I really loved this!! The Misfits speaks directly to my sensibilities, like female disillusion wrapped in melancholy Americana. I love that shit. The sound design alone, like when Montgomery Clift is in the phone booth and his voice becomes muffled as the door shuts, feels like we are shut inside his loneliness, sealed inside the moment with him. It’s like it’s lets us inhabit a character’s isolation rather than just observe it. The b&w cinematography only adds to the characters’ emotional void.
Knowing this was the last performance for both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe makes everything feel heavier, almost pre-mourned. The score is vehement, the locations are gorgeous, and the film balances intimacy with emptiness so well. Marilyn’s styling is PERFECTION. The makeup, the clothes, and that updo with the bow and netting, ughhh so cute!!
I will say Montgomery’s line about his face was heartbreaking, given his accident. But the horse iconography is what truly stayed with me. These powerful, majestic creatures reduced to something that can be controlled when they were never meant to be. With this being the year of the horse, the symbolism feels uncanny. Some spirits were never meant to be tamed, and the quiet devastation comes from insisting otherwise.
The ending is obviously very meta. There are so many pensive lines, “It’s like roping a dream now. I just gotta find another way to be alive, that’s all. If there is one anymore.” “That’s what killed her.” “How do you find your way back in the dark?” They feel so natural to the characters, like things that slip out rather than lines meant to land. Ending on that shaky zoom-in shot to the North Star feels like the only way the film could have ended, no credits, just that.
I really loved this!! The Misfits speaks directly to my sensibilities, like female disillusion wrapped in melancholy Americana. I love that shit. The sound design alone, like when Montgomery Clift is in the phone booth and his voice becomes muffled as the door shuts, feels like we are shut inside his loneliness, sealed inside the moment with him. It’s like it’s lets us inhabit a character’s isolation rather than just observe it. The b&w cinematography only adds to the characters’ emotional void.
Knowing this was the last performance for both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe makes everything feel heavier, almost pre-mourned. The score is vehement, the locations are gorgeous, and the film balances intimacy with emptiness so well. Marilyn’s styling is PERFECTION. The makeup, the clothes, and that updo with the bow and netting, ughhh so cute!!
I will say Montgomery’s line about his face was heartbreaking, given his accident. But the horse iconography is what truly stayed with me. These powerful, majestic creatures reduced to something that can be controlled when they were never meant to be. With this being the year of the horse, the symbolism feels uncanny. Some spirits were never meant to be tamed, and the quiet devastation comes from insisting otherwise.
The ending is obviously very meta. There are so many pensive lines, “It’s like roping a dream now. I just gotta find another way to be alive, that’s all. If there is one anymore.” “That’s what killed her.” “How do you find your way back in the dark?” They feel so natural to the characters, like things that slip out rather than lines meant to land. Ending on that shaky zoom-in shot to the North Star feels like the only way the film could have ended, no credits, just that.
