Bye, bye baby

The painting “Bye, bye, baby”, a quote from a famous Marilyn song, depicts the diva speeding over a New York bridge on board her powerful Thunderbird, a car that, despite the ban on Californian roads, could reach a top speed of over 180km/h; purchased by the diva in 1956, Marylin Monroe was very attached to the car, with which she went to her civil wedding celebrated with the playwright Arthur Miller.
The setting, within which the “New Yorker” stands out in the foreground, a luxury Art Deco hotel built in 1929 during the golden age of jazz, recalls the atmosphere of “The Asphalt Jungle”, the 1955 film noir by John Houston that, despite Monroe’s small role, managed to capture the attention of the press and the public, launching her career.
In this noir sui generis, there are no real protagonists, but each one becomes an essential figure to tell the (in)human condition of any metropolitan reality, an asphalt jungle in which the story of the misery of one is the tragic story of all, without Manichaeism and above all without any moral hypocrisy.
The fast Thunderbird is about to cross the bridge, entering the thick of buildings that shine in the pale sky like jewels lying in velvet. The girl turns for a moment again, perhaps looking for a sign, a trace that gives her the estimate of what she has left behind. Amazement, excitement, fear run through her gaze.
The words of an old song resonate in her mind, is it a farewell or a see you later? The skyscrapers slyly peep like great sleepy beasts, they wait for her motionless among the changing lights, demanding, skeptical and a little curious... through which streets did the young Norma Jean become Marilyn?