Swimming Pool
Joe’s corpse floating at the top of Norma’s pool is one of Sunset Boulevard’s most iconic and recognizable images. Because in-ground pools were a privilege reserved for the wealthy in the first half of the 20th century, the image of the pool evokes opulence and affluence. However, by situating a dead screenwriter—who’s about to share his story post-mortem—floating in a swimming pool, Wilder instills this traditional image of fulfillment with a bitterly corrosive sense of irony. He juxtaposes the sense of success provoked by pools with the bleak image of a painful death, thereby illuminating the price aspiring filmmakers have to pay when pursuing fame and fortune in Hollywood.
Chimpanzee funeral
Doubtlessly, few visual images in any movie portray the decadence of Hollywood more completely than the funeral for Norma Desmond’s pet chimpanzee. The ceremony is pitifully somber and elaborate, complete with a candelabra and a white baby basket. However, the meaning of this imagery transcends its perceptible decadence—it foreshadows the remaining events of the movie. Joe’s narration ponders the meaning of a woman so starved for stimulated companionship that she would perform such solemnity over a mere spectacle. When Joe begins to provide entertainment and artificial affection for Norma, he replaces the chimp as her trained pet—only he is not granted the same solemn funeral.
Old photographs
It is common for people to display photographs of themselves and their families in their homes. Norma takes this convention to an extreme level, suffocating her mansion with hundreds of pictures of herself during her career peak. The unsettling imagery here is quite suggestive: not only do the photographs signify Norma’s consumption of a calamitous, solipsistic narcissism, but they also represent her attempt to preserve and celebrate her stardom. The pictures protect the traces of her dead reality from a world which has forgotten about her over the decades.
Sunset Blvd.
Sunset Boulevard opens with an image of its titular street name cheaply stenciled on the curb. This image establishes the darkly ironic tone of Sunset Boulevard. While the renowned street is associated with the grandeur and luxury of Hollywood, we are introduced to it in the gutter surrounded by dead leaves and rotten debris, in high contrast black-and-white photography. The street’s name placement in the gutter symbolizes how members of the industry are left to fade and die forgotten in Hollywood’s gutter, regardless of their privilege and wealth. The image is the perfect metaphor for the cautionary tale to follow.
