The New Hampshire

Issue date: 3/7/08 Section: Arts & Living

Media Credit: Courtesy Photo

An American classic and one of the best movies about "the movies" ever made, "Sunset Blvd." is a melodrama that's equal parts indictment and commemoration of Hollywood show business. The film touches on the harsh realities of Tinseltown - it'll chew up, spit out, and step on (for good measure) any shmoe who dares to dream a celluloid dream. Yet "Sunset Blvd." also seems to be in awe of the magic of the moviemaking itself, the power of that flickering light and those floating images we are collectively enthralled by as we sit inside a dark room.

"Sunset Blvd." is named for the street on which washed-up silent movie star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) lives. The film, starting at 1950, chronicles the relationship between Desmond and the struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden). Unfortunately for Joe, the chronicle ends with his death. I am not spoiling anything because it begins with his death as well. In a thoroughly modern twist, Gilles narrates the film from beyond the grave, in the hard-boiled style lifted from detective novels of the 1930s. In the opening scene, Gillis muses about the cops fishing him out of Norma's swimming pool as he floats with two bullets in his back and a slug in his stomach.

The broke Gillis meets Desmond as bill collectors are chasing him into her run-down mansion. Initially he thinks it's abandoned. When he meanders inside he's surprised to find a butler who seems to be expecting him. The house is a baroque and lavish monument to the 20s, a cross between the Addams Family mansion and Xanadu from "Citizen Kane." He's led to see Desmond upstairs, where she's waiting by the corpse of her dead pet chimp. It's not a good sign when rich people own pet chimps -- anyone remember who Bubbles belonged to? Anyway, they think Gillis is the undertaker. Slowly, he recognizes her. "You're Norma Desmond," he says, "you used to be big." She's taken aback and utters the immortal line, "I am big. It's the pictures that got small!"

The two begin a mutually destructive relationship. Desmond has never gotten over her lost stardom and is now demented with longing, living in a fantasy world of her own creation where all her adoring fans are clamoring for her return. She's written a script called "Salome" and wants Gillis to revise it so she can make her return to the screen (whatever you do, don't call it a "comeback"). Gillis takes the job because he has no money and no place else to go. He's basically using her, but she's also using him. Eventually she tries to transform him into one of her adoring fans, or an old beau from the 20s, and he reluctantly becomes her lover, or maybe "bedtime companion" would be a better description. Any of his attempts to leave are met by threats of suicide. Considering the fact that the narrator is a dead man, one can infer that this will not be an uplifting story of hope and redemption.

Continued...

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