The film Sunset Boulevard directed by Billy Wilder takes place in Los Angeles, California. The film is narrated by a picture writer named Joe Gillis who, while escaping the police who are after his car, finds himself in the driveway of Norma Desmond, an old silent-film star who has faded from the spotlight.
Sunset Boulevard conveys an inverse outlook on Hollywood as previously established by other ‘Golden Era’ movies. For example, when the film opens with police responding to a murder, the narration of Joe Gillis states how the movie will reveal the truth behind the murder before it is “blown out and distorted by the Hollywood Columnists”. This is exposing Hollywood for its tendencies to dramatize and fabricate stories. For the time, this seems defiant, but serves to give insight to the struggles of those behind the screen and allows the audience the view the film with a lens of empathy for the characters. Therefore, the movie feels to offer a similar purpose to How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis.
Additionally, the movie offers the behaviors of the characters in line with gender roles. For instance, Norma cares a great deal about how Joe presents himself. She buys him expensive suits, shoes, watches, and cigarette cases. Then, when she believes that she will return to the screen, she goes through so many beauty treatments. This portrays her as materialistic in regards to how females are concerned with appearance. She also has scenes in which she is in hysterics, or acting crazed, to portray another stereotype of women.
Joe is found shot and dead in the swimming pool reminiscent of Gatsby’s death in The Great Gatsby. This communicates how, much like Gatsby, Joe came up short in achieving his dreams of a successful picture writer. This conveys male gender roles of the expectation to be successful enough to provide for his lifestyle. His death in this manner symbolizes the death of his aspirations.
I enjoyed this movie because it told the story in an interesting manner, and communicated themes still applicable today.
Intro to Film Studies 