Before renown and everything,
I’d sit at home aspiring
And planning out my rise to fame,
To make the whole world know my name.
And as I dreamed, I followed through.
I sought the scenery to chew;
I earned the roles and accolades
And strode red carpets for decades.
I basked in viewers’ tears and laughs
And votive snaps of photographs.
I was a star, and stars will shine
Regardless of the bottom line,
Regardless of a flop or two,
Regardless of some new debut,
Regardless of unringing phones
Or dreaded birthday milestones.
A star’s above forgettably
Conveyor-belt celebrity.
Although I now more dimly burn,
A supernova I’ll return.
They’ll be reminded of my heights
When they behold my name in lights.
They may forget but can’t ignore
A star they’ve known and loved before.
They may forget but how can I
When I’m the one who’ll never die?
So, waiting for my phone to ring,
I sit alone remembering.
____________________________
Rating: Passed (equivalent of PG)
I always try to include a few old classics in my Blindspots, since I don’t watch and review as many films from yesteryear as a cinephile probably should. Sunset Boulevard is one that has always slipped through the cracks, with Gloria Swanson’s iconic performance as washed-up starlet Norma Desmond overshadowing the film itself in pop culture. So it was worthwhile to see what else the film had to offer.
In typical film noir fashion, William Holden’s Joe Gillis delivers the story’s narration, though we see right from the start that his character is floating dead in a Hollywood pool before launching into a feature-length flashback. Gillis’s prospects as a screenwriter have dried up and, while fleeing from repo men, the starving artist stumbles upon the decaying mansion of former star Norma Desmond, cared for solely by her attentive chauffeur Max (Erich von Stroheim). Since Norma desires help with her own self-aggrandizing screenplay for a comeback film, Gillis sees her as a short-term meal ticket, but he’s unprepared for her increasing obsession with him and reclaiming her fame.
With director and co-writer Billy Wilder at the helm and boasting three Oscars out of eleven nominations, Sunset Boulevard deserves its status as a classic while also being rather overrated, in my view. Holden is an outstanding leading man, wrestling with the choice of humoring Norma’s whims or returning to poverty, and it’s no wonder his career took off after this. The Oscar-winning screenplay is also replete with good lines both clever and self-deprecating toward Hollywood, though I question the film’s Wikipedia classification as a “black comedy.” And then there’s Gloria Swanson herself, one of the titans of scenery-chewing, who was well-cast (alongside former silent director von Stroheim) for the film to have a semi-autobiographical element about ex-stars striving for relevance. As much as she fits the character and does well with the more vulnerable scenes, the ways Gloria/Norma mugs at the camera is distractingly extreme at times, which may have been the point but still comes off as utterly dated acting.
Sunset Boulevard is one of those cases where both “I get it” and “I don’t get it” apply. I can see how someone watching the film or reading the script would clap vigorously and proclaim that this is great cinema, but the most I can muster is agreeing that it’s well-written cinema. It ultimately left me with no other emotion but pity, pity for all the characters and their deluded forms of love and self-destruction. Thus, it’s not a film I can say I particularly enjoyed or would want to watch again, making the descriptions of it as one of “the greatest movies ever made” ring hollow. It’s not the first time I’ve disagreed with film critics, but I can still appreciate what Sunset Boulevard does well, now that I’ve seen its close-up.
Best line: (Joe Gillis) “You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.” (Norma) “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”
Rank: Honorable Mention
© 2023 S.G. Liput
782 Followers and Counting
Rhyme and Reason 