Sunset Boulevard Literary Elements

Billy Wilder

Gloria Swanson, William Holden

Erich Von Stroheim, Nancy Olsen

Film Noir; Melodrama; Satire

English

Academy Award for Best Writing (Story and Screenplay); Academy Award for Best Art Decoration-Set Direction (Black-and-White); Academy Award for Best Music (Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture)

August 10th,1950

Charles Brackett

Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California in early 1950s

Joe Gillis is the narrator re-telling the events leading up to his death from his own highly subjective point of view.

Cynical, satirical, darkly ironic, comedic, decaying, acerbic, cautionary

Protagonist: Joe; Antagonist: Hollywood, Norma in some ways

One is that Norma believes she is still a great and beloved star, but the film medium has drastically evolved without her since the silent era, and Norma is largely forgotten. The tension between the new industry and Norma's delusions provoke self-destructive behaviors, the manipulation of Joe, an obsession with the illusion of youth, and inability to reconcile herself to the reality of her faded stardom. Norma's egoism lends itself to another central conflict: Joe's and Norma's fatal dependence on one another prevents Joe from living a normal life and leads to his demise.

Norma's murder of Joe

Several events are foreshadowed. Most obviously, the prologue of the film foreshadows Joe's death, as it explicitly shows a lifeless Joe floating in the pool. Also, Joe's dream about a dancing chimp foreshadows Joe's fatal dependence on Norma, who trains him like an animal to tend to her needs and provide some entertainment and affection for her. Norma telling Joe "I'll fill the pool for you" also foreshadows Joe's death. Norma's suicide attempt foreshadows her downward spiral into mental illness and hysteria.

The famous line "I am big. It's the pictures that got small" understates Norma's faded stardom, which far more relates to her career decline than the perceived unworthiness of contemporary film.

While Wilder wasn't exactly revered for his technical innovations—he was more known for his dense, sharply written screenplays—there are still some highly creative and fresh shots in the film. For example, the iconic shot of Joe floating in the pool was innovative at time, primarily because the practical difficulties of filming underwater made such shots rare. However, Wilder and cinematographer John Seitz came up with an ingenious solution: they put a mirror on the bottom of the pool and filmed the reflected image above, and the results are striking.

Allusions to old Hollywood pervade the film. Norma constantly alludes to Cecil B. DeMille, the revered and powerful studio head whom she tried to persuade to hire her as Salome. Allusions to silent-screen legends like Rudolph Valentino, D.W. Griffith, John Gilbert, Charlie Chaplin are also made. More contemporary allusions are made to Greta Garbo, Hedda Hopper, "Gone with the Wind," "The Naked and the Dead," and Barbara Stanwyck, to name a few. It is these allusions which give "Sunset Boulevard" an authentic feel.

Norma's perception of her enduring fame provokes a paradox in relation to the public's contemporary reception of her, or lack thereof. Norma believes the public still adores her, yet the younger employees at the Paramount don't recognize her. She thinks she still has a myriad of obsessive fans, but Max forges her fan-mail. When Norma goes to Paramount thinking Cecil B. DeMille will direct her in Salome, the studio executives just want to rent her old Isotta-Fraschini car.

Joe and Betty don't parallel so much they juxtapose and foil each other. Joe feels cynical toward Hollywood, whereas Betty is optimistic and embraces the artifice of films.