Norma Desmond- aging actress, yesterday’s glamour queen - these words would have destroyed the mirage that she had built up over the years and her too, but it didn’t; not even in the end. It’s tough to forget the past; even tougher to leave it when one has been living in the past for decades; all that shine and all those forgotten years when Norma was the greatest star of them all. It’s hard to leave it all behind, then again she wouldn’t know. She was kept far away from all of it, from all the reality; and the reality was, she was unimportant; she didn’t matter anymore, and she was almost forgotten. What if she actually didn’t unheard those words, the queen of silent movies of the old? What would have happened then?
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Before I say any further about this movie, I should say this; although I watched it before, as I really wanted to write about it (kept delaying), I re-watched it yesterday and it was worth it. I guess some of us were waiting for #cinetv and what perfect timing. As my dear ones have been posting here, consider this as my Dramatic Entrance. So, the movie; Sunset Boulevard (1950) is an old classic Hollywood film noir. Directed by Billy Wilder and produced by Charles Brackett, the film was co-written by both. The movie leads are William Holden as Joe Gillis and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, where Joe is, a struggling screenwriter who got dragged into the deranged world of the former silent movie star Norma where she’s making her comeback, no, her return as she says, to the world of films. The supporting roles were played by Erich von Stroheim (as Max, Norma’s devoted butler), and Nancy Olson, Jack Webb, Lloyd Gough, and Fred Clark; Director Cecil B. DeMille and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper also made a cameo appearance as themselves.
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In the opening scene, the police, and journalists were heading towards the house of a (unnamed till that moment) Richie Rich where a homicide has taken place. The poor chap was floating dead in the pool of an old broken shambles of a mansion and as everything seemed like it is going to be sensational news on TV and newspaper, the narrator aka the dead chap started to narrate the events that led to his death. What an irony, Joe was narrating rather beautifully about how he was always running away from the debt collectors and how at that very moment he met Norma and how he ended up killed or keeled over, anyways. From the moment he laid his eyes on her, he knew that she was delusional, psychotic, and far from the present and he had the terrible urge to flee from there. Norma is full of herself, that is the plainest way to say how she was; in every corner of her ruined house, you’ll find Norma, her pictures, memories of her golden years.
Norma asks Joe to fix her script where she did a rather botched-up job and as though Joe was trying to get away, but the money she offered could get him back in two feet. So, after a bargain, Joe and Norma came to an agreement that he’s going to help her with her script, and later on, he had to move into her house. As time goes by, Norma falls in love with Joe which Joe saw it coming but didn’t know what to do with her since he didn’t share the same feelings, eventually decided to go along with the flow after she was unsuccessful in her suicide attempt. Norma had a dramatic flair in her behavior as if she’s always in front of the camera; believed everyone is still waiting for her. She was preparing herself for her picture which she believed to be a blockbuster hit. Her neurotic behavior, jealousy, and suspicions were making his life insufferable; Joe pitied her. Money was no longer an issue, but freedom was; he feared if he left her then she would try to kill herself as she did before. He tried to cope with the suffocating confinement he was in, which in the end, when he tried to get away from and had cost him his life.
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Although it may seem that film noir is sometimes, oftentimes, hard to digest; not everyone likes black and white, neither this sort of movie is everyone’s cup of tea. But I’m writing because I have grown a certain appetite for noir recently, and I also know a few people who absolutely love this particular movie. The story is quite mind-boggling, you’ll start to question “Why is Norma so over dramatic?” and she was, and that was her character; whereas Joe was like your regular Joe, but under the thumb of a diva. I wouldn’t be wondering if this movie was color and not black and white; it is out of the ordinary. I wouldn’t go over the debates surrounding the casts, stories or the awards; I would rather say that you should give it a try.
