie Wood Case: 'We're Closer to Understanding What Happened,' Detective Says. YouTube, 5 Feb. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14qXHUFIE8&t=263s&ab_channel=ABC7. Accessed 7 Nov. 2021.