What was Gillis' profession? Joe Gillis was the main character in Sunset Boulevard. Perhaps most famous for his cynical, anti-hero roles, who played Gillis? Sunset Boulevard. Sunset Boulevard study guide contains a biography of Billy Wilder, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.
Sunset Boulevard essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Sunset Boulevard by Billy Wilder. Remember me. Forgot your password? Wilder marshals many of the devices of film noir without allowing them to intrude upon the film's realism so that the style of Sunset Boulevard underscores its themes.
The opening scenes suggest the makings of conventional film noir : the wail of the police sirens, the faded opulence of the mysterious mansion, the aroma of ill-gotten goods. In this particular underworld, however, people hide themselves not from private eyes, but from the public eye.
As Joe's tale unfolds, it is fraught with images of death : his own corpse floating in the pool; the remains of Norma's pet chimp laid out and later buried; his own voice which reminds us that his comes from beyond the grave. Joe, then, takes refuge from his creditors behind the same barriers that Norma has raised against her once devoted audiences. A complex of walls, gates, doors, gauzes, screens, glasses, and veils seclude Norma in her delusions and shield her from the reality of the outside world.
The first time she is seen in the film she is screened by two such devices; she is standing behind a bamboo blind wearing her sunglasses as she calls out « Young man, why have you kept me waiting so long?
The debt to film noir style can also be seen in the shabby room over the garage to which Joe is first assigned. Its bare light bulb and naked walls recall the seedy hide-outs used by everyone from.
Furthermore, the black and white stock Wilder chose is ideally suited not only to the realism of Sunset Boulevard, but also to the creation of the atmosphere typical of film noir. And whereas the physical of film noir is some-what lacking, Wilder has substituted the wrenching psychic violence that permeates Sunset Boulevard. The stark contrast between the film's interiors and its exteriors, a contrast all the more evident in black and white, reinforces the development of Norma.
Norma is entirely ambivalent towards light. She craves the spotlight but is most comfortable when in darkness — the darkness, for instance, created by her which are worn even indoors ; the darkness in which she watches herself in Queen Kelly. Light will, of course, reveal the of age and in her aversion to light and her fear of age, Norma evokes the comparison of herself and Blanche de Bois, the heroine of Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire.
Williams's play had appeared on the New York stage three years before Sunset Boulevard; Elia Kazan's film version would appear the year after Wilder's film.
Like Norma, Blanche is obsessed by her fear of age and, indirectly, of death and distances herself from reality by living in the past. Both come to rely on what Williams terms « the kindness of strangers, » calling upon others to perpetuate their to play parts in the scenarios they have scripted. As Blanche puts it, « I don't want reality, I want magic! Blanche and especially Norma are in their refusal to accept the passage of time, chilling in their sexuality particularly in relationship with a younger man , and detached from reality because of their illusions.
The California setting makes Wilder's treatment of light and even more a study in contrast. The very first image of the film establishes that this is California, that this certainly is Hollywood, that, indeed, this is the celebrated Sunset Boulevard. But Wilder's starting point is the gutter and from there the film plumbs the depth of depravity and dementia, California-style.
Even the mansion itself, which actually once belonged to J. Paul Getty, suggests the nefarious as it is overtaken with what Joe describes as « creeping paralysis. Eliot's « rats, feet over broken. The Hollywood landscape is also ideally suited to Wilder's cynicism because in the world he portrays there are few innocents to be corrupted. California is that land where furniture is « overstuffed like everything else »; where a clothing salesman can recommend that Joe choose only the most expensive clothing « as long as the lady's paying »; where legends are unfortunately in human flesh.
In revealing the film's distinctively American quality, the setting is geographically as well as metaphorically appropriate. Joe's story can be summarized to show how typically American it is : a young, independent, adventuresome man filled with vitality, intelligence, and physical prowess seeks to prove himself by going west. Once he reaches the frontier, which in this case proves to be the moral wilderness of Hollywood, his innocence and instinctive goodness are challenged by the allure of money and pleasure.
He must first recognize that, true to the Puritan scheme of things, money plus pleasure is bound to equal evil and, having recognized evil for what it is, he then must overpower and escape it. Similarly, Norma's story is as characteristically American as Joe's although it is more often found in fact than fiction.
