Sunset Boulevard |  2008-11-02

The definitive Hollywood horror classic

Sunset Boulevard is at once a horror film as it is a film about human frailty and despair. Billy Wilder, when conceptualizing the film, hit upon the idea with the curiosity of drawing out dark from its recesses with the dazzle of showbiz lights.



In a situation like this, if you were to blind a dark corner with sudden light, the secrets revealed in that corner can appear startled but will immediately cuddle up to the warmth of the lights invigorating it.

That is exactly what happens to Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a forgotten silent star living in a cave of her own excesses, who is torched out with the entry of Joe Gillis (William Holden) in her life. Joe is a down on his luck screenwriter being chased by recovery guys for his car, which he hasn‘t paid for. He speeds into a driveway and stumbles upon a mansion so strange that once he enters it, there is no getting out. As he discovers the owner of the decrepit palace, he is lured by Norma to help him write her ‘return‘ script which she has been working on to make a comeback to the silver screen after two decades. Having no better option, he agrees, not entirely oblivious to her gifts and favours in return. The writer in him collapses when an earnest girl‘s (Nancy Olson) growing ambitions to be a writer refuels his imaginations. In light of which, his relationship with yesteryear star Norma and her man Friday (Erich Von Stroheim) takes a beating for which he will have to pay with his life.



From the opening shot, to several other shots of the atmosphere the film is shot in, there is a palpable sense of the horror that is in waiting to occur, and with the melodramatic acting of its principal actors, the urgency to shatter myths surrounding showbiz and its stars is even more pressing.

Wit and sarcasm, cold and warm, light and dark are so seamlessly entrenched in each other‘s strengths, that it becomes difficult to separate good and evil.

The film has been noted for its famous quotes, two of the more legendary quotes being by Gloria Swanson‘s character "I am big. It‘s the pictures that got small" and the statement made in the end "All right, Mr. De Mille. I‘m ready for my close-up."

Sunset Boulevard is an indictment of the senseless celebration of celebrities wallowing in their grand illusions past their prime.

It is a satire on Hollywood‘s ruthless dismantling of idols from their pedestals while keeping the big picture ‘alive.‘

The acting, cinematography, writing, direction, everything is first-rate. Winner of 3 Academy Awards, Sunset Blvd is also ranked sixteenth in the American Film Institute‘s list of the 100 best American films of the 20th century.

The film is also a landmark for it being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and has been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

An absolute must, available at Seventymm.com

ITS A BRILLIANT FILM. THEY SHOULD RE-MAKE IT IN HINDI WITH MADHURI DIXIT AND RANBIR OR IMRAN KHAN.

I HAD THOUGHT REKHA AND HRITHIK BUT MAYBE NOT. | sHAUNA

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