Director Billy Wilder, a Jewish American director, producer and screenwriter, is one of the most important directors in American film history. A former screenwriter who immigrated to the United States to escape Hitler's anti-Semitic activism, he resumed his career as a screenwriter and then directed films. His older films provide us with the same insight into life as contemporary films, as well as providing a strong aesthetic experience or insight into human life living in another time and space.
Sunset Boulevard was produced from 1949 to 1950, a period when many silent era genre films were also developing during the talkie era. However, technological improvements in the film industry, and broader social changes in general, have resulted in the creation of new genres and the addition of new elements to older genres. For example, this film is in line with the film noir of this period, it covers many laws of film noir: firstly, there are many scenes in the dark night of the film, whether it is an interior scene or an exterior scene, it always gives people a gloomy and unpredictable feeling. A sense of crisis can be shown at any time, such as the confusion about the future of the heroine's play and the escape when he is being charged with debts, as well as the hero's forced detention after entering an old villa by mistake, and the hero's rainy night going out to visit a young female editor; The German expressionist style of photography, with eccentric deep shadows and somber tones to create the illusion of a nightmare world, is most profoundly reflected in the decoration of the heroine's villa and the burial of the monkey. The sprawling emptiness and illusory prosperity of the villa, and the filming of the dead monkey further embodies the heroine's loneliness and eccentricity, as well as some sort of bad suggestion; then, the protagonists of film noir are often morally dualistic, antipathetic The surrounding world is full of hostility, disappointment and loneliness, and a rebellious character who finally finds a home in death. This is not reflected in the heroine as profoundly as the heroine. Although the heroine's character is also full of contradictions and unbearableness, but in the heroine's perversion The director is more successful in shaping the character of the film noir; finally, the film noir often uses flashbacks or first-person narration as a means of describing psychology. The film shows us the faces of each character from the perspective of the male protagonist, and conveys his liking and judgment of everyone. Of course, he is also one of the characters in the play, so he also has the limitations of his own understanding. Telling the story in such a first-person perspective makes watching the movie more interesting and allows the audience to watch the movie from a judge-like perspective, giving the audience full power to judge the characters. On the other hand, it is easier to let the emotions and thoughts of the hero infect the audience, thereby driving the audience to devote themselves to the film. The male protagonist in the film is an inexperienced screenwriter and writer. He has lost himself in the face of the pressure of social living environment and the temptation of money.
The film's narrative draws on the cynicism, extremes, and intensity of robber films, which are amply reflected in the personalities of several characters, especially the heroine's obsession with fame and stardom. The extreme madness and inhumanity made her show the darkest aspects of human nature, such as hideousness, shamelessness, and insatiable desire. The costumes of the heroines in the film may seem eccentric and sometimes even out of line with our habits of thinking today, but this does not force us to realize that movies can be completely different from the lives we are accustomed to, forcing us to Adjusting our self-perceptions to fit the life that others take for granted. Just like the heroine in the film, but she is a character worthy of sympathy, because she is just a victim, a victim of the negative influence of the Hollywood star system.
Hollywood's star system makes the production and promotion of important films of major production companies revolve around stars, so that stars become the brand of a film or a series of films, and become the most important for enterprises to carry out product differentiation strategies and compete with other competitors. means. The heroine in the film used to be a big star in the Hollywood silent film period. middle. But beauties are always old and fading, and stars are always changing. This is the truth of the development of all things in the world, the irreversible laws of metabolism, but the heroine is delusional that one day she will be able to make a comeback, and the saddest thing is that she The housekeeper-----her first husband, who was also the director who made her popular, endlessly condoned and deceived her. His various behaviors, such as pretending that fans write countless postcards and letters to her every day, knowing that she can't be as popular as before, but giving her the opportunity to act recklessly everywhere, this is his complete escape method . Perhaps it is to avoid the fact that she does not love him, but also to avoid the decline of silent films, to avoid people's love for the new and the old, and to avoid the withering of his once best works.
The heroine herself wrote a cliché script and forced the hero to revise it for her, she hopes to come back through this script similar to Hollywood fantasy, her fantasy is like a Hollywood movie, although it is a technology backed by a strong industrial base A philosophical film pursues exquisite and complete production in form, and can create an illusion of life in content, but is the purpose of film to create fantasy? This point, the director of the film is obviously holding a negative attitude, so it is obvious that the only way out for the heroine to create a beautiful fairy tale is to destroy it. It can also be regarded as a reflection and struggle made by the director in the current Hollywood environment. One commented that "he took the risk of stinging the hand that feeds him by writing this gothic horror story about a Hollywood insider" Time film critic Richard Schick said: "Wyle Todd has a unique feel, and Sunset Boulevard is the greatest and most wonderful description of Hollywood life, and every shot feels very special." The twisted plot expresses Billy's anxiety in the early stages of his creative career. The love in the story becomes the weight of the last fight in life, but like the possibility of a female star's comeback, this love is doomed to despair. The dilemma of this love is like the dilemma faced by Hollywood in the "Paramount Act" in 1950. (In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court made a final ruling on Paramount's multi-year bill, which stipulated that film companies must sell their theaters. The passage of the Paramount Act directly led to the collapse of the studio system and the collapse of classic Hollywood. The beginning of the 1950s. Large corporations had to scale back the number of films produced each year, increasing the cost of a single film and making massive layoffs. In 1950, American film revenue accounted for only 12.3% of the entertainment industry. In the past, this number was as high as 25% %about.)
The progress of the film is accompanied by the protagonist's self-confession and a very distinctive symphony. The background music is varied, but the overall tone is radical, exciting, full of suspense and treacherous. Even if you watch the movie, you can still guess the general ebb and flow of the plot, and ebb and flow with it, just through the dubbing and voice-over and background music. The most interesting part of the film is at the end of the film. The heroine, who has gone into a state of madness after killing the male protagonist, thinks that her new film will start shooting, so she is exquisitely dressed, wearing a gorgeous dress, from the spiral staircase with her head held high, slowly. Walking down slowly, the surrounding reporters and police were frozen at this moment, forgetting their responsibilities, as if they were also taken away by the heroine's courage, thinking that they were on the set, confused time and space, and greeted them. Old but still charming, the arrogant princess slowly walked down the escalator. At this time, the lens was transformed into a subjective lens of a camera. The heroine in the lens was as coquettish as a demon, stretched out her bony hand and spread her five fingers. , as if to take everything into her palm. The film ends here, leaving people with an unforgettable face. It is a face that is unwilling to be forgotten. In fact, how insignificant human beings are in this world. Although most people want to leave their traces, how many people are really lucky to be remembered by history? Everything is just like a cloud, like a dream. Just like Hollywood, how many sacrifices and unbearables hide behind the real beauty, the director has already given the answer, as much beauty as it has, there are as many dark wounds.
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