The film Sunset Boulevard directed by Billy Wilder and staring the main characters of Norma Desmond, Joe Gillis, and Max Von Mayerling is ideal example of how important film making techniques help depict a movie’s core theme intentions with vivid clarity. Classic Hollywood is the first thing that comes to mind when one speaks about this film’s style.
This signature category combined with the visual style of realism and it’s continuity editing; detailed mise-en-scene and all of its characteristics; and lastly the use of reoccurring motifs with formalistic qualities make the audience grasp the central theme of just how vicious the actual motion industry can be to the individuals that keep its alive. I hope to convey all of this through a detailed explanation involving and about specific scenes included in the film and a direct tie-in of how the precise attributes above play such an important role in expressing that theme.
The first scene that will be analyzed is that of opening credits and just how exactly this begins to set the stage for the main theme. In the very first frame, which also becomes the establishing shot, we come to a high angle shot that is zoomed in close on the words “Sunset Blvd” painted on a street curb as the image is also flooded with dramatic nondiegetic music. This becomes very important because the curb is also the gutter.
Here, not even ten seconds into the movie, do we get our first glimpse of what the film is about; the mise-en-scene here involving a symbolic visual correlation to the central theme an this gutter frame is depicted through this entire establishing shot. Along with this we get more connection through the voice over actually describing, in an almost a sarcastic manner which should not be the case at all, about a murder on this high class, high status block. It’s almost as if this is a clear depiction of the true chaos tied in with how this Hollywood life can and will be to the people involved with it.
As the film zooms out to a long shot of Sunset, we see the police brigade come and wiz by through a very quick pan shot. The next thing is a cross cut to the actual mansion where more commotion is viewed at an obvious murder scene. Bottom line is that the mise-en-scene involved here does an excellent job setting up the movie’s thematic intentions. The voice over in this scene becomes very important to the direction’s introductory goals. As the voice of this man, later known as Joe, keeps speaking about the actual visual of all this commotion involving a murder scene, we hear him talk about the murdered man shown at the house.
He says, “poor sucker, he always wanted a pool. ” This here is our first look at one of the motifs involving the idea of a dream. Throughout the movie that motif is seen in several different ways, this is just one of them. In almost all of the depictions this “dream” is some how linked with being shattered or simply not being what it’s thought to be all. The jest of it is the fact that it does draw a parallel to extreme negativity and it also begins to show specifically how Wilder uses formality in parts of his direction.
For this establishing scene the realism is viewed simply through the continuity editing that I have already touched on in some detail about the actual shots, angles, and camera movements involved here. This “invisible” style that is seen in so many Classic Hollywood films makes it seem like what is shown definitely could happen in real life. The only thing here that might not go hand in hand with that is the fact that this type of depiction was definitely not what the industry and the audience in their own reality was used to.
Therefore, the superior thing about this fact is that because we know that it was not normal for its’ time, it takes that central theme of industry decryption and makes it even more poignant by itself and especially to the people that first saw this picture. The next scene that will be looked at is directly after Norma invites Joe to stay so he can help her finish her script; basically this is where he finds out where he is going to be staying in the house and his first look at her strange and lost lifestyle. The mise-en-scene does a lot for this scene and it starts as soon as he settles in.
When we first come to the setting of his new room the usage of high contrast lighting in his quarters followed by low lighting in the old and decaying backyard is important. It is just so because it sets up the tone for just how this house is going to be to live in and how that directly will reflect on the characters who live in it. It also ties in to exactly what the theme tries to depict about the larger picture: a dark and sullen image of “the life” in general. When Joe first looks outside of his room one of the first things he sees is shown through an eyeline match to a close shot of some scurrying rats.
This here more than likely foreshadows the death coming later in the film, which is one of the three times it does this in the scene. The next time is the burial of the monkey, which also shows a correlation to him replacing it in Norma’s life, just as Norma was replaced in the industry when her time was up. The third time death is used also goes hand in hand with another appearance of the dream motif. As soon as the monkey’s burial is done there is a fade out to Joe having this dream with a voice over of him describing it. The description is only important because he envisions a dancing monkey.
