For my final selection I had to go back and pick Sunset Boulevard 1950.
1950’s Sunset Boulevard is a masterpiece that demarcates the end of Hollywood’s Golden era and the beginning of a darker deeper time for the silver screen. Billy Wilder chose the genera of Film Noir as a vehicle with which to explore the moral decay of the film industry. Wilder offers a mystery that begins with the victim/narrator floating face down in a pool. As writer Joe Gillis (William Holden) tells his story in flashback form we the audience know from the start how the story ends. The mystery of who killed him and why remains but we know where this story is going from the beginning.
Although William Holden was brilliant it is Gloria Swanson as retired silent film star Nora Desmond. Once a huge star she now sits in the dark watching her old movies in a decaying mansion that serves as a metaphor not only for Nora, but Hollywood itself. Joe finds himself hiding out form creditors inn Nora’s house becoming a kept man who is put to work by Desmond writing a scrip for a film that she believes will be her path to a return to the business. She is attended by her driver/butler Max who has twisted secrets of his own, the casting is brilliant; Wilder cast director Erich Von Stroheim as Max and brings Cecil B. DeMille, Heda Hopper and Buster Keaton as themselves giving the film an insider feel
The story continues to drill into the life of Nora and her madness. It is easy to see Nora as insane and victim of her own delusions, but a deeper reading might see her as symptomatic (symbolic?) of the nature of Hollywood as an industry that creates illusions that overtime can become delusions that trap the mind.
The cinematography was brilliantly handled by a John Seitz who brought in a full crew of German craftsmen who helped define the look of the Noir genera drawing upon the expressionism that flourished in Germany in the years between WWI and WWII. The film’s hallmarks are the tall shadows, symbolic of a darkness that looms larger than life in the film. Experimental camera angles grab the viewer from the opening scene of Holden looking up at him from under water as he floats in the pool.
Nora sums up her view of a film industry that had moved on from the world that had made her a star when
Joe says: "You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big." To which she replies "I am big. It's the pictures that got small."
I honestly expected to wrap up the game with a different film but I seems a sin to let this landmark film fall off my list just because no one else picked it up. I said earlier I could play this game to 100 easily of just settle in to one genera. I am now sadden by the films I had to leave out.
1950’s Sunset Boulevard is a masterpiece that demarcates the end of Hollywood’s Golden era and the beginning of a darker deeper time for the silver screen. Billy Wilder chose the genera of Film Noir as a vehicle with which to explore the moral decay of the film industry. Wilder offers a mystery that begins with the victim/narrator floating face down in a pool. As writer Joe Gillis (William Holden) tells his story in flashback form we the audience know from the start how the story ends. The mystery of who killed him and why remains but we know where this story is going from the beginning.
Although William Holden was brilliant it is Gloria Swanson as retired silent film star Nora Desmond. Once a huge star she now sits in the dark watching her old movies in a decaying mansion that serves as a metaphor not only for Nora, but Hollywood itself. Joe finds himself hiding out form creditors inn Nora’s house becoming a kept man who is put to work by Desmond writing a scrip for a film that she believes will be her path to a return to the business. She is attended by her driver/butler Max who has twisted secrets of his own, the casting is brilliant; Wilder cast director Erich Von Stroheim as Max and brings Cecil B. DeMille, Heda Hopper and Buster Keaton as themselves giving the film an insider feel
The story continues to drill into the life of Nora and her madness. It is easy to see Nora as insane and victim of her own delusions, but a deeper reading might see her as symptomatic (symbolic?) of the nature of Hollywood as an industry that creates illusions that overtime can become delusions that trap the mind.
The cinematography was brilliantly handled by a John Seitz who brought in a full crew of German craftsmen who helped define the look of the Noir genera drawing upon the expressionism that flourished in Germany in the years between WWI and WWII. The film’s hallmarks are the tall shadows, symbolic of a darkness that looms larger than life in the film. Experimental camera angles grab the viewer from the opening scene of Holden looking up at him from under water as he floats in the pool.
Nora sums up her view of a film industry that had moved on from the world that had made her a star when
Joe says: "You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big." To which she replies "I am big. It's the pictures that got small."
I honestly expected to wrap up the game with a different film but I seems a sin to let this landmark film fall off my list just because no one else picked it up. I said earlier I could play this game to 100 easily of just settle in to one genera. I am now sadden by the films I had to leave out.
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