Sunset Boulevard Sparknotes

Since the advent of Hollywood, the media has promoted the benefits and exclusivity of enjoying a lavish and decadent lifestyle. In Billy Wilder’s sardonic and confronting noir film, Sunset Boulevard, the director focuses on how exciting, but also how destructive, it can be to seek wealth and an affluent lifestyle. Through his portrayal of a former film star and a burgeoning writer, he explores the vast influence of celebrity and fame, and how easily people can become lured into the cut-throat world of filmmaking in the 1950s. Despite this, the damaging and even fatal consequences of the pursuit of fame and affluence are depicted by the director, unveiling how all is not as it seems behind the flashing cameras and lights of stardom.

Presenting

Betty Schaefer is a young and attractive woman who enters her boss’ office wearing a tweed skirt and carrying a bundle of papers. Her professional stance and costume are matched by her lack of fear of Joe the first time she reads his story, “Bases Loaded”, calmly but firmly telling him that the script is “flat and banal”. However, her ambition led her to suggest the two meet “in the evenings” or “at six in the morning” because of her faith in Joe’s writing talent. The apples the two are often seen with symbolise the potential for this relationship to be nurturing and healthy for him, but he rushes back to Norma, and Betty hurls an apple into the bin, knowing he has discarded this chance to be with her. When Betty approaches the huge and shrouded mansion to seek him out, she is horrified that he is willing to sacrifice their writing partnership, and a possible romantic future, for “plenty of champagne and plenty of caviar” instead of his “one room apartment” as a struggling artist. His blithe and dismissive tone towards her when he turns to her and condescends: “Look sweetie, be practical” leads her to rush in a panic from the door and disappear from the film. The archetype of a young and attractive female lead character is usurped by the dominance of Norma on the screen and in Joe’s life – her wealth and her gifts have finally had the desired

The film opens with a dramatic, non-diegetic flourish of horns, a musical trope used in noir films to precede danger. The close-up of the gutter with the title of the film painted on it foreshadows the tragic ending for both the main characters, and Joe’s wry voice-over narrates how the murder of a “young man” will be interrogated by “police and newspaper men” and he is “sure” the viewer “will read about it in the late editions”. The film cuts to a dead body floating in a swimming pool, which the film circles back to in its final moments. Joe has, ironically in death, become famous, and dies floating in a symbol of excess and profligacy. The bizarre funeral of Norma’s pet monkey, in the dead of night in her external garden, is flushed with noir tropes of sepulchral clothing and shadows – hallmarks of the Gothic genre - another frightening portent of Joe’s impending doom if he stays. Norma’s previous suicide attempts are similar indications of her psychological inability to cope with the reality of being forgotten. The missing door handles and locks on every door in her huge mansion, and her climactic and melodramatic threats to kill herself with a revolver are sure signs of desperation for human company, to not be alone. Fame and wealth have also not cushioned her from becoming delusional. The tragic