Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard

Wilder 1950

Produced by paramount and distributed by them

1948 Paramount decree passed a law that said some of the major studios were not allowed to own as many theatres and cinemas that they previously did; a quoter

Sunset Boulevard is twice as chilling a film when you realise that Desmond made Paramount Studios a success, rather than the other way around. The withering movie business was built not on fragile foundations of an art form doomed to obsolesce, but on stronger, more ambitious grounds than it occupied in 1950.

Production context

• Mode of production
• Studio system
• The title - Actual boulevard in Hollywood associated with film production since 1911

‘A Hollywood story’

• Focuses on female mental health disorders - Norma is delusional thinking the press are going to film her script ‘Salome’
• The star system - Norma Desmond, star of the silent screen
• Norma is a fading, ageing actress (Even though she’s only around 25)
• Gloria Swanston - in the role which is the amalgamation of several actresses in their twilight years
• Thematic features: deception, intrigue, female leads - vulnerable and duplicitous

Sunset Boulevard movie individual notes 

• Billy Wilder
• Black and white - Noir
• Hand held camera when we see the cars coming in
• opens with a narrative style (Continues throughout the film) - narrating his thoughts at the time? Looking back on his life?
• Lots of voiceover
• A murder - enigma
• Flashback (we flash back to how joe ended up dead in the pool)
• Lots of fade transitions
• High budget (studio system)
• Representation - We have only seen male characters so far - The only women were assistant of the men ‘Stereotype’ - Woman serve for men
• The men are quite rude - doesn’t phase them that they’re rune - ‘normalised’
• Lots of money talk from the men
• Non-diegetic parallel music with car chase - increases tension
• Tension - the man stumbles upon the house that the body was found in the beginning
• Counter-type - Norma Desmond owns the house not a man - wealthy woman
• Build up to meeting Norma Desmond character properly
• Norma Desmond is very confident - almost ‘over powers’ Joe in a way - counter type
• Norma Desmond is ordering the Joe and the butler around which is sort of a role reversal
• Role reversal
• Eerie aesthetic is created (Noir)
• Camera focuses on the pool that we saw the body in at the beginning of the movie
• Norma Desmond has lots of pictures of her self all over her living room (Mis - en - scene)
• Norma Desmond if ver self centred 
• Flashing light of the projector behind Norma mimics lightning which you see in horror movies
• Norma is paying for all the clothes when it would stereotypically be the man providing
• Tracking shot when Norma is walking with the producer
• Parallel, non-diegetic music when Mr DeMille (producer) was calling his assistant 
• They used the real director Cecil DeMille in the movie
• Montage of the beauty treatments shows how invested Norma is
• Zoom in on Normas bedroom door with ominous music in background - Also goes over Joes shoulder
• Parallel sound effects when appropriate - (Ominous/tense sound effect the Max says he was Normas first husband)
• Joe finally becomes more dominant which conforms to the gender stereotypes of the time it was set/made
• Ascending music as he walks up the stairs
• Max contributes to Normas denial 
• Norma shoots joe and he ends up dead in the pool how we saw in the beginning (circular narrative)
• Norma is still obsessing over her looks even when she’s getting questioned by police
• Norma is so in denial that when press cameras arrive she’s exited as she thinks she’s going to be a star again
• She seems to have gone mad at the end - thinking she’s in the studio when she’s in her house - thinking she’s doing a film scene when the press cameras are in her house
• Ends on her thinking she’s going to the camera for a close up and just coming closer and closer to the camera
• The only way they can get her to come downstairs is if they were pretending to film a scene from her script that they wrote
• Norma is constantly in denial the entire time thinking she can become a star again
• Enigma of murder is finally resolved in the end when we found out the Norma Desmond killed Joe

