Sunset Boulevard is a classic film that tells the story of a struggling Hollywood writer who stumbles upon a relic of the silent film era in an actress named Norma Desmond. The film explores the pressured of Hollywood during the golden age of cinema. The mise-en-scene immediately depicts her instability without her speaking much. She calls William Holden’s character, Joe, from her window she’s wearing sunglasses inside, and you can tell she’s been looking out for somebody and you get the impression that very little goes past her. Joe enters the empty house. The atmosphere that’s set up is eerie. The house is empty except for her butler. The scene continues and the mystery behind this character grabs your attention just from the set alone. There’s something off with her, but you can’t put your finger on it until the movie unfolds and you learn the truth. The set is just part of it. Norma dresses as though shes frozen in time; as if her last movie was the last time she got out of the house. Her makeup exaggerates her crazy eyes. Each of these factors tell you something is off about Norma Desmond, and its only the first few minutes meeting her.
The film explores taboo subjects for the time, such as gender roles. Norma is essentially the “man” in the movie. She constantly buys Joe clothes and such. He has nowhere to go and feels trapped. He needs the money to get his car back, and feels bad for Norma’s mental state. What I find particularly interesting is that it tackles mental health and the pressures of Hollywood within a Hollywood film. In 1950, mental health wasn’t an often talked about subject, let alone a subject that would be tackled in a big Hollywood production. Norma constantly needs to be reassured that she is special and needed. However the world has forgotten her and she cannot process it. She has made multiple attempts on her own life, and in the end goes mad and commits murder. Joe’s feeling of being trapped is a feeling that many people have felt in relationships. It raises the question “is Norma crazy as a product of the pressures she feels to stay relevant?” granted the ending is a little over the top and supports that she’s just insane, but these are questions that have likely never been raised in Hollywood before. The scenes where Norma is going through cosmetic alterations are real things actors and actresses went through, as touched on in Looking at Movies: an Introduction to Film.
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