The film aptly starts with a screenwriter having his own writing problems. Joe Gillis (William Holden) needs work and money. He's also got repo men on his tail for his car. While on the run from these men he hides his car in the garage of a mansion belonging to aging silent movie star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). Joe goes in to the house and is mistaken for an undertaker (her monkey has died). When she discovers he's a screenwriter she asks his opinion on her script which will serve as her comeback vehicle (though she prefers to call it a return). While Joe's voice-over narration (more on that later) tells us the script isn't very good he needs the money so he gets Norma to hire him to work on the script. Norma also insists he lives in the mansion with her. Later Joe realizes she had romantic feelings for him. Out of disgust he leaves but comes back when he learns she's attempted suicide. He also eventually becomes Norma's gigolo.
Sunset Boulevard is about desperation. Joe needs money and Norma is desperate to hold on to the fantasy she can stage a comeback and be relevant again. And you know what? I understand Norma's desperation to be famous and to be loved. It can be a poison that rots you inside and makes you bitter at what you can't have. You are so desperate for it you feel you are going insane. In Norma's case, she has. And that poison has not only rotted her inside but outside as well. Despite only being 50 she appears 20 years older. While Norma can appear as a grotesque and sexist caricature of an aging actress- and in some ways she is since she was written by two men in the 40s- she's also a deeply tragic as well as funny character. That's largely due to Swanson's performance, who gives a hellish and hilarious performance, one of the seminal screen performances of all time.
Before Swanson was considered Wilder reached out to several other silent film actresses, including Mary Pickford, who didn't like the theme of a older woman in a relationship with a younger man. And Clara Bow declined because she wanted to stay retired. It was director George Cukor who suggested Swanson. This was a comeback role for Swanson who had, after her career waned in the 40s, quit movies and worked on stage, TV, and radio. Swanson was intrigued when she was offered the part but didn't want to do a screentest for Sunset Boulevard since she had been such a big star. Cukor joked that he would shoot her if she didn't.
Montgomery Clift was cast as Joe but dropped out supposedly because the role reminded him of his part in The Heiress (1949), where he played a man having a relationship with an older woman. But the the suspected real reason was him actually being in a relationship with an older women, singer Libby Holman. Clift didn't want people thinking Holman was like Norma so he gave up the role. It worked out pretty well for Holden, who became an A-List star after this performance, which also earned him an Oscar nomination. He lost to Jose Ferrer for Cyrano de Bergeac (1950) but would win several years later for another Wilder film, Stalag 17 (1953). I'm glad Holden got the part. Clift was a strong actor but I think he was a little too serious for the wise-cracking Joe. Holden's much better with sarcasm and playing a likable jerk.
Coming back to Swanson, what's integral to her performance, beyond being grotesque, funny and tragic all at once, is how she contrasts with Holden. Holden is giving a mostly naturalistic performance but Swanson is more theatrical in her gestures and facial expressions. This creates plenty of humour- Joe's sarcasm against Norma's non-ironic claim of "I am big. It's the pictures that got small." It also creates the feeling that Norma is always giving a performance never being completely in reality, and this just solidifying how's she losing her mind. I'm reminded of Vivien Leigh's performance in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), where her theatrical style of acting juxtaposes with Marlon Brando's method acting. Blanche, like Norma, is mentally unbalanced and this style of acting, pitted against naturalistic acting, makes that clearer to the audience.
There's a clear separation between Norma's world and the "real" world, which is how the film manages its different tones. The gothic horror and film-noir elements don't intrude when Joe's outside the mansion. Things always feel normal. Film historian Tom Stempel wrote about how the lighting (courtesy of cinematographer John F. Seitz) blends the two worlds of the film together.
"In both Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, Seitz does something that has always impressed me. Both are films noir, and he finesses the fact that both are set in the sunniest of locales, Los Angeles... he brings together the light and the dark in the same film without any seams showing... he brings together the realistic lighting of Joe Gillis out in the real world with the gothic look of Norma Desmond's mansion. Again with no seams showing."
The contrast between the darkness of Norma's world and the brightness of L.A is important. Her world is the dark underbelly of Hollywood. I'd argue Joe is the bridge between the two worlds. If he's not completely destroyed by Hollywood he's at least on his way. He could become like Max Von Mayerling (Erich von Sroheim, playing a version of himself), a former silent film director and Norma's former first husband, now butler. He couldn't bare it when Norma left him so he turned his back on directing and became her servant. He even writes fake fan letters to her, feeding her delusions. Stroheim gives a drolly comic performance as Max but there's something haunted in his eyes. This is a man who has fallen very far and has had to watch his ex-wife descend in to madness. Through him we see that Norma wasn't always like this and he acts as a reminder of what Joe could become if he doesn't cut Norma out of his life completely.
Norma's opposite is Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson), a script reader who once wished to be an actress. It didn't work out but unlike Norma she isn't bitter about not being famous. She sees the merit of working behind the scenes and wishes to be a screenwriter. She's also the counterpoint to Joe due to her belief that a story should have a message. She also isn't as cynical-minded as Joe. She criticized one of his stories early in the film as trite and formulaic, believing he's too good of a writer to waste his talents on overdone stories. However, she sees potential in another of Joe's story and wants to work on it together.
Joe and Betty fall in love though she has a fiancee, Artie Green (Jack Webb). When Joe's leaving Norma he pushes Betty away emotionally so Norma won't hurt her and because Joe knows she deserves better, which is Artie. Joe is then shot by Norma and falls in to her pool. We were shown this corpse at the beginning. I'm not sure how much of a twist it is that Joe's been narrating this whole time from the dead. but the image of Joe's corpse in the pool is a brilliant and spooky shot, created by having a mirror at the pool's bottom.
In the film's final and most famous scene Norma is to be arrested but she believes the cameras are there to shoot the film with DeMille. Max returns to the directors' chair as he calls action. She comes down the stairs and thanks the crew, ending with the iconic line, "Alright Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up," coming towards the camera, and essentially us, with the image blurring and fading to black. Norma gets an oddly happy ending. In an anonymous essay for the film the writer comes to the conclusion that Norma has been completely absorbed by the glory of her past:
In the final shot of the film as Norma stares directly into the camera, we see the soft-focus glow that was a trademark of the silent film era increase in intensity before enveloping her completely as the film fades to black. Norma’s mind has finally been wholly consumed by the past that she’s long yearned for, but her hollow, wide-eyed gaze lives on in the minds of all who beheld it, pleading with us to consider our own role in her descent
Norma said earlier that she abandoned her audience but it was the audience who left her behind. Sunset Boulevard is about the ones who Hollywood and we leave behind and how fame fading away is often worse than never being famous. To know glory and then to lose it becomes a living death for Norma. Wilder was cynical but not uncompassionate. The film is a damnation of the system that created Norma Desmond and then threw her away because audiences got bored. Hollywood and audiences could never see the real person behind the star and what may happen when they were abandoned. Without stardom, some of these people feel they have nothing. What do audiences owe these stars? Maybe nothing. Maybe just some compassion. I think I relate to Norma too much. She may not be easy to love but it's easy to part of ourselves in her, the desire to be loved and comfort that hope brings us, even if's a delusional hope that'll eventually swallow us up.
