Writing Proces of "Sunset Boulevard" Review

I have read the review of Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, and James Berardinelli's ReelViews. Once again it has been a little bit difficult to do the review because the film offers different levels of lecture. When I decide to do a review it’s because the movie has produced a psychological impact in my mind and it’s more fun if it’s a challenge. Maybe in the next review I should choose a film with a more simple structure. However, the film is not as complicated as “F for Fake” and I though it would be easier. Doing the review I have had to select the elements I wanted to talk about, I could have done this process focusing other important parts of the film and the review will look completely different. “Sunset Boulevard” has many different interesting things that should be remarked, that’s why it’s extraordinary, but you have to choose. Maybe, I have left some important things, but I’ve tried to explain the most important elements from my point of view.
I have learned different new words: butler (criat), harassed (perseguit), corpse (cadàver), float (flotar), pointed out (destacat), dichotomy (dicotomia), allegiance (homenage).

Review of "Sunset Boulevard"

Sunset Boulevard, 1950

Directed by: Billy Wilder
Screenwriter: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, D.M. Marshman Jr.
Music by: Franz Waxman
Photography by: John F. Seitz B&W
Genre: Drama
Main actors:
Gloria Swanson (Norma Desmond)
William Holden (Joe Gilis)
Erich von Stroheim (Max)


Joe Gilis is a young writer, unable to sell his work to the studios and he’s full of debts. While he’s being harassed by his creditors, he finds a place to hide his car apparently by chance, the old mansion of Norma Desmond. Norma is a famous silent movie star, who lives isolated of the reality with his servant, Max. The actress asks Joe Gilis to re-write a screenplay to prepare her comeback.

The film is a sad, dramatic and pessimist radiography of the Hollywood universe and the world of fame. Wilder shoots a bullet directly to heart of the cinema industry, which is basically an entertaining business that creates world famous stars and then easily forgets them. Most of the silent stars couldn’t adapt to the new technologic innovation in the 30’s, the sound; and the studios completely leave them apart.

The film narrative structure has some extremely creative elements that need to be pointed out. The movie begins with one of the greatest openings of all times. We contemplate the movie credits slicing over the asphalt, and then we follow a group of motorcycle policeman to a mansion placed in Sunset Boulevard while a voiceover explains us what happened. Next, we see a corpse floating in a swimming pool from an under water point of view and we realize that the film narrator will be the inert body of a screenwriter. Then the whole story is explained in flash-back, which will show the audience the facts that have lead the story to the dramatic ending.

The performance of Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, the silent diva that has been trapped in the past and has been dreaming for a comeback since her career was stopped by the arrival of the sound, is extraordinary and amazingly expressive. Swanson, that was a silent movie star affected for the sound era, plays the role of his life with unforgotten creeping gestures showing the madness and delusions of an egocentric star. Norma’s faithful and mysterious butler, Max von Mayerling, played by Erich von Stroheim, one of the greatest silent directors that couldn’t adapt to the sound, is one of the most remarkable and hypnotizing elements of the movie. The special appearances of Cecil B. De Mille and Buster Keaton performing a self-portrait, gives a strange and indefinable but at the same time attractive atmosphere to the story. The dichotomy between reality and fiction is constantly present all over the film.

The closing has become part of cinema history. In the unbelievable final sequence, Norma Desmond goes down the stairs of the mansion in a glamorous and pathetic style, the police are waiting for her in the entrance, a lot of journalists and photographers stare at her petrified, while Max observes her with deep proud. She thinks that is performing a character for Mr. De Mille, she has become completely crazy, tortured by her successful past. Billy Wilder wanted to articulate a story around a specific forgotten moment in cinema history; “Sunset Boulevard” is the best allegiance to the pure silent movies becoming eternally unforgettable.