Sunset Boulevard (1950) is a critique of Hollywood’s artificiality and manipulation of ambitious youth trying to make it big. The obvious example is the film’s star Norma Desmond, an aged actress from the Silent Era hoping to make a “return” (not a comeback, as she’ll “reprimand” you for the slightest implication of inferiority) to the big screen. Her former the director, the very real Cecil B. DeMille, described Norma as “courageous” at the age of 17, and that it only became difficult to work with her near the end. She became too big for the screen, her ego inflated by the shallow reward that is stardom, and eventually, the industry moved on without her. In short, Hollywood ate her up and spat her out, leaving Norma psychologically scarred.
But she isn’t the only character in the film who is confronted with this conflict. At the beginning of the movie, Joe can’t sell a good script despite his writing two stories a week. He feels his ideas are no longer original, as he’s been pressured by the industry to write B-movies for most of his career, having long abandoned his older and more original work. To make matters worse, Joe has to flee repo-men because he’s behind on his payments. Here, the industry seems as if it is about to spit Joe out as it did Norma, forcing him to go back to Dayton, Ohio with only his dead dream to show for his efforts.
Until the two leads meet. Although they are very different, Joe and Norma share an abusive relationship with Hollywood. Both entered with a dream, and both refuse to leave until that dream comes true. Speaking of dreams, the couple seems to overlook a special lesson about them, even if it is written in print on a projector screen. Watching one of Norma’s classic silent movies, the two view a young Norma praying, an innocent look in her eyes. The following subtitle reads, “Cast out this wicked dream that has seized my heart.” And so the film’s antagonist has revealed itself: the wicked dream of making it big that warps people’s minds and tortures their emotions.
It is clear how the dream scarred Norma, transforming her into a grandstanding egoist stuck over 20 years ago in the past. The same goes for Joe, a weathered cynic who’s ideas no longer sell and is now scamming a delusional middle-aged woman by editing her melodramatic screenplay. Max is another example, a former director now working as a manservant to Norma while also staging perhaps one of his great fantasies: the ongoing fame of Norma Desmond. By fabricating fan letters and obeying her every command, Max seems to have lost all sense of self.
The three live in a large yet hollow palace, similar to Xanadu in Citizen Kane (1941). A perfect visual metaphor for the film industry, the house is grand on the outside but truly empty on the inside, containing only huge egos (Norma), bootlickers (Max) and manipulators (Joe). Norma’s ancient car is another visual symbol, a gas guzzling giant (“ten gallons to a mile”, Joe estimates) that, though exotic at first, is not truly worth it. Her pool is an empty abyss, its only inhabitants at the start being a few rats, whom may very well represent the inhabitants of the palace themselves. This especially is a clear indicator of the wicked dream, as Joe comments at the start of the movie that “he always wanted a pool.” That was the goal, the endgame: luxury and prosperity. At the false victory in the film’s midpoint, that pool is filled with water as Joe goes for a swim. That water is only false hope, one he eventually dies in after being shot thrice by Norma.
There is one positive character in Betty, a failed young actress turned script-reader and aspiring writer. She went through numerous trials to make it big as an actress, taking acting classes, diction lessons, and even fixing her slanted nose. However, Betty just wasn’t good enough, so she settled for being on the other side of the camera. For the film’s other characters, this would be the end for her but she persists in her pursuit of the dream. Betty starts out the opposite as Norma, an untalented actress nowhere near as “courageous” as Norma was in her youth. In fact, she’s timid, fearing she can’t write a good movie on her own. If there’s a clear analog to Betty’s character, it’s the young Norma in the aforementioned silent movie, a truly innocent girl.
However, she is imperiled throughout the film. Not by greedy studio executives or agents but by Joe as the two enter into a love affair, despite Betty being engaged to Artie. Yet another wicked dream Hollywood presents, it at first seems glamorous, as is evidenced by their walk through film sets and sound-stages portraying fantastical locations. Unfortunately, these are just that: sets, homes of fiction. Joe does what is perhaps is most noble deed in the film, breaking it off with Betty and urging her to follow a real dream. That is, her fiance in Arizona. Joe and Betty’s romance is a delusion that only hurt them.
And so Betty escapes Hollywood, leaving towards a happy ending. At least, happier than her fellow characters.
Joe is about to escape as well, realizing he can’t live from delusion to delusion, whether it’s writing scripts for executives or a crazed narcissist. He swallows his pride and packs to return to Dayton…until Norma shoots him dead.
The iconic ending of Sunset Boulevard best sums up the film’s dilemma. Norma remains forever entranced by the dream, still performing before stern policemen and hungry journalists. Max still plays along, acting as a director one more time in ordering the the cameras and lights to be fixed on her. She approaches the camera, getting closer and closer. It’s as if her words earlier in the film have come true: she truly is big, “it’s the pictures that got small.”
But at what cost? For the illusion of fame? It is tempting. Norma truly seems to be happy during her return to studio 18, when many of her old industry friends greet her. Attention sustains her. It’s a drug, one she got hooked on early in her career. And like any vice, it’s slowly led to her destruction. It has seized her by the heart.
Norma Desmond becomes yet another victim of that wicked dream.
The CineMan Twist 