- Book vs. Film: My Week With Marilyn – But by eliminating most of his personal ambition—really, just by eliminating his inner monologue of judgment and job-related scheming—the film makes him simultaneously more accessible and less interesting. It also makes the film far less about him, and far more about the much more familiar and prestigious topic of Marilyn Monroe. Michelle Williams’ terrific performance as Monroe accomplishes part of that shift, and director Simon Curtis helps it along by opening the film with Williams doing a musical number as Monroe, emphasizing the force of her personality and the depths of her sex appeal—and establishing her as the film’s real focus. And the script seals the deal by keeping all the specificity of her character, while tossing out most of the specificity of Clark’s. She’s still a worldwide mega-star with a complicated history, a distinctive persona, a troubled marriage, an angry boss, an interfering coach, and a myriad of personal issues; the Clark of the film is just the smiling, sympathetic witness to her troubles. The trailer certainly acknowledges that the story is more hers than his:
- Evidence, scholarship and debate: Saul Bass and the shower scene in “Psycho” – As these statements indicate, Saul Bass (1920-96) made a significant contribution to movie making, but his work in film was just one part of his creative practice; he also made a major contribution to graphic design, running a design office in Los Angeles with a reputation for excellence in corporate identity graphics and advertising. His sixty-year career includes some of the most compelling imagery of the postwar period, including the title sequences for the three films directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) that are discussed in this article — Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), and Psycho (1960). By the first of these commissions Bass had already been named Art Director of the Year (1957) by the Art Directors Club of New York, and many more prestigious awards followed, including an Academy Award (1968), Royal Designer for Industry (1965, bestowed by the Royal Society of Arts, London), and the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA, 1981).[3]
- Steven Soderbergh – AVC: You’re not someone who’s like, “Well, I want a three-hour cut down the line at some point”?
SS: No, not at all. I’m not precious about anything. The effort it took to get something means nothing to me in post. It means nothing to the audience. I’ll chop limbs off. I’ll put an arm where a leg should be. I’ll do anything.