47. Sunset Blvd

Billy Wilder, 1950

“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”

In the great role call of memorable film characters, Norma Desmond must rank near the top. Sunset Blvd is the story of Miss Desmond’s career having long set. It is the story of a once great actress who cannot face the reality that the world has passed her by. Gloria Swanson plays Norma Desmond, a faded idol of silent pictures. Miss Desmond lives in a forgotten mansion, surrounded by the faded glories of her past. Her massive car no longer runs. Her pool is empty. The facade of her home is chipping away, covered in overgrowth. Inside are ornate fixtures and hundred of framed publicity stills of no one but her. She lives her life alone with her butler, Max. Once in a while, she is joined by other faded and forgotten stars, including the great Buster Keaton, for a game of cards. Her only other companion is a monkey and, when the movie begins, the monkey is dead.

Enter Joe Gillis, a down on his luck screenwriter. Desmond brings him into her home, forcing him to work on her bizarre script of Salome and treating him as her own live in boy toy, a role which, for most of the film, he is happy to play. This film is probably the greatest tragedy of classic Hollywood. Desmond’s star has fallen and she can’t see it. Gillis’ star is falling and he’s all to aware of it. Max’s star fell with Desmond’s, he was once both her lover and director, and now, he sits around, watching his love continue to deteriorate even as he is pushed aside for a younger man.

As easy as it is to look at Desmond and shake our heads at her inability to see reality, it is, in many ways, not her fault. She is vain. She is egotistical, but her undoing is not entirely her own. After all, it was the idolization of a million fans who made her that way and the fickle nature which left her how she ended up. It was a Hollywood with no sense of the past that destroyed Desmond. Perhaps she deserved her fall, but it’s all so tragic that you can’t help but pity her and that is the real core of Sunset Blvd. Sunset Blvd, in many ways, reflects the very real Hollywood that uses people and then throws them away, whether this is with big stars like Desmond or with screenwriters like Gillis. The film also contains a young woman named Betty Schaefer, a budding screenwriter herself who helps Gillis realize his remaining potential, but for whom we worry the same fate may someday come. The card playing scene is particularly heartbreaking as we see authentic stars of the silent era, particularly Buster Keaton, and remember how quickly they were forgotten and how few people even today remember their contributions. The toughest scene of all, though, is the end. Desmond has come completely unhinged. For the first time in years, she is the subject of media attention, thanks to the death of Joe Gillis (don’t worry, you find out he’s dead in the film’s first few lines). Her home is crawling with reporters. In her dementia, she comes from her room, believing herself on a movie set. She begins to regally decent the stairs, this poor, faded relic. Max immediately takes control of the floor, returning to his old role and ordering the camera men to follow Desmond. Desmond reaches the bottom of the stairs and says, “And I promise you I’ll never desert you again because after Salome we’ll make another picture and another picture. You see, this is my life! It always will be! Nothing else! Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark! ... All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” The close-up will never come, neither will Salome or the other pictures. This isn’t Miss Desmond’s life. It hasn’t bee for years. After all, it wasn’t she who abandoned us. We abandoned her and she went insane. This is the dark side of Hollywood and of fame, my friends. Both can build you up and make you feel like the greatest person in the world. That is the dream, isn’t it? And Norma Desmond got to live it. Yet, in the end, both tossed her aside and the price for their patronage was that they left nothing behind.