Review of Sunset Boulevard (1950) by Nica S — 24 Jul 2015

This is a perfect example of a great noir film, opening on a dead narrator unraveling the tale of his stay at Norma Desmond's estate after fleeing men trying to repossess his car. He didn't know the madness he was getting himself involved in, and neither did the audience.

There are so many examples of great cinematic storytelling in this film, and we can even see this at the very beginning of the film. There are transitions that follow the on-screen movement to give these transitions a sense of continuity in how the story progresses. The many dissolves at the start of the film convey this same idea. Once we get to Norma Desmond's estate there is a tracking shot following Gillis along the hedges and then backing up to get a good view of the entire estate, and it is a glorious shot.

Gillis' reflection on Desmond and her lifestyle create the sense of an unreliable narrator, though we can believe some of it. He says she is introverted, and we see this without difficulty by the mise-en- scene: she surrounds herself with pictures of herself, she refuses to hear criticism for her awful scripts, and she even watches her own silent films. She simply cannot move on from the days of silent cinema in which she was still relevant, and the inclusion of sound has not treated this decaying actress well; there is even an instance when she is in a studio and gets hit by a microphone, and it is clear by her face that this device is alien to her.

The first time I viewed this film I was 16 and did not like the fact that Desmond gets away with murder at the end (I didn't realize she would probably be sent to a mental institution). Though I still don't like this fact, this film is a great tragedy combined with the best of film-noir, and it is a very eerie feeling at the film's conclusion since Desmond is completely out of her mind - she has lost herself in unreality. This film intrigues me with questions I still ask myself which makes me want to keep coming back to this masterpiece filled with so much content underneath its form.