At the end of the film, the footage of Gloria Swanson slowly walking down the stairs once again brings tears to one's eyes.
Even if you don't know about the once-stormy superstar, the character setting of the drama song in Sunset Strip is enough for passers-by to have enough sympathy and lamentation for her.
Born in Chicago in 1899, Swanson entered the film industry in 1914. In just 5 years, she became popular all over the United States and became the most influential, box-office appeal and highest-grossing female star in the silent film era. If you have to find someone else to compete with, there is no way for anyone but Mary Bikofu.
Millions of dollars a year, tens of thousands of letters from movie fans every week, jewelry, paramount's most luxurious powder room... These passages in the film are all true, and they have not yet performed the full style of her heyday.
Because she appeared as a depressed, outdated superstar in Billy Wilder's Sunset Strip.
Swanson's most glorious decade is probably the final chapter of the silent film era symphony - magnificent, swinging back to the intestines. But after the peak, it must be downhill. As in the silent film, Swanson has not escaped such a fate.
Re-watching Sunset Boulevard, I found that many angles can be interpreted – after learning more about Hollywood, after becoming more curious about human nature.
From an omniscient perspective, we may wish to re-examine this story unfolding with "memories of dead people" and reveal what unknown current situations and unchanging human nature are revealed.
Maybe mgM president l. b. Mayer's anger, although not difficult to understand, is too one-sided:
"We must flogg Wilder!" We must throw him out of the city! He defiled the city! The city nurtured him, but he repaid it in this way! ”
1
The downfall of screenwriter Joe is not an isolated phenomenon. More objectively speaking, it is not all caused by the outside world that "huai cai does not meet". He himself knows how difficult it is to write an eye-catching script.
But the finance company has come to the door and is about to be dragged away. In desperation, Joe can only go to an acquaintance with a script that he has a patchwork and that he knows has no creativity.
But what is Hollywood? It is a shura field where capital and interests are piled up. Talking about human feelings? Talking about friendship? It is inevitable that it is too naïve, and it is also blamed for the fact that it was taken seriously.
This is echoed by what happened to Norma, who later said "Without me, there would be no Paramount". Only the latter, more realistic and more heartfelt.
Unsurprisingly, the script did not sell. Not only did it not sell, but it was also ridiculed by the small assistant + producer partnership.
If it wasn't a last resort, I believe Joe wouldn't have knocked on the door. But since he had already pulled down his face, he simply pulled it to the end and opened his mouth to borrow money.
Interestingly, in order to rebuff Joe, the big boss will actually make up a seamless lie, just to express one meaning: I have no money. In the end, it is just to see each other in the future and not to blush. After all, not borrowing money at the beginning was not falling into a well, but being helpless.
But on the drive back, the great Hollywood actually allowed Joe to meet the debt collectors of the finance company on the road. The other side fired, and Joe's car burst. This short "road chase scene" is accompanied by an open flame, one is to hit the wrong turn after the tire burst, and the other is to reflect the loose gun control at that time.
2
Entering the private area, Joe can see at a glance from the outdated and luxurious cars and the classical and lifeless buildings that the owner of the land, once belonged to Hollywood, now just lives in Hollywood.
When he first entered the mansion, he was treated as an "animal mortuary" by both Norma and the housekeeper Max. Joe, who was wrong, saw a monkey in Norma's room—a monkey who had been executed (by mistake) for playing with the fireplace.
In this scene, Joe and the monkey are on two horizontal lines: the man is standing on the ground and the monkey is lying on the back of the sofa. But Billy Wilder's eyes on the two in this place are parallel and homogeneous, as if to hint at a relay and alternation of fate.
By the time Norma knew he had made a mistake, Joe had a chance to leave the big, gloomy, cold, lifeless house. But he was depressed enough: he was in arrears in rent, he was chased for debts, and no one took his script. So when Norma showed interest in his "screenwriter" identity, Joe also gave a positive response for the first time. Subconsciously, like Norma, he was looking forward to the next benign development.
But when Joe saw Norma's one-man "Salome", the whole person could neither write nor cry. During the conversation, he learned that the superstar who had once been proud of the whole of Hollywood was looking forward to returning and thinking that he could definitely return to the big screen.
She despises films with sounds, and only sees one garbo among the stars — in reality, she is also a powerful beauty who has successfully transitioned from the era of silent films to sound films.
The look down on the posture is from high to low, and you can lean over and reach out anytime and anywhere. But where does Norma know that her current situation is clearly abandoned by the times. The new products were scorned by her, but they were also out of reach.
3
As the script tends to be completed, the relationship between Joe and Norma becomes more and more ambiguous and clear. Ambiguously, Norma is buying more and more things for Joe, and the distance of the limbs is getting closer and closer. What is clear is that even outsiders can clearly see that Joe is the little white face raised by Norma.
Joe was reluctant, he longed for a young face and body, and even more eager to hear the laughter of his peers. Finally, at midnight on Christmas, he escaped from the big house in his fancy dress.
Just when Joe and his friend's fiancée, the girl who had previously co-produced him, became increasingly misleading, he could call Max.
It was not difficult to get the housekeeper to send his luggage, after all, it was this person who helped him move without his consent.
But when Max tells him that Norma has cut his wrist, Joe, while falling into self-blame, also finds that he is not willing to let the good life at his fingertips disappear, and he is not willing to let everything go back to the original track.
The moment he took his clothes and walked out of the door, he was mentally prepared to pick out the relationship and be nurtured, so that he did not even look back without a word of explanation.
4
After the relationship was determined and his life was stable, Joe's heart began to stir again. Essentially, he and Norma are the same kind of people: both obsessed with what they don't get, what they think they can get.
but? Not many people are willing to face up to this objective fact.
So Joe and his friend's fiancée hit it off and became obsessed with rewriting a script to the point of rage. At the same time, Norma, who mistakenly thought that she could return to Paramount to continue making movies, also spent time in various medical devices and various suspicions. Ironically, during that time, Norma grew old visibly, as if even her flesh was hastening her demise and fall.
At the end of the story, Joe breaks the heart of his friend's fiancée with a lie, and hurts Norma's heart with truth. One woman chose to leave, and another woman chose to send him away—away from this noisy and indifferent world.
Hollywood did not deliberately appear from beginning to end, but it really ruined the lives of at least two people.
If you want to add other people, the fiancée of a friend who may be sad may also be counted, and it may be counted as the former director of the silent film, Norma's first husband, and the current housekeeper Max.
Maybe the stars and bosses who are brilliant and doomed to be lonely also count.
I still want to say the end of the movie again.
When Norma descends the stairs high above, she is not falling into mortal dust, but falling into hell.
But she herself didn't know it, or rather, it didn't matter if she didn't know it or not.
At least, she stood again in the center of the spotlight, surrounded by a field of film and flash. That's enough isn't it?
Is it a star or a criminal, and what does it matter?
All she wanted was a familiar splendor and a controlled life. That's all.