New Yorker par excellence, famous for being a master of advertising, Sam Shaw’s photographs have been used as covers for LIFE, Look, Paris Match, L’Europeo, The Daily Mail, Der Stern, Harper’s Bazaar, Connaissance des Arts. He was one of the first collaborators of the Magnum Photos agency. He was accompanied by two “lived” Nikons and loved to photograph the people behind the characters, giving them a “real” image. For this reason he preferred that there were no set-ups even though he made some of the most iconic advertising shots ever; his idea of Marilyn in a white dress on the grate of the subway of When the wife is on vacation one of the most viewed images of all and of Marlon Brando with the torn T-shirt of A tram called desire. A multifaceted and creative artist, it is not surprising that he became an independent director and producer, collaborating on the works of John Cassavetes (one of the founders of American independent cinema) who considered him “a man of the Renaissance”.
Norma Jean e Marilyn
Object of an obsessive voyeurism that led her to change address like changing a pair of shoes. Unavailable as a young Oriana Fallaci tells in an article, who had set out on her trail for an impossible interview that never took place. A good actress, with natural comic times, who she was able to give ample proof of her talents, whose talent was somewhat clouded by her beauty, at a time when it was even more difficult to match ability and charm. From the very first appearances of her as in A Night on the Roofs of the Marx Brothers, it is clear that the girl could not go unnoticed. Behind the Hollywood machine that had helped build the goddess was the real woman, a restless human being who probably had the same expectations as anyone else, and who perhaps just wanted to “find peace, a peace without death” as it goes. one of the most poignant poems of Eduardo de Filippo, but also in this case the story tells us that it went differently and the epilogue is the same reserved for the epic characters or the Greek tragedies.
The unforgettable photos in which he is the protagonist send us an almost always smiling image; unattainable yet so earthly. The myth of her is still a North Star, this explains why, 60 years after her death, her biopics on her life, documentaries and her exhibitions multiply. We try to investigate every aspect that concerned her and to reconstruct her soul through fragments of “existence” found here and there over time, such as the recent Netflix production based on some unreleased tapes in which she herself affirms how voiceover that “true things rarely spread.” Great expectations also for Andrew Dominik’s Blonde film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, in which Ana De Armas plays the role of Monroe.
Forever MARILYN. From 2 July to 18 September 2022, Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi Citroniera di Ponente