Sunset Boulevard Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard” is a 1950’s film about famous, but forgotten, Norma Desmond, a silent film star, who has been living in exile, in her gloomy rundown mansion. William Holden stars as Joe Gillis, a struggling Hollywood screenwriter looking for work with no success. During a car chase between Joe Gillis, and the repo men who are after his car, his tires blow out leaving him stranded in Desmond’s deserted mansion. Desmond spends her time watching her old films, dreaming of the day when she makes her grand comeback. Gillis agrees to help Desmond edit her script, that she’s been working on, soon their relationship goes through twist and turns. Swanson, who plays Norma Desmond, gives a great performance with stellar acting; her theatrical mannerisms were perfectly executed. Holden also does a great job counteracting Desmond’s delusional rants. His character is well balanced, and at times is the voice of reason. The film is not only a love story, but also a story about redemption. Overall, the film has beautiful cinematography, great dialogue, and amazing a...
History is consistently used in films as a technique to teach the values and morals of events that occurred. But what’s the point in teaching history through films when they are terribly fictional? In films, the director finds the best scheme to intrigue their audience only by changing the actual event to satisfy their interest. This is true for Stanley Kramer when he made the history of John Scopes and his “monkey trial” into a film called Inherit the Wind. Kramer knew the exact stereotypical “Hollywood history” his audience enjoyed. The trial itself had a series of conflicts, the main one being evolution vs. religion. Yet there was also a series of tensions throughout the movie, including the argument between individual vs. society. The same themes from Inherit the Wind can also be seen from the actual “monkey trial” event in Dayton, Tennessee. It is sometimes said that truth is stranger than fiction and according to this film, truth is also stronger than fiction. Inherit the Wind ignored the true dramatic moment, which is essential to the actual trial that happened in Dayton, Tennessee. Kramer even portrayed his own opinion of this trial in this film. The truth was so distorted in the film so now the argument is not individual vs. society or evolution vs. religion but history vs. fiction. Inherit the Wind is set in the little town of Hillsboro when Bertram Cates (played by), a biology teacher, was thrown into prison for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. Two famous lawyers were behind this case, Henry Drummond (played by) as the defender and Mathew Harrison Brady (played by), as the prosecutor. Mathew Harrison Brady who was “voted 3 times for a presidential candidate” was sent to Hillsboro is carry out the job as a prosecutor for this trial. As for Cates, a journalist from Baltimore Herald by the name of E.K. Horrbeck willingly provided a lawyer named Henry Drummond for him. Horrbeck was interested in the Cates, expecting to make big bucks from this big “media” case. The two opposing lawyers, Drummond and Brady, were Kramer’s two main characters, both with different opinions on how humans arrived on earth. Drummond supported the evolution theory, while Brady, the creation theory. In this film, Kramer distorted the facts of the actual trial to make this film more of a drama than a history documentary.
In the road of life, the right path may not always be where the road signs lead. The road to self-discovery is found by following one’s heart and mind and to wherever they may lead them. Within the plays Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, and Our Town by Thornton Wilder, parallel pathways and contrary connections can be established between the characters coinciding in both. In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is the portrait of a sixty year old man reflecting upon his past, one of lies and hopelessness. Upon coming about his past, he finally and fatally, discovers himself at the end of his life. Mr. Webb from Our Town plays the figure of an editor of Grover’s Corner Sentinel and loving father of Emily. Early in the play, he displays knowledge over his own self-discovery, which he hopes to tell others. The self-discovered Mr. Webb raised Emily coherently as a woman who in the end recognized the value of life. Married to George Gibbs, her life was very much comparable to Linda Loman, married to Willy Loman. Linda Loman was a woman dedicated to the needs of her spouse, but also therefore blind to the real needs that Willy desired. In the end, she still was left wondering why or what had gone wrong. Interlocked by protruding parallel traits of progressive self-awareness, these characters promoted the two plays to a higher level of understanding.
The Classical Hollywood style, according to David Bordwell remains “bound by rules that set stringent limits on individual innovation; that telling a story is the basic formal concern.” Every element of the film works in the service of the narrative, which should be ideally comprehensible and unambiguous to the audience. The typical Hollywood film revolves around a protagonist, whose struggle to achieve a specific goal or resolve a conflict becomes the foundation for the story. André Bazin, in his “On the politique des auteurs,” argues that this particular system of filmmaking, despite all its limitations and constrictions, represented a productive force creating commercial art. From the Hollywood film derived transnational and transcultural works of art that evoked spectatorial identification with its characters and emotional investment into its narrative. The Philadelphia Story, directed by George Cukor in 1940, is one of the many works of mass-produced art evolving out of the studio system. The film revolves around Tracy Lord who, on the eve of her second wedding, must confront the return of her ex-husband, two newspaper reporters entering into her home, and her own hubris. The opening sequence of The Philadelphia Story represents a microcosm of the dynamic between the two protagonists Tracy Lord and C.K. Dexter Haven, played by Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Through the use of costume and music, the opening sequence operates as a means to aesthetically reveal narrative themes and character traits, while simultaneously setting up the disturbance that must be resolved.
