Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Sunset Boulevard is the type of film that I should have discovered by renting a video in the 1980s. As it turns out, I had come across a tape of it at a thrift store a few years ago, aware of the reputation and influence of the Billy Wilder classic while never having somehow seen the film is my five decades on the planet.

I had seen plenty of Wilder’s other works such as Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), The Seven Year Itch (1955), Double Indemnity (1944), and Stalag 17 (1953), yet I had somehow managed to avoid perhaps the director’s most influential film, which was a revelation.

There is no way to express how good Sunset Boulevard is. From opening with a dead man narrating how he managed to end up faced down in a swimming pool to its sharp dialogue and the uniformly strong acting from its cast that famously includes Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Nancy Olson, Erich von Stroheim, and, surprisingly, Jack Webb playing the most cheerful character in the film, Sunset Boulevard simply builds towards inevitable doom with  strangely lighthearted glee.

Holden plays Joe Gillis, a down on his luck screenwriter, who manages to find what he believed at the time to be good fortune while attempting to keep his car from getting repossessed. Because of the opening, the audience is well aware that things will not end well for Gillis. What he believed to be his good fortune at the time turned out to be his doom: wealthy and delusional silent film actress Norma Desmond, played by Swanson.

The fact that I did not see this film until 2017 despite considering myself a film scholar is an indictable offense; however, because of the film’s influence, so much of it, especially Swanson’s fantastic portrayal of Desmond, seemed familiar, which I can say having watched The Carol Burnett Show growing up to thank for. Desmond is simultaneously sympathetic and frightening. She is a woman who has refused to admit that the world has moved on and the industry that made her famous for a time and wealthy no longer exists. At first, Desmond’s denial seems harmless and pathetic yet gradually become annoying and threatening. It’s a delicate turn that’s incredible to observe.

Holden’s Gillis, the victim, is a horrible person. Think about it: he avoids paying his debt, he ends up taking advantage of a mentally disturb person, and he attempts to steal a friend’s fiancé. He’s no angel and paid for that. Holden’s performance is charming and engaging. Sunset Boulevard is a sideways example of film noir, a category of crime film that focuses on the struggle of the human character to avoid temptation, which Joe Gillis personifies.

The black and white beauty of this film comes through no matter what format you decide to view it in. From shots of the lonely streets of Hollywood to the interiors of Norma Desmond’s haunted mansion, this film conveys a strange, joyful dread.

The influence of this film resonates through many other works. One film that comes to mind is David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001), which plays on many of the same themes as Sunset Boulevard including the seductive and corrosive allure of Hollywood and how the main character, like the one in Wilder’s film, may be guiding us through the story from another dimension. Lynch clearly picked up on the macabre vibe of the earlier film and stirred in a healthy dose of the surreal. The DNA is certainly there.

My experience of watching this film on VHS certainly takes me back to when I would rent from Quality Video in Athens or Movies Worth Seeing in Atlanta, discovering Luis Bunuel, Akira Kurosawa, Diane Kurys, or Pedro Almodovar among many. It’s so strange that we laugh at the idea of watching anything in this format—and rightfully so—when it has been the vessel responsible for giving many the opportunity to see movies they may have never had a chance to see otherwise. Nowadays, if you happen to have a VCR, you can pickup a movie for a quarter or fifty cents.