This is more or less a representation of what he will become wrapped up in this dream world filled with greed and distortion. From here there is a fade in to Joe’s dream becoming reality as he wakes up with the diegetic sound of Max playing the organ from another room; this is the third use of death. Here is a perfect use of a high angle shot that implies his inferiority to what he’s got himself into as well as another formalistic motif symbolizing again that the “dream” can and often will be shattered. The next scene I want to talk about is directly following the previous.
I was originally going to blend the two together but when I thought about how much content each individual one had by itself it seemed only proper to separate the two in explanation. This scene is where we first get a look of Joe and Norma working together on this truly hopeless script of hers’. The continuity editing sets right in as we cross cut immediately to a medium shot of him in this overly lavish study. Crane shots and long takes are used in this scene as well as deep focus and high contrast lighting so we can really take in the mise-en-scene aspect of the setting and how obnoxiously tasteful her home really was.
A key aspect involved in this scene is the fact that Norma dominates the scene just as she does many other times in the picture. The fact remains that the contrary is true about her career at this time, which definitely is intentionally correlated by the direction. As we take a closer look, the mise-en-scene is what truly gives the scene its important aspects that link it with the theme. As the dominating character, all the exaggerated characteristic details about her and her domain become personified. The first is the costume and the make up.
They are both extremely overdone and the costume design actually gives her some animalistic qualities, which here makes her seem like a snake; this going hand in hand with the subtle fact that Joe is her obvious prey. The next shot here is a slight low angle that becomes very tightly framed as we see Norma in the background watching Joe, like a hawk, edit her so-called masterpiece. Directly following this there is a nondiegetic sound piece that goes directly with her creeping up on him behind his back to rant about keeping another scene in the final cut with her in it.
The low angle here does an excellent job of strengthening her dominating presence, but by far the best example of this dominance becoming just overwhelming is directly after she rages on about her supreme significance to the film industry. This being the three or four shots all linked together through slow dissolves that present the enormous abundance of pictures she has of herself in this one room. If the entire rest of the scene doesn’t convey the theme of just how distorted the industry can shape perceptions, then this last sequence of the photos unquestionably gets the job done.
The last scene I want to discuss is probably the best and most obvious demonstration of what the central theme is trying get across to its’ audience; that being the concluding scene of the entire movie. This takes place directly after Norma has had her quarrel with Joe and he tries to leave her and she shoots him in the back dead. It begins as she is seated being asked an abundance of questions by the police about the murder. We get a medium shot of her in a definite delusional state as if has no idea about the true nature of the situation.
Mise-en-scene plays a very crucial factor that helps to connect the meaning of what things in this scene actually represent in accordance with the theme. The high contrast lighting of her making her at this vanity table almost makes her seem like a complete nutcase. There are also many match on action shots here combined with short takes and intercutting that gives us a viewpoint form many different prospective that in turn signifies commotion. As we come to the point where she is about to make her descend down the stairs to meet her fate she still visibly has no clue.
As one final ironic twist, she becomes the only one in the spotlight one last time as everyone else from the under lighting appears to be in the shadows. As we hear Max, who by now we know is actually the only person who still remotely cares for this fallen star, give the cue for, “lights, camera, action” we know that this is the essence of the theme because it paints the ugliest picture in the films length of what toll the industry can take on people that fall victim to its bad side.
Although the mise-en-scene of this scene plays a very important role here, I think the main aspect of this final scene that really pulls it all together is the once again reoccurring motif of the “dream”. Everything here is in truth dream like except for the harsh and very real reality of this woman’s life coming to an end that incases it. Norma’s actions absolutely show that she is in her own dreamlike world of what she truly thinks is going to be another film.
The whole scene in its’ entirety depicts that once again the “dream” can be destroyed just as her life has done the same. The final integration of this motif comes in the very last frame as the movie fades out; only this is not a normal fade out. Instead Wilder chooses to blur the fade into an eerie white, which gives us a sense that the dream is now finally over. In conclusion I hoped to have demonstrated just how the all the specific film making techniques used throughout the film help to define the central theme as it is intertwined with the action.
As I have conveyed, realism is just one of the very important aspects that help the production of this film come to the close of its’ solid final cut. I think that this being the ultimate visual style of the picture it is what made this movie so great. It got the point across and it definitely had an influence on the way films were shot after it. In a way, it becomes sort of ironic. A film created in Hollywood that molds a horrid model of how messed up its own surroundings can be, actually end up shaping the industry it finds itself in. That in my opinion is, in itself, supreme filmmaking.