Sunset Boulevard (1950) dir. Billy Wilder

So this is the third entry in reverse alphabetical order on the registry, and the third film I've already seen before... Not sure if this is a benefit, because I can give a better analysis, or a hindrance because there is no discovery involved. I can't give a fresh and uninformed hackjob opinion on a movie I've never seen before by a director I'm not familiar with. When I was in the sixth grade, I spelled "familiar" as "framiliar" on a spelling test.

 
So, um, this movie was directed by Billy Wilder. He makes lots of good movies, or whatever. 

The Movie
I can't really give any insight to Billy Wilder as a director. I've only seen three of his films. Which isn't bad, I guess, but you know. Hitchcock is so iconic. Wilder is a household name, but he just makes good movies. You just have to take it at face value. 

He's primarily a writer and actor's director. He doesn't get a lot of praise for his visuals, but I've found that several of his more provocative works like this one have several great moments of clever visual language. There's a subtle but heavily structured visual concept to them (his film noir work is a good example, as the common staples of lighting and framing of the genre often involve very complex emotional and psychological metaphors).

A great example. Norma stands up in anger while watching one of her old films, just as the smoke from Joe's cigarette floats around her head. Like she is literally fuming. 

And a lot of the great German filmmakers share that tendency. But there's also a lot of narration in his noir stuff. This doesn't bother me in and of itself, but the fact that it's in his films specifically kinda makes me confuzzled. 

Billy Wilder actually has 10 screenwriting tips. One of them is to never include voice over that tells us what we already see. But the thing is, he fucking does that all the time. Yeah, it might slightly enhance what we're seeing, but it's redundant nonetheless. I'm fine with it. The narration is stylish and everything, just stop being such a lying shithole, Billy Wilder. 

And that kinda brings me to my main point. I really can't say with any degree of accuracy how important this film is in Billy Wilder's repertoire. But I bet it's his most important. That over-descriptive narration? While I believe it to be unintentional in his earlier noir, Double Indemnity (1944), I think it's satirical here. In Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder was calling his own bullshit. And Hollywood's bullshit. And my bullshit and your bullshit. 

Joe Gillis is a struggling screenwriter, who despite having the chops to pitch a screenplay, can't seem to actually write an original one. Running away from the repo men who are after his car, he hides in the house of the faded silent movie star, Norma Desmond, who has just laid her monkey to rest. 

Norma is batshit insane. She lives only with her butler, occasionally watching her old films and writing the outline for a film she wants to have made by Cecile B. Demille, when she's not doing poker games with Buster Keaton. 

She hires Joe to polish her screenplay, and soon starts grooming him as a romantic companion. He goes along with it, his desperation for money sucking every ounce of his integrity away. He starts to become a bigwig, impressing his friends in the industry. Meanwhile, he has a tentative romance with his friend Al's fiance, Betty. 

SPOILERS
Norma starts going crazier and crazier, and Joe simply can't take it, deciding he wants to both write and be with Betty. Norma's screenplay was ignored by Cecile B. DeMille, who pities her but will not give her a role anymore. I asked myself at one point, why doesn't someone give her a chance? And at that very moment, she reminds DeMille that she never works before 10am or after 4pm.

She loses it. Joe, even though he slept with her, turns her away and starts packing to leave for his old job in Ohio. He even turned Betty away, looking to rid himself of the whole business. Norma shoots Joe three times, killing him. The last scene depicts Norma coming down the steps of her mansion to be arrested while photographers flash their cameras at her. She believes she is doing a scene for Cecile B. DeMille's new film. 

Significance
Well, this is the opening shot: 

Right off the bat, we know we're stepping into the world of Hollywood, but we won't be seeing the glamour that Hollywood represents. Instead we're seeing what's below, the dirty street corners with big white words painted on them. We're gonna see some real shit. 

Like I said, this was Wilder's way of calling everyone's bullshit, specifically Hollywood's. And one of the ways he does this is by bullshitting us himself. 

He mocks audience and studio complacency by staging farcical sequences and taking away the resolution we expect from storylines and even individual sequences.

Joe is led to Norma's room, expecting to find something horrible. There has already been talk from her butler about moving a coffin. Turns out just to be a dead monkey. Disturbing, but kinda silly at the same time.

Butler plays the organ...

Norma goes through a series of utterly ridiculous beauty treatments to look her best for her new "movie".

The greatest source of tension is the collision of Old Hollywood and New Hollywood, much like old and new money in The Great Gatsby. Coincidentally, both films are about a man that went from dirt poor to rich through questionable means and ends up getting shot into a swimming pool over a love affair. 

Joe sneaks away from Norma's extravagant New Years celebration to catch up with his industry friends, who are all dressed normally in a cramped apartment, while he wears a full tux. 

And now, because of this film, we have the great subgenre or industry satire films. It's influence can be seen in films like The Player (1992), L.A. Confidential (1997), Swimming With Sharks (1994), The Artist (2012), etc... Films that play on industry standards, use the cut-throat atmosphere of the city to act as a dramatic backdrop, and include many nods to film and filmmaking. 

"You'd have turned down Gone With the Wind."
"No, that was me. I said, 'Who wants to see a civil war picture?"

It was 1950. Cinema had been around for almost half a century. It had evolved so much up to that point, seen good times and bad. And this film is like the halfway marker. It's a celebration of the industry, an indictment of it, and a bit of a "so what do we do now?" Sort of like a memo. It told us where we were at, and how to move forward. 

That's all I really feel like saying. I wanna watch something new.