Here is the story of enormous fame achieved in youth, followed by a great gaping void otherwise known as middle age , and finally an attempt at that remarkably American phenomenon, the comeback.
Norma, of course, recognizes this pattern for exactly what it is and loathes the word « comeback » preferring the euphemistic term « return.
Any physical contact between Joe and Norma is doomed by a rigid taboo against even an honest or platonic relationship between an older woman, especially a wealthy one, and a younger man, especially a virile but penniless one. In Tennessee William's Sweet Bird of Youth play, ; film, , for instance, the gigolo- client relationship is, as in Sunset Boulevard, a humiliation, a and ultimately an admission of failure for the man. Although Wilder, too, had begun with the idea that this relationship could be treated intending Mae West in the role of Norma , « later, » Wilder says, « it evolved into a tragic story.
In the film itself, Joe's nightmare reaffirms the idea that he is replacing the dead chimp as the object of Norma's attention and affection; in his dream, the chimp is dancing for pennies as Joe later will at Norma's New Year's party.
When fully conscious Joe makes the same assumptions about his profession as does his colleague played by Richard Gere in Paul Schrader's American Gigolo Both mistakenly believe that they control their situation, that they have the freedom to walk away from their trade when they choose, that they can still reclaim their integrity. Both Sunset Boulevard and American Gigolo rely upon superb scenes of reversal when the gigolo finds himself trapped, that is, exploited by the very situation he sought to exploit.
This pattern of reversals is corroborated by the feelings the film elicits for its characters — feelings that are rarely wholly negative or positive. If characters are young, good-looking, and wholesome, like Betty Schaeffer, they are also ignorant, chose to remain so, and are inclined to sentimentally. For Joe, too, there is a decided in both his actions and our response to them.
Twice he decides to admit his failure and return to an enervating job as a reporter in Dayton, Ohio. Fincher uses noir thematic devices to maintain a psychotic theme within the film and also to express t Which also goes hand in hand with Jacks insomnia, which shatters the barriers between reality versus fantasy, and memory versus dream for the spectator.
Lastly the vast and bizarre camera angles from which the film was shot in help maintain the uncertain feeling for the spectator. Often, films made in the style of film noir present audiences with a rugged, cynical, and disillusioned protagonist. While Joe Gillis of Sunset Boulevard does not necessarily match up to this persona at the beginning of the film, the arc of his character eventually molds him into such traits through his hopeless situation and building encounter with Norma.
At the start of his story, Joe is depicted by a desperation intense enough that he is willing to give up his own dignity and respect by first lying to bill collectors and fleeing them in his unpaid car, then proceeding to beg for a Hollywood producer to buy his trite stories, and upon the failure of that attempt, stoops so low as to ask this same producer for money. One characteristic that almost all Film Noirs have in common is a certain mold of protagonist.
While most genres of movie have a heroic, or at least optimistic and generally positive Many people say that what makes a film good is how it can be distinct enough from other films to be groundbreaking and original, while staying true to the style it was made to be. If one believes this, they could easily say that Sunset Boulevard is an amazing Film Noir. Adapted from the novella written by James M. Cain, Double Indemnity is a melodramatic film noir that highlights the conflict its characters face through adultery and murder which develops from the dissatisfaction and alienation that arose in the era of modernity as shown in most noir films.
Unlike most noir films, Double Indemnity set the bar in terms of structural themes to follow and elements that eventually came to be considered essential in the noir genre. The film was seen to be a full embodiment of what the genre should be. Typical features of film noir include feelings of fatalistic pessimism, incidents of treachery, and a sense of a corrupt and violent society threatening the hero and other hero — like characters.
Other features are darkness, secretive and mysterious people and mystery. A reason for the low lighting in film noir films is that in Hollywood studios, after the war they could not afford expensive Style, on the other hand, encompasses stylistic elements, cinematographic techniques, and tone over subject matter.
Thus, films of the same or similar genre can be directed in a different style, and appear completely different. For example, both Blade Runner and Star Wars obviously belong to the sci-fi genre; Blade Runner alone is regularly regarded as neo-noir. Examination of the commonalities of those films regarded as films noir will reveal that genre elements vary widely, while stylistic elem Despite the divergent story telling twist Memento is none the less a film noir with all of the archetypal characters i.
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