Nick Cave has said Blonde is his “favourite film of all time”, disregarding the largely damning critical response surrounding the new Marilyn Monroe biopic.
The 65-year-old Australian singer worked alongside Warren Ellis to record the soundtrack for the Ana de Armas-led adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’s novel of the same name.
And despite “disgusted” viewers having already branded it “unwatchable” since its release on Netflix last month, Cave has proudly proclaimed it his “favourite” film.
In the latest edition of the singer-songwriter’s newsletter The Red Hand Files – in which fans can send questions to the star – he was asked: “What is your favourite film of all time?”
“Dear Sourav, Blonde. Love, Nick,” he responded.
In her one-star review, The Independent’s Jessie Thompson wrote that director Andrew Dominik’s movie “is degrading, exploitative and misogynist, yet mercilessly boring”.
The Independent’s Amanda Whiting agreed, adding that Marilyn “never feels more like a Hollywood plaything than when Dominik is subjecting her to gory sexual and medical violence, probing her literally, and barbarically depicting what it feels like to be one of the 20th century’s most famous women from the inside out”.
Before the film’s release, it attracted a lot of attention regarding its NC-17 rating in the US for sexual content, with which de Armas has strongly disagreed.
“It’s a drag to get [an] NC-17 because it means people freak out. And we can’t get billboards,” Dominik said in a later interview.
Specifically addressing his use of graphic foetal imagery, he added that he wasn’t “concerned with being tasteful”.
“Blonde is supposed to leave you shaking. Like an orphaned rhesus monkey in the snow. It’s a howl of pain or rage. Of all the films I’ve made, it’s the one that strikes me the most differently each time I watch it,” he explained.
Blonde is streaming now on Netflix.