Links between Sunset Boulevard and Some Like it Hot

• Stylists and cinematic similarities 
• Parallel music in both films most of the time
• End on iconic lines - “Nobody’s perfect” -SLIH - “Im ready for my close up” - SB
• Strong female leads
• Lowkey lighting intense scenes
• Similar structure of plot - Important characters emerge/introduced in the middle and move on throughout then end
• Both films analyse art from a female lens
• Both Sugar and Betty (The writer) started form the bottom and built their way up (Wilder uses his own experiences
• Wilder brings current unconventional into conversation - alcoholism in Some Like it Hot, and mental health in Sunset Boulevard
• Film noir
• Exploration of themes of deception
• They both deal with mental health in a way. Sugar had the blues and Norma had gone mad
• Keeps the audiences eyes on the interaction of the characters
• ‘Invisible narratives’ and seamless stories
• Conversation about stars and stardoms
• Comedy
• memorable dialogue 
• Derive comedy from the politics of the world around him at the time

Billy Wilder as an Auteur

Auteur - French word for ‘Author”

• His signature was by design subtle, writer - Producer - Director
• He was infuriated by distinctive stylists such as Hitchcock - dismissed him as ‘modernist’
• “Invisible Narratives” seamless stories with superb dialogue and skilfully crafted plots
• His aim was to enthral his audience
• Aimed to make his audience unaware that they were watching a film due to them being so captivated
• His films reflect a powerful drive to instruct that Wilder occasionally of obliquely acknowledged: ‘If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny or people will kill you”
• His mantra was “Never bore”
• Explicitly wrote and directed for “The Masses” - resulting in a remarkable range of popular, well crafted films
• His comedies typically appeared at the top rank of American cinema
• His melodramas brought the problem of alcoholism to the screen and into conversation
• Double Indemnity is regarded by some as launching the genre of film noir
• he was initially a screenwriter
• His initial screenplays enabled him to work with most of Hollywoods greatest from the 1930s to the 1980s
• His films examine themes from a range of perspectives - farce, melodrama, social commitment and Film Noir

Genre: Film Noir

• Stylistic features - lighting, mood, ambience, atmosphere, settings - just technical?
• Symbolic effects of lighting, shadows, lowkey lighting (Created by accident?)
• Budget constraints - creating crowds from silhouettes as the second world war had just happened 
• Thematic features: deception, intrigue, female leads (women had big roles to help with the war effort which led to the stereotype of women staying home started to be diminished) - vulnerable and duplicitous
• ‘Femme Fatale’ (woman who doesn’t conform to the stereotypical female role for that time. Example: House wife/caregiver) - Her eye on the prize - dangerous and scheming
• ‘Noir’ - Moral darkness and ambiguity; moments of transition - social, moral, cultural even political with the post war - Even in 1929 (SLIH)

Map out some Film Noir concepts/ideas

to both our films

• Some sort of cynical or dark character
• Speak about taboo subjects
• Woman who has some sort of bad past and A man with no sort of real future
• Dark lighting
• Would some like it hot be a film noir, if not comedy
• Themes of feeling out of place, depression - dark humour/themes
• Criminal activity: bootlegging, gangsters, violence- under the radar
• Use of comedy to deal with serious aspects - they had to dress up as women to simply get a job

Film Noir Elements in each Film

• Hollywood audiences at the time expected certain codes and conventions - dominance of popular genres - film noir
• Both Films - female leads/co-leads: SLIH - sugar is more vulnerable and she is manipulated, used by men. SB - Norma uses and manipulates joe; She is dangerous yet still vulnerable and insecure
• Norma feels she’s not in control of her acting career so she needs to find something to take control of (Joe)
• You can hate and pity Norma (unlike sugar)

Wilder as an Auteur pt2

• Authorship - ‘auteur’
• Distinctive features - signature across a body of work
• Recognisable through genre, thematic ideas, stylistic and cinematic
• Seeming contradiction to examine the status of an auteur pithing Hollywood
• Production context of Hollywood - studio system was like making a movie on a conveyer belt. Specific genres required certain things and a certain person starring in it
• Individual artistic vision - originality - steer around
• Consider his Austrian émigré origins
• He explores deception, disguise, stars, stardom, everyday life and people, human nature - “No-body’s perfect”