Sunset Boulevard is a drama/romance black and white film. It was released to the public on August 10, 1950 in New York City. The film was directed by Billy Wilder, and produced and co-written by Charles Brackett. The film was named after the boulevard that runs through Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, California. Film stars William Holden as Joseph C. Gillis, an unsuccessful screenwriter, and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a faded silent film actress who drags him into her fantasy world where she dreams of making a great comeback to the big screen, with Erich von Stroheim as Max Von Mayerling, Norma’s devoted servant. Nancy Olson, Fred Clark, Lloyd Gough, and Jack Webb also make an appearance in this film and play supporting roles. Sunset Blvd. was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won three. The film was noted to be “culturally and historically” by the U.S. Library of Congress in 1989. Sunset was also included in the first group of films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Sunset Boulevard was ranked number twelve on the American Film Institute’s list of the one hundred best American films of the twentieth century in 1998.
The film starts off with our main character, Joseph C. Gillis, found dead in a swimming pool. A flashback begins leading moments to his death. Joe Gillis is an unsuccessful screen writer that lives at Alto Needo Apartments in Los Angeles Hollywood, California. Joe Gillis is desperately trying to find a job to pay off his
Released in the summer of 1994, the movie “When a Man Loves a Women” produced by Touchstone Pictures’ producer Jon Avnet created a film that touches on a female alcoholic. This film included stars like Meg Ryan, Andy Garcia, and Lauren Tom. An airline pilot played by Garcia as Michael and his wife Alice portrayed by Ryan are forced to deal with her alcoholism. Within this family it includes that of her two children and the nanny (Lauren Tom). The film offers several hinting scenes to Alice’s addiction. Alcoholism is a disease of denial, the movie focuses on not only the alcoholic but those around her that deny and have even grown accustomed to her drinking.
Sunset Boulevard directed by Billy Wilder in 1950 is based on how Norma Desmond, a huge Hollywood star, deals with her fall from fame. The film explores the fantasy world in which Norma is living in and the complex relationship between her and small time writer Joe Gillis, which leads to his death. Sunset Boulevard is seen as lifting the ‘face’ of the Hollywood Studio System to reveal the truth behind the organisation. During the time the film was released in the 1950s and 60s, audiences started to see the demise of Hollywood as cinema going began to decline and the fierce competition of television almost proved too much for the well established system. Throughout this essay I will discuss how Sunset Boulevard represents the Hollywood
The film Sunset Boulevard (1950), directed by Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond exemplified a Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) by being demanding, intense and unstable. These behaviors that are consistent with the elements of abnormality include suffering, social discomfort, dangerousness, and irrationality and unpredictability. The first element that is consistent with Norma Desmond’s character is suffering. Desmond being one of the greatest movie stars in history suffers as she experiences the fall from stardom. She also suffers from identity disturbance as she reaches an unstable self-image notion. In one scene when Desmond recognizes for a moment about her age, she claims, “Look at me. Look at my hands, look at my face, look under my
Sunset Boulevard (Wilder 1950) explores the intermingling of public and private realms, puncturing the illusion of the former and unveiling the grim and often disturbing reality of the latter. By delving into the personal delusions of its characters and showing the devastation caused by disrupting those fantasies, the film provides not only a commentary on the industry of which it is a product but also a shared anxiety about the corrupting influence of external perception. Narrated by a dead man, centering on a recluse tortured by her own former stardom, and concerning a once-promising director who refuses to believe his greatest star could ever be forgotten, the work dissects a multitude of illusory folds to reveal an ultimately
The film, The House I live In, opened my eyes to the severity of unfair law enforcement and the depths of the battle with war on drugs. Theoretically, the more people are being arrested for drugs, the cheaper, purer, and more available the drugs become. Making these arrests are not helping get the drugs off the streets, it is only opening up more opportunities for other people to pick up the business.
The film industry operates in a continuous cycle, searching for the newest and best pieces to make their movies creative, interesting, and marketable. Historically, the film industry attempts to follow a set structure in an attempt towards success in such a volatile market, however, this approach creates a system much like that of Ford’s Model-T production line, invented in the 1910s, which involved each worker on the line doing a single job. Only a few years later, during the 1920s and 1940s, the film industry showed that they adopted a similar approach to their industry, with each person—actor, director, producer, writer, etc.—performing a distinct role. In the late 1920s, as Hollywood transitioned from silent films to “talkies”, actors and actresses were met with the challenge of adapting to a new role and many of them no longer fit the role required by the growing Hollywood machine. The film Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950) explores and critiques the landscape of the hierarchy and harsh realities of Hollywood. In the same vein as many films of the film noir style, the mood of pessimism and fatalism reflected in the form parallels the reality of many people in Hollywood during the 1900s.
