The movie begins with the scene of Sunset Blvd on the side of the road, which is full of fallen leaves, until the camera turns up from the road, and then there is a voice over. At the same time, a group of police cars fly on Sunset Boulevard with their sirens.
At this time, the audience had never thought that the overtone was the sound made by the corpse.
Or for viewers who are unfamiliar with William Holden, it may not be discovered until the end of the film that this is a dead person telling his own story.
This movie, 70 years ago, created an Allan Poe-style weird atmosphere from the beginning. This flashback method (not the first time the director has used it) adds to the suspense of the whole story. Why does this corpse float in this swimming pool? And what kind of story will unfold next.
01 Atmosphere
The whole film shows two diametrically opposed atmospheres.
In Norma Desmond’s dilapidated but luxurious Gothic mansion, it is always full of weirdness, darkness and unpopularity. Her clothes and the style of the whole house have a gloomy richness. grand.
The hall on the first floor was full of photos of her when she was young. Rows after rows of her master seemed to be so pathologically narcissistic. She was always indulging in the glory of the past, deceiving herself and unable to extricate herself.
The door of every room in the mansion is not locked even the closet, but the door of the mansion, this door to the outside world, is an iron gate like a prison. This shining star of the silent era not only lives in the old days Amidst all the brilliance, she is still unwilling to accept any changes in the outside world from the inside. She doesn’t want to change herself to accept changes, or even to see the existence of such changes, so she must confine herself to what she thinks. In the "paradise", outsiders only see the desolate and dilapidated "paradise".
And the feeling for Joe Gillis here is gloomy and hideous, when he finally couldn't bear to escape from this dilapidated mansion for the first time, on New Year's Eve.
With the accompaniment of the band, the ballroom with only him and Norma was empty and lonely, gloomy and suffocated, completely blocking the atmosphere of the New Year's carnival.
He escaped in the rain and hitchhiked to a friend’s New Year party. The narrow space, crowded people, singing and dancing people are in sharp contrast to the loneliness in the mansion, noisy and lively, cheerful and secular, crowded and seemingly crowded. It is positive.
The movie has been moving back and forth in these two completely different atmospheres, which actually implies the mood of the actor Joe Gillis, who wanders back and forth in these two different worlds.
02 details
When Joe promised Norma to read the script she had written, she was sitting across from him wearing sunglasses and looking at him, smoking a pipe with her own personality in her left hand, but her right hand was ridged like a claw, and she looked like a vampire.
From the following plots, she is indeed like Joe's vampire, and Joe is a substitute for her pet orangutan.
The relationship between Joe and Norma is like Norma's relationship with the so-called star system.
When the former star, Norma, was of no value to them, she was abandoned as a shoe.
When Joe tried to break free of this relationship, he was shot and killed by Norma, who was in madness. He had walked out of the door, but he still couldn't go out.
And this was already hinted in a detail before. On New Year’s Eve, Joe fled, but the bracelet was hung on the iron door. He pulled it off before escaping, but in the end he returned, and he was destined to escape. Not going out.
Fame and fortune's backlash against those who love fame and fortune, Norma goes into madness, and Joe rushes to death.
03 Characters
Norma Desmond
Her tragedy lies in stubbornly living in the glory of the past without knowing or not wanting to know that the outside world has undergone earth-shaking changes. The screen no longer needs her, and people have long forgotten her.
But for Norma, who once had a halo on her head, had received and enjoyed the benefits of fame and fortune, how could he not be swollen with vanity, how could he not be greedy for fame and fortune, and how could he think that this star system is just like a vampire Squeeze her like that.
When she is not needed, no one wants to mention her brilliance again. The studio called her only because she wanted to rent her retro car.
If we want to say the similarities between her and Hao Xiangwei in Dickens' Great Expectations, it is that they both stubbornly live in the past, Hao Xiangwei lives in hatred, and Norma lives in the glory of the past.
Joe Gillis
Joe is a down-to-earth second-rate screenwriter, so down and down that he can't pay the rent and can't even keep his car. He turned to his agent for help from the director but no one wanted to help.
But he desperately wanted to keep the car like his own leg, so he strayed into the mansion that was ruined in appearance, so it seemed that his little white face as the heroine in the end was an accident.
But all this is inevitable.
At the beginning of the film, it was Joe Gillis who was floating in a swimming pool and died. The voice over said that he had always wanted to own such a swimming pool. And the car he couldn't let go was the fame and fortune he couldn't let go. He came to Hollywood to roam, for the sake of his ideals and for fame and fortune.
For him, Norma and the mansion are the temptation to fame and fortune. Even if he did not enter by accident this time, other things would drive him in, because he always wandered between the spooky mansion and the outside world. .
04 Performance method
Gloria Swanson and William Holden are two completely different performance styles. Switching these two performance styles to other story frames or other types of movies may be inconsistent, but in The contrast between the two performances in this movie has a very peculiar effect.
Swanson's exaggerated body language and demeanor during the silent film period showed Norma's morbidity, arrogance, divorce, and self-deception to the fullest.
05 ending
This was Billy Wilder's unscrupulous mockery. The cruelty and ruthlessness of the star system was presented by him in such a way, how dark and dark, there was no softness from it.
In the end, Joe’s death attracted various reporters and media. In this way, the former star became the focus of the media again. At this moment, she was already in a state of insanity. She suddenly thought that her chance of coming back was finally here. She opened her teeth and claws in front of the camera He thought that he was back to the focus again, back to the spotlight, but in fact it was just toward destruction and death.
In the final shot, everyone stopped on the stairs like a freeze frame. Only Norma walked down the stairs slowly and slowly approached the camera, "Mr. Demir, I am ready for my close-up."
Then gradually blurred in the lens.
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