We're All Dying, Aren't We? (5)

White Hunter, Black Heart

She had no technique.
If anyone ever tells you
Marilyn Monroe was crafty,
they don't know what they're saying.
What she did was naked truth.
What she gave was Marilyn.
But it was quite a gift.

There was something luminous,
something beautiful beyond looks,
voluptuous divinity:
a wistfulness about her.
She was every girl you ever loved,
or ever hoped to love.
Mortally injured in some way
which no-one understood,

convinced of her own unworthiness,

she was checking out -
not just of my film,
but of life itself.
The Jewish guy?
How can you be so smart

and still not understand?
You don't conquer women
by being kind. Dumb highbrow.
So, they're giving presents
with divorces now?
Nevada is the "leave it" state.
Come here, park your marriage.
I'll be glad to leave it.
Making a film - what's that?
It's leaving behind your loneliness
for a little while,
and making an ersatz little world
where you can, perhaps, believe
that you share a thing.
You put a frame around it,
then move on.
You do that till you die.
That's all there is.
The nineteen sixties now:
I've seen enough.
Boxer, prospector,
horse trooper, man:
I've done all I can.
I've painted with light.
The heat has been fierce,
but it's awful cold at night.
Like Wallaby says,
I'm an eagle tired of flight:
how do I land?

 

Author's Note

(1) White Hunter, Black Heart: The Peter Viertel novel of this name, and the Clint Eastwood movie based on it, were both thinly-disguised portraits of John Huston in his lusty prime. As he speaks here, he is an old man on the set of “The Misfits”, contemplating Marilyn Monroe – and his own mortality.
(2) Wallaby: his nickname for Eli Wallach
(3) how do I land?: A line spoken by Wallach’s character