Marilyn Monroe : 100 ans !

From April 8 to July 26, 2026, the exhibition “Marilyn Monroe: 100 Years!” takes over the Cinémathèque française to celebrate the centenary of a beloved yet misunderstood actress. Original costumes, photographs by Eve Arnold, Richard Avedon, and Andy Warhol, film excerpts and rare documents compose a journey that puts the actress back at the heart of the story. Far from a mere nostalgic tribute, this retrospective reveals the work of an actress long reduced to her sex-symbol image. Visitors discover tangible evidence of an underestimated talent, between Hollywood glamour and artistic determination.

Hollywood glamour, Technicolor, and the making of an icon Visitors enter the flamboyant world of the 1950s. The exhibition displays promotional materials from Twentieth Century Fox, the star’s wardrobe, and portraits by Eve Arnold, Richard Avedon, and Andy Warhol. These images capture Monroe’s trajectory at the height of Technicolor and widescreen, when every celebrity decision made headlines. Ernst Haas (1921-1986), Marilyn Monroe in the car, 'The Misfits', Nevada, 1960, gelatin silver print Photo Ernst Haas (1921-1986) Fox crafted the ideal of a playful, eroticized yet tasteful woman through the actress’s early films and carefully developed promotional materials. Every costume, every poster demonstrates the star system’s grip on the icon while revealing her exceptional photogenic qualities. Visitors see how Monroe personified the contradictions of a puritan yet sexually obsessed era. The journey continues with an installation inspired by ballroom culture. This segment illuminates Monroe’s posthumous legacy, having passed away at thirty-six. Her image has since evolved into a lasting cultural phenomenon, maintained by private collectors and a financial holding company managing her rights. “Marilyn Monroe: 100 Years!” makes this mechanism of posterity visible.

From parodic pin-up to exceptional actress Monroe is more famous for her photographs than for her films. The exhibition overturns this hierarchy by placing her cinematic performances front and center. From John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle in 1950, her emotional range surpasses other actors despite brief appearances. The misconception that Monroe only played “herself” masks an authentic actorial craft: careful role preparation, subtle departures from the expected star image, and acting training. In Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch (1955), she presents the most parodic version of the pin-up. In Joshua Logan’s Bus Stop (1956), she reaches a nuanced register. Howard Hawks’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) confirms she embodied and conceived her characters well beyond cliché. Eve Arnold (1912-2012), Marilyn Monroe on the Nevada desert going over her lines for 'The Misfits', 1960 The photograph shows Monroe alone in the Nevada desert, absorbed in rereading her lines, with a boom mic above her. The dry landscape stretches behind her under a cloudy sky. The actress wears simple clothing, far from the glamorous image associated with her public persona. Arnold, one of the few photographers Monroe trusted from 1951, had exclusive access to the filming of The Misfits. The actress was then going through a fragile period, with miscarriages, medication dependency, and the disintegration of her marriage to Arthur Miller. This shot embodies the exhibition’s approach: revealing the actress at work behind the media icon. The composition, a solitary figure in a vast landscape, visually expresses the isolation and determination of an actress striving to prove her worth beside Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift. As Florence Tissot, exhibition curator, notes, blurring the line between being and portraying long disqualified Monroe as an actress. “Marilyn Monroe: 100 Years!” at the Cinémathèque française restores this dimension by confronting visitors with concrete traces of her little-known craft.

Promotional fictions, thwarted ambitions, and the posthumous myth The exhibition examines the stories that shaped Monroe’s image from the start. In 1945, becoming a model allowed her to divorce and escape her working-class background. In less than a year, she graced numerous magazine covers. Fox adopted this ideal of the spontaneous pin-up in her early films. These promotional fictions, recycled by early biographers, often preceded the facts. The actress’s artistic ambitions coincided with a decline in her public image. Her desire to secure demanding roles, notably Bus Stop, clashed with a Hollywood that preferred the compliant image to the ambitious actress. This power struggle fuels legends, amplified by her sudden death at thirty-six and the scattering of her archives. A 296-page catalog, edited by Florence Tissot and published by GrandPalaisRmn Éditions, accompanies the exhibition with contributions from James Naremore and Richard Dyer. Richard Avedon (1923-2004), Marilyn Monroe, Actress, New York, May 6, 1957, gelatin silver print Rare documents show these narratives reveal more about the public’s and studios’ expectations than about the woman herself. The multiplicity of fantasies acts as a mirror held up to the viewer. The final installation reminds us that the myth endures, nourished by difficult archive access and a persistent fascination with the disappearance of a young woman at thirty-six.