The noir style is showcased in Sunset Boulevard with its use of visually dark and uncomfortable settings and camera work, as well as its use of the traditional film noir characters. In addition, the overall tone and themes expressed in it tightly correspond to what many film noirs addressed. What made this film unique was its harsh criticism of the film industry itself, which some of Wilder’s peers saw as biting the hand that fed him. There is frequent commentary on the superficial state of Hollywood and its indifference to suffering, which is still a topic avoided by many in the film business today. However, Sunset Blvd. set a precedent for future film noirs, and is an inspiration for those who do not quite believe what they are being shown by Hollywood.
All directors of major motion pictures have specific styles or signatures that they add in their work. Alfred Hitchcock, one of the greatest directors of all time, has a particularly unique style in the way he creates his films. Film analyzers classify his distinctive style as the “Alfred Hitchcock signature”. Hitchcock’s signatures vary from his cameo appearances to his portrayal of a specific character. Two perfect examples of how Hitchcock implements his infamous “signatures” are in the movies, A Shadow of a Doubt and Vertigo. In these movies, numerous examples show how Hitchcock exclusively develops his imagination in his films.
Time’s inevitable passage and the changes brought about by it is a theme epitomized by a little town in New Hampshire known as Grover’s Corners. In the play Our town by Thornton Wilder the above stated theme is demonstrated again and again. Whether it be through the subtle changes in characters, the way the play starts and ends, or simply the realizations that occur to the various characters in the town. All in all, this book highlights the theme repeatedly throughout all three acts of the play.
A movie of brilliance, startling romance and glamour has hit the screen’s across the globe last Wednesday, May 1st 2013. Following the infamous love story between the mysterious, and mysteriously romantic millionaire, Jay Gatsby, and his endearingly wedded mistress, Daisy Bachanan, Baz Luhrmann has successfully enchanted an international audience. Luhrmann has delivered an energetic and dazzling adaptation of F.Scott Fitzgerald’s remarkable, and most celebrated novel, written during his most prolific years as an established writer.
Connelly, Marie. "The films of Martin Scorsese: A critical study." Diss. Case Western Reserve University, 1991. Web. 07 Apr 2014.
Sunset Boulevard (Wilder 1950) explores the intermingling of public and private realms, puncturing the illusion of the former and unveiling the grim and often disturbing reality of the latter. By delving into the personal delusions of its characters and showing the devastation caused by disrupting those fantasies, the film provides not only a commentary on the industry of which it is a product but also a shared anxiety about the corrupting influence of external perception. Narrated by a dead man, centering on a recluse tortured by her own former stardom, and concerning a once-promising director who refuses to believe his greatest star could ever be forgotten, the work dissects a multitude of illusory folds to reveal an ultimately undesirable truth. Its fundamental conflict lies in the compartmentalization that allows the downtrodden to hope and carry on. Sunset Boulevard carefully considers the intricate honeycombs of dishonesty and deception that constitute a human life, then dissolves the barriers and watches the emotions, lies, and self-contradictions slurry together and react in often volatile and destructive ways.
Both Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950), and Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly’s Singin’ in the Rain (1952) tell the story about the film industry’s transition from silent pictures to “talkies,” however, they are drastically different in their themes and genres. Sunset Boulevard is drama, while Singin’ in the Rain is a musical comedy. Billy Wilder takes a darker approach to the transition to sound by depicting an actress, Norma Desmond, played by Gloria Swanson, that is left behind by the advent of sound unable to act. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly take the opposite angle and completely contrast Wilder’s film with a spoof film about the movement to sound films. The clear contrast between these two films is seen in their camerawork. Wilder instills fear and sadness, while Donen and Kelly emit joy and laughter through their film.
“There once was a time in this business when I had the eyes of the whole world! But that wasn't good enough for them, oh no! They had to have the ears of the whole world too. So they opened their big mouths and out came talk. Talk! TALK!” (Sunset Boulevard). The film Sunset Boulevard directed by Billy Wilder focuses on a struggling screen writer who is hired to rewrite a silent film star’s script leading to a dysfunctional and fatal relationship. Sunset Boulevard is heavily influenced by the history of cinema starting from the 1930s to 1950 when the film was released.
Sunset Boulevard directed by Billy Wilder in 1950 is based on how Norma Desmond, a huge Hollywood star, deals with her fall from fame. The film explores the fantasy world in which Norma is living in and the complex relationship between her and small time writer Joe Gillis, which leads to his death. Sunset Boulevard is seen as lifting the ‘face’ of the Hollywood Studio System to reveal the truth behind the organisation. During the time the film was released in the 1950s and 60s, audiences started to see the demise of Hollywood as cinema going began to decline and the fierce competition of television almost proved too much for the well established system. Throughout this essay I will discuss how Sunset Boulevard represents the Hollywood Studio System, as well as exploring post war literature giving reasons as to why the system began to crumble.
This paper has attempted to investigate the ways in which Alfred Hitchcock blended conventions of film noir with those of a small town domestic comedy. It first looked at the opening scenes of the film in which the two conventions were introdruced. It then went on to analyse the film with the aid of Robin Wood's article Ideology, Genre, Auteur. From these two forms we can see that film noir and small town comedy were used as a means of commenting on the contradictions in American values.
There are four crucial scenes of this film in which Hitchcock shows a change in perspective and identity through the mise-en-scène. Hitchcock’s signature motifs, style, and themes are conveyed through the mise-en-scène.
Inge, M. Thomas. "Jay Gatsby and the Little Tramp: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Charlie Chaplin." Studies in