![]() ![]() Now Joe on the other hand displayed his own mix of positive and negative qualities. Norma was undoubtedly selfish and murder is certainly wrong, but theres also a layer to her where it seems like she's just a sad woman struggling with depression and the fact that she was raised as this glorious actress and thrown out like trash when she got to old and film passed her by. My feeling was that neither was necessarily "good" or "bad". I agree with you that it was an odd dynamic between Norma and Joe. I just finished watching this movie for the first time about two hours ago, so it's cool that there's a discussion about it here. Sunset Blvd really is an ode to a forgotten, long dead era of early cinema and is a pretty scathing indictment on the industry that abandoned these people and became the soulless, heartless business epitomized by the journeyman screenwriter Holden plays. And one of the actors who plays cards with Norma is none other than the great Buster Keaton, who unlike Chaplin failed to maintain his comic popularity past the silent era, and was basically destitute and forgotten when Wilder did him a favor by casting him in this film. The butler Max is played by Erich von Stroheim, the silent film director most acclaimed for his epic Greed, and he too failed to make the transition to talking Hollywood. The silent film of hers thats played in the film is actually a then-unreleased film of the real life Swanson, Queen Kelly I believe. Gloria Swanson, the actress who plays Norma, was a silent film starlet who failed to make the transition to Hollywood talkies, just like her character. ![]() ![]() The movie has so many great meta-narratives as well. Holden fits the flawed male protagonist of classic Hollywood film noir to a tee. It's clear that he also enjoys being admired by her. He repeatedly manipulates everyone around him, especially Norma and that young girl screenwriter (I haven't seen the movie in a while so I don't remember all of the names unfortunately) and he does nothing but feed into Norma's self-delusions. ![]() I think you are absolutely supposed to dislike William Holden's cynical and opportunistic main character. is great because it's such a brilliant deconsturction of Hollywood and fame. On any given day, you could ask me if I thin Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Double Indemnity, or Sunset Blvd is his best and I'd probably give you a different answer each time. What's up with the chimp?īilly Wilder is one of my favorite directors and this is one of my favorite of his films. It's a great allusion that I would have missed had I not done a little research for this post. Norma dances for and with Joe throughout the movie and ends up killing him. "Christian traditions depict her as an icon of dangerous female seductiveness, notably in regard to the dance mentioned in the New Testament." What I've found interesting is that the work in progress, Salome, shares its name with Herod the Second's daughter (the Kings of Judea). He stuck around after finding out the Salome script was no good, and even rebuffed Betty after Norma's little stunt on the phone. What I have decided is that it's Joe I don't much care for. She's obviously ill and has no one to truly help her, and thanks to Max (what a weird situation that is) she's been a spoiled brat since 17. Trying to watch more classic cinema and this is where I chose to start.Īfter letting it simmer overnight, I can't decide if I hate Norma Desmond or feel terribly bad for her. Picked up the film yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. ![]()
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