Summary:
After we see a Paramount Pictures logo, the camera slowly tilts down to reveal the gutter of a sidewalk, which has the words “SUNSET BLVD.” - both the title of the movie and the name of the street - stenciled in big bold letters. The opening title credits begin as the camera tracks down the gray asphalt road.
Then, a tilt shows a large group of police cars and motorcycles speeding toward the camera. Over the bombastic sirens of the squad, we hear a man’s voice-over offer context to sequence. The man explains a murder has been reported in one of the luxurious mansions on Sunset Boulevard, and the homicide squad, detectives, and press are going there to investigate. He expects the media will sensationalize the story because a once-big movie star is involved with the murder of a screenwriter with a few lackluster credits. Synchronous with the voice-over, the police search