Sunset Boulevard

Today's movie is Sunset Boulevard.  This was high on my list of classics that I had still not seen.  I won't really be reviewing this film as it is unanimously considered a masterpiece, but I will share my thoughts on it.

I really love everything about this movie.  Gloria Swanson is unbelievable in the film, as well as the rest of the cast.  The cinematography is excellent and the whole narrative is entirely captivating.  There is virtually no flaw I can find with the film.  I did notice that I was a little put off in the scene where Joe and Betty kiss, but I felt it was more due to how it contrasted with Joe and Norma's kiss and the two relationships altogether.  So there, even my one nitpick actually works out perfectly for the film.  I have nothing but praise for this movie.

One thing that really struck me about the movie, and that I'll go into a little more detail on, was the portrayal and image of the silent era star.  Recently I had read Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon which devotes a large portion to the roaring twenties and the shift into the sound era.  The book speaks of the "twin-holocausts" of the depression and the shift to sound and has a few stories about how starlets coped with these changes.  This involves several suicides, and murders, but it also talks of the people who were forced back into lives of more normality.  It really shocked me how well this film got these themes across.  Swanson's performance delivers, in every frame, the image of a life lost, but held on to.  Joe's fear of going back to Ohio also plays up this fervor of Hollywood, and Max's transformation from director to servant shows just what the town can do to you.  Also, the sets chosen reflected the grand homes that Anger describes in the book perfectly.  Billy Wilder is able to distill this piece of Hollywood history sublimely.  Norma's mansion is presented in such a way that we can almost both feel it's former grandeur, while still seeing it decay in front of us.  The finale of the film sums up Hollywood Babylon impeccably.  These stars of Hollywood are destroyed by the eyes of the world on them.  Their lives fall into greater disrepair as the camera's turn away and they only turn back to capture that last piece of drama within them.  Hollywood Babylon and Sunset Boulevard are interesting pieces to compare.  They are both mostly fabricated pieces of Hollywood history but, it is because they hint so well at what the truth of the time was, that they are so important.  I loved both the movie and the book, and they both certainly provide an interesting glimpse at the industry long since past.



If you have any comments, or suggestions for films to watch, please leave some feedback.