The Weinstein Company‘s critically acclaimed and Oscar-nominated film “My Week With Marilyn” starring Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh will be shown soon exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas (Glorietta 4, Greenbelt 3 and Trinoma).
Early in the summer of 1956, American film star Marilyn Monroe (Williams) set foot on British soil for the first time. On honeymoon with her husband, the celebrated playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), Monroe came to England to shoot “The Prince and the Showgirl” – the film that famously united her with Sir Laurence Olivier (Branagh), the British theatre and film legend who directed and co-starred in the film.
That same summer, 23-year-old Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) set foot on a film set for the first time in his life. Newly graduated from Oxford, Clark aspired to be a filmmaker and found a job as a lowly production hand on the set of “The Prince and the Showgirl.” Forty years later, he recounted his experiences of the six-month shoot in a diary-style memoir entitled “The Prince, the Showgirl and Me.” But one week in Clark’s account was missing…
It wasn’t until years later that Clark revealed why. In a follow-up memoir entitled “My Week with Marilyn,” he recounted the true story of one magical week he spent alone with the world’s biggest star — the week he spent with Marilyn.
“For a lot of people Marilyn is more of an iconic image than an actress,” admits director Simon Curtis. “People haven’t seen her films as much as they have her portrait. My way into this project was falling in love with the first of Colin Clark‘s two memoirs. As somebody who was assistant director at The Royal Court Theatre, I found it fascinating to uncover this moment in time.”
The first memoir, “The Prince, The Showgirl and Me,” recounts Clark‘s experiences working as third assistant director on the set of Monroe’s first film as both producer and star in which she played opposite Olivier, who also directed. The book recounts the production’s myriad problems, fuelled almost exclusively by the lack of communication and understanding between the two stars: Monroe‘s erratic behavior and tardiness were exacerbated by her addiction to alcohol and prescription medication; while Olivier, a staunch traditionalist, refused to accommodate Monroe‘s idiosyncrasies or her devotion to Method acting, which she practiced under the guidance of Paula Strasberg.
While Clark‘s memoir is a dishy, fly-on-the-wall account of Olivier’s and Monroe’s fraught partnership, his follow-up memoir, “My Week With Marilyn,” feels like an intimate confession. In it, Clark affectionately remembers one enchanted week he spent leading the troubled Monroe on a tour of the English countryside. It offers an all-too-rare glimpse of the real woman beneath the carefully cultivated image, unencumbered by the busy machinery of stardom.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes when My Week with Marilyn was published,” avows Curtis. “Colin really did have this tense, erotically charged week with the most famous woman in the world, at the peak of her fame. I couldn’t believe my luck when I was able to get hold of the rights. People had tried over the years. And in the last year I’ve met at least three very established directors who have said, “I’ve always wanted to make that story.’ So I feel very lucky.”