The film Sunset Boulevard directed by Billy Wilder and staring the main characters of Norma Desmond, Joe Gillis, and Max Von Mayerling is ideal example of how important film making techniques help depict a movie’s core theme intentions with vivid clarity. Classic Hollywood is the first thing that comes to mind when one speaks about this film’s style. This signature category combined with the visual style of realism and it’s continuity editing; detailed mise-en-scene and all of its characteristics; and lastly the use of reoccurring motifs with formalistic qualities make the audience grasp the central theme of just how vicious the actual motion industry can be to the
Film noir, by translation alone, means dark film, and by that measurement Sunset Boulevard certainly fits the genre. A gloomy story that follows a jaded and sarcastic protagonist, Joe Gillis from his initial dire circumstances to his untimely death, Sunset Blvd. earns the description “dark” several times over. But there is more to film noir than crushingly depressing plotlines. There are common motifs and icons that are found in most film noirs, such as crime, dark alleys, guns and alcohol. Deeper than this, film noir features certain visual elements, character archetypes, and themes that create a unique style of film. Although some have argued that Sunset Blvd. fails to represent some of these elements, it has become known as one of the
The film Sunset Boulevard directed by Billy Wilder and staring the main characters of Norma Desmond, Joe Gillis, and Max Von Mayerling is ideal example of how important film making techniques help depict a movie's core theme intentions with vivid clarity. Classic Hollywood is the first thing that comes to mind when one speaks about this film's style. This signature category combined with the visual style of realism and it's continuity editing; detailed mise-en-scene and all of its characteristics; and lastly the use of reoccurring motifs with formalistic qualities make the audience grasp the central theme of just how vicious the actual motion industry can be to the individuals that keep its
It started in Torrance California where Louie Zamperini would always steal things like food and trying to escape her town by train.Then his older brother Pete shows him a new path he can take by taking place in sports like track. He then goes to further achieve these goals by running the Olympic games. But as the second world war brakes out, everything takes a turn. He’s pressured into joining the army to pursue to be a bombardier. They go through rough twists and turns such as trying to land a plane while being struck by bullets. They finally end up in the ocean with little to none of his team left and Louie goes to wrestle with a shark with his bare hands and manages to eat its liver. After nearly a month of being in the ocean, they get captured
“Sunset Blvd” is not subtle in stating illusion will win out over reality. After all, Norma Desmond, the aged silent movie star who deludes herself into believing that she will be famous again, kills Joe Gillis, our involved narrator and voice of reason. But before we analyze the dramatic pool scene, which dispels any idea that “Sunset Blvd” sides with reality, we must first look at the characters, the embodiments of dreams and of reality in this movie. Norma Desmond, who dreams of rising to greatness again, refuses to believe that time has passed and that she no longer has any fans. Max, her butler and first husband, feeds into this facade by writing her fan mail, encouraging her
Annie Hall is a romantic comedy directed by Woody Allan in 1977. The film is not any everyday movie but rather a film that revolves around the life of the main actor, Alvy Singer played by Woody Allen himself and his relationship with Annie Hall, cast by Diane Keaton.
Film noirs describe pessimistic films associated with black and white visual styles, crime fiction, and dark themes. Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 film noir directed by Billy Wilder. Sunset Boulevard presents many themes that are common with the genre film noir, but also introduces some differences from the typical movie in that genre.
Genre theory is used to study films and put them into a classification so that audiences know what type of film it is before they see it. Genres are categories based on the story of the film, sometimes the actors and actresses, or even the directors. All films fall under a genre or sub-genre category. Romantic Comedy is an example of a genre which is light-hearted, humorous story involving people in love, sometimes overlapping with subgenres such as screwball comedy teen comedy, or gross-out comedy. ( Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2014, table 4.1). This paper will focus on the romantic comedy genre and movie Rocky. It will take a better look at the specific conventions of this genre and how this movie fits the gangster genre.
Finding fulfillment in life requires people to truly understand their reality and is only achieved through an effort to grow out of one’s comfort zone. This idea is explored in the film Sing Street, directed by Jim Carney. The film follows the journey of Conor Lawlor, a shy schoolboy who gets moved from a private school into a strict Catholic school due to his parent’s financial situation. At Syng Street he is bullied by another student and his principle. A turning point occurs when he falls in love with a mysterious girl. After a desperate attempt to gain her phone number, he starts a band with a group of outcasts from his school. Throughout the film, Carney suggests the idea that to fulfill one’s happiness, a person needs to make an effort to take a risk and push beyond their comfort zone, and while doing so they also need to gain a sense of confidence in their identity. It is necessary to grow beyond hindering beliefs to achieve a new perspective on life to lead to happiness.