Sydney Smith
1 September 2015
Bowditch
THF 220 Sunset Boulevard “Sunset Boulevard,” a 1950 film by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, tells the story of Norma Desmond, an old silent film actress hung up on a silver screen comeback that will never transpire, and Joe Gillis, a screenwriter who uses her delusion to his advantage. Albeit the film begins with a shot of a man’s body floating in a pool, the real story commences six months prior, when Joe Gillis, a hapless screenwriter, after unsuccessfully attempting to sell a screenplay to Paramount Studios to make a few quick bucks, finds himself driving down Sunset Boulevard in an attempt to elude men who are trying to repossess his car. The chase ends in a tire blowout and Joe pulls into…show more content… Norma, however, seems unable to accept the fact that with the combination of the emergence of talkie films and her old age, she really does not have a future on the silver screen. She has literally gone from being the center of attention, to begging for attention and this is ultimately what leads to her demise. Although she receives letters from her “fans”, Norma realizes that she is not as famous as she used to be, and becomes deluded in this fantasy world, where she is not only the star, but also the creator. When Norma asks Joe to write her screenplay, she is succumbed in that delusion. She is fighting to get back her place in the spotlight and in turn represents the struggle that these silent film stars are finding themselves in; the pull between their life as a star, and their new identity, as someone just as average as the rest of…show more content… Not only has she murdered a man, for leaving her, who was never hers to begin with, but she now seems un-phased by the blood on her hands. Her only focus is being a star. She spends the last moments of the film, engulfed in nothing but herself and the attention that she is receiving. The cameras are finally giving her something that she has missed for so long, and because of this she has officially become the product of Hollywood and the vanity that it has to offer. Her actions represent the illusion that Hollywood so often puts people under, and in some ways almost represents the belief that “any publicity is good publicity.” The “camera crew” that Norma is imagining, is in reality a group of policemen and news reporters, who have come to report a murder that Norma has committed. But, in Norma’s mind, this is her big debut back on the silver screen. In her mind, this is her time to be a