Sunset BoulevardI suppose everyone wants to make it big. Joe Gillis (William Holden) came to Hollywood to write for movies. But as time went on, his prospects dried up and his cynicism flourished in that drought. Beyond broke, dodging repo men and the landlord, fate--and a popped tire--brings him to the skeletal remains of a mansion from the golden era of motion pictures...and a lurking superstar of yesteryear, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), plotting her comeback...er, "return". Joe believes he's taking Norma for a grift, playing up his acting chops; Norma claims she's revising her epic adaptation of the tale of Salome. What these two really want out of life and each other gets revealed over time...
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Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard is a masterpiece of sharp-tongued narration (by Holden as Gillis) about the bittersweet revelation of Hollywood, that the golden land on the edge of the Pacific which is not El Dorado, a mythical land where you can pen a few lines, or just bat your eyes, and be an instant superstar. But even if you were a superstar, even the lights over San Fernando Valley dim as they do in the heavens, though Norma refuses to acknowledge this truism. Sunset Boulevard is a film about obsession--but that obsession is a kind of mix of manic and desperate, where Norma simply blots out the truth that time has passed her by, recalling Joe's comparison between Norma's decrepit mansion and Ms. Havisham of "Great Expectations". Joe, on the other hand, could go back to that thirty-five dollar a week desk job in Dayton, Ohio, and admit defeat, but he is too proud, and is willing (maybe even wanting for a while) to be a kept man under Norma's thumb, while ostensibly working on editing her colossal script. And even in the background, ever alert and at Norma's beckon call is Max (Erich von Stroheim), her butler attending to her every need...even needs she is not conscious that she has. Max is revealed to have been her one-time husband and a director, going so far as to fuel the fires of her vanity by fabricating fan mail to her, refusing to let her crash into suicidal depression, no matter the cost. What the three of them all seem to have in common more than anything is that they are lonely in a fashion, and (at least for Norma and Joe) feel that life has not appreciated what they have had to offer, and their tired of feeling rejected. So, in a way, it was fate that brought Joe to that dismal tomb-like mansion--replete with a deceased chimp and wheezy organ--but a kind of cruel fate that allowed him and Norma to enable one another's loneliness and hold the wolves of acknowledging defeat at bay. Problem is, when one of them wakes up and calls it quits, what happens to the other? The prologue provides us our answer.
Nowadays, when you read the "news" in the supermarket checkout line, or scan the buzzfeed of some social network, you see all the scandal, all the gossip, all the linkbait about celebrities and pop stars, the Kim Kardashians and the Miley Cyruses. But before them--long before--there were the Lana Turners and Marilyn Monroes. Hollywood hasn't changed, not really, and that same sense of excess of the rich and famous to an appalling degree has always been there as long as movies have been big business, that great opiate of the masses (says the guy writing a blog about movies, ahem). Norma showers Joe with goodies, has Max drive him around in her exotic "Isotta Fraschini" automobile, which looks like it could chew up and spit out a Rolls Royce. For Norma, money is just a constant, having made it big as a youth and invested well in oil fields in Bakersfield. Money's important to Joe, too; but for all his cynicism, it's the recognition he wants. When he finally does get it from a Paramount reader and fiance of his buddy, Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson), he begins to feel that real itch to work again, to write something that matters...or at least something more than plot 27A, made glossy, made slick. Problem for Joe is that he and Betty begin to form more than a working relationship, opening up to one another and feeling the pangs of romance for their mutual love of good writing, something he hasn't been getting from Norma, evidenced by his reaction to her own bloated screenplay. But Joe's a good guy, and won't betray a buddy by stealing his girl, and he also knows that he can't keep letting Norma drag him into her web of hollow comfort; for Joe, the dream has ended. Sunset Boulevard is so full of memorable lines, that I couldn't help but hint at--or flat out quote--some of them while writing this. A lot of movies can make this claim, but I think that Sunset Boulevard is exceptional in this regard, due in large part to some skilled writing of its own, with perhaps my favorite narration in any film, which always gets a smirk from me. Sunset Boulevard was consciously crafted in Paramount about Paramount, and with the silent movie star Norma Desmond played by real silent movie star Gloria Swanson. Her "waxworks" bridge buddies are also silent movie stars including Buster Keaton, and Hedda Hopper plays herself reporting on Norma's fate; when Norma goes to visit Cecil B. DeMille...take a wild guess who plays him. These touches of authenticity make Sunset Boulevard feel genuinely rooted in Hollywood lore, and make it one of the most iconic (and also somewhat atypical) examples of film noir.
Recommended for: Fans of a cynical take on classic Hollywood, which still resonates today in an era rich with celebrity excess and frenzy to stay in the limelight. (I said Kim Kardashian, right?)
Nowadays, when you read the "news" in the supermarket checkout line, or scan the buzzfeed of some social network, you see all the scandal, all the gossip, all the linkbait about celebrities and pop stars, the Kim Kardashians and the Miley Cyruses. But before them--long before--there were the Lana Turners and Marilyn Monroes. Hollywood hasn't changed, not really, and that same sense of excess of the rich and famous to an appalling degree has always been there as long as movies have been big business, that great opiate of the masses (says the guy writing a blog about movies, ahem). Norma showers Joe with goodies, has Max drive him around in her exotic "Isotta Fraschini" automobile, which looks like it could chew up and spit out a Rolls Royce. For Norma, money is just a constant, having made it big as a youth and invested well in oil fields in Bakersfield. Money's important to Joe, too; but for all his cynicism, it's the recognition he wants. When he finally does get it from a Paramount reader and fiance of his buddy, Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson), he begins to feel that real itch to work again, to write something that matters...or at least something more than plot 27A, made glossy, made slick. Problem for Joe is that he and Betty begin to form more than a working relationship, opening up to one another and feeling the pangs of romance for their mutual love of good writing, something he hasn't been getting from Norma, evidenced by his reaction to her own bloated screenplay. But Joe's a good guy, and won't betray a buddy by stealing his girl, and he also knows that he can't keep letting Norma drag him into her web of hollow comfort; for Joe, the dream has ended. Sunset Boulevard is so full of memorable lines, that I couldn't help but hint at--or flat out quote--some of them while writing this. A lot of movies can make this claim, but I think that Sunset Boulevard is exceptional in this regard, due in large part to some skilled writing of its own, with perhaps my favorite narration in any film, which always gets a smirk from me. Sunset Boulevard was consciously crafted in Paramount about Paramount, and with the silent movie star Norma Desmond played by real silent movie star Gloria Swanson. Her "waxworks" bridge buddies are also silent movie stars including Buster Keaton, and Hedda Hopper plays herself reporting on Norma's fate; when Norma goes to visit Cecil B. DeMille...take a wild guess who plays him. These touches of authenticity make Sunset Boulevard feel genuinely rooted in Hollywood lore, and make it one of the most iconic (and also somewhat atypical) examples of film noir.
Recommended for: Fans of a cynical take on classic Hollywood, which still resonates today in an era rich with celebrity excess and frenzy to stay in the limelight. (I said Kim Kardashian, right?)