"Billy Wilder's film starring Gloria Swanson as a reclusive former silent movie star, and William Holden as a young wannabe writer who becomes her kept man, more than ever looks not merely like tinseltown satire or LA noir, but a ghost story. It's the ultimate film about how the screenwriter is always the loser and the chump. You can tell that Norma Desmond (Swanson) is washed up because she has actually written a screenplay which is, however, more than Joe (Holden) ever achieves in the course of this film."
"The street name itself, with its dying fall, is an occult omen of the eerie and macabre things that happen here. David Lynch's Mulholland Drive had the same chill. The street name is about the final ending, and this is one of the very few films of any sort with a really satisfying ending: the way in which the delusional old celebrity, her eyes pinwheeling, is finally induced to come placidly down the stairs to surrender to the authorities."
Sunset Boulevard centers on Norma Desmond, a reclusive former silent movie star, and Joe Gillis, a young unsuccessful screenwriter who becomes her kept man. The film frames fading stardom as a macabre, ghostly decline and presents the screenwriter as the perennial loser. Norma has written a screenplay, an achievement that highlights Joe's creative failure. The movie uses cinematic details—the whistling wind in an organ, the ominous Sunset Boulevard name, and a climactic staircase descent—to create eerie atmosphere. The film delivers a satisfying, sinister ending and influenced later works such as Psycho and Mulholland Drive.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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