Marilyn Monroe Retrospective at Torino to Portray Her as a ‘Female Marlon Brando’: ‘She Was So Profound’ — SkimNews
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- Torino Film Festival announced the Marilyn Monroe retrospective just before its 2025 festival closed, giving Base’s team a focal point for the 2026 centenary program, which contains 24 films.
- Some Like It Hot appears with The Seven Year Itch and How to Marry a Millionaire in a slate that also includes Andrew Dominik’s Blonde and the Pasolini-Guareschi documentary La Rabbia; Base said Monroe’s brief career did not supply enough leading roles.
- Giulio Base said the program also includes movies celebrating Monroe and research into her life, problems, traumas, faults and dreams, extending the selection beyond her filmography to cover her “complete legend.”
- Dogman joins Norma Jean & Marilyn in tracing Monroe’s influence across six decades through guest honorees Luc Besson and Mira Sorvino, while Pamela Anderson adds another link to the star’s platinum-blond image.
- November 1963, the festival opener starring John Travolta, contains a nightclub sequence with a Marilyn impersonator singing; Base said the cameo helps the retrospective feel like “a complete piece and not just a mosaic.”
- Giulio Base said Monroe’s ubiquity is also intended to democratize Torino: the festival was known as “prestigious but niche,” and marquee stars can make viewers feel at home and less out of place.
- Lee Strasberg called Monroe the “female Marlon Brando,” describing her as profound and literate and citing her reading, poetry, notes and diaries as evidence of a deep intellect behind her “ditz” persona.
Why it matters: For the 2026 festival, Monroe’s 24-film, six-decade-spanning program gives casual moviegoers an accessible entry point while giving viewers an occasion to reassess her acting and intellectual depth. The mix of her own classics, revisionist films and documentary work concretely advances Base’s stated goal of moving Torino beyond its “prestigious but niche” reputation.
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