#31: Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard (Wilder, 1950)

There's a style of narration in old films, mostly noir films, that's cynically charismatic and a little amusingly overliterate. Sunset Boulevard isn't a noir film (Though it does start and end with a murder), but it's that style of narration that drives the feel of the movie. It has both the effect of putting you in the mindset of the main character and making you think of noir movies from the 30s and 40s.

The plot is about an aging silent film star. Fame raised her expectations so much that when talkies came out and people forgot about her, she couldn't handle it. She still hangs on to the idea that she's a big star and her fans can't wait for her return to film. When a failing screenwriter tries to hide his car in his garage to escape from the repo men, she tries to absorb him into her fantasy and her narcissism. Other than the narrative style and strength of the script, the movie thrives on the lead actress, resulting in some of the most memorable scenes in movie history. "Mr Demille, I'm ready for my closeup now." "Now they have words. We didn't need words, we had faces!"

The film satirizes the fickleness of Hollywood culture and it's impact on the stars' self image. This is long before the mainstreaming bulimia and plastic surgery, but the toll on a person's self image hasn't changed. Hollywood is all about the moment and never lingers in the past, so no matter how big you are, it will abandon you the moment you can't give audiences what they currently want. Actors and especially actresses are conditioned to base their self worth on how much fanfare they're currently getting, which leads them into a cycle of desparately doing anything to stay at the top of the mountain. And when they're not, the only reasonable explanation is there's something wrong with them. The aging silent film star in Sunset Boulevard can't even accept that she's anything short of the icon her old audience dreamed her up to be, leading her to completely disconnect her perception from reality. It's easily one of the best movies ever made.

Rating: ***** / 5

30/101

Others:

Magnolia: **** 1/2 / 5

A very impressively scripted movie. It's one of those multilinear stories with multiple divergent but cosmically related plots. It's funny, if a film is driven by coincidence it's called lazy writing. But if the film goes out of it's way to talk about coincidence and fate, it's brilliant. Even if it's the case what I suspect that the whole dialog on coincidence and the first fifteen minutes in the movie were just an elaborate way to hang a lantern on it.

Paul Thomas Anderson movies I seem to either love (Punch Drunk Love) or think are crazy-overrated (There Will Be Blood, Boogie Nights). The deciding factor for me seems to be how much the writer wants you to sympathize with the characters. Paul Thomas Anderson has a distinct style of characterization, which for some reason only works for me when I emotionally relate to the characters.

Before Sunset: **** / 5

Another impressively scripted movie. It's one of those really simple, short movies that's beautiful in it's presentation. Nine years earlier (In Before Sunrise), a man and woman have a fling. They fail to meet up again when they planned to six months afterward. Now the man is married with a child, and they meet again, at the end of a book tour for a book he wrote about their fling. The writing is intelligent and emotionally nuanced, the characters are extremely well fleshed out, and the ending is ambiguous. You're left with the sense that clearly, both of them feel the day they met nine years ago was the happiest day in their lives. But is the possibility of having that back worth giving up the important things in their lives now? That depends, as the man says near the beginning, on your world view.

Mother: *** / 5

The previews said "The best Hitchcock film in decades". It doesn't feel like a Hitchcock film but I can see why a critic would say that. The relationship between the main character and her son is what you might think the villain from Psycho's childhood was like. And when her son is accused of murder, she goes out to prove him innocent. There is psychological drama similar to a Hitchcock film, but the feel is completely different. It revolves around her obsessive clinginess and inability to separate her own life from her son's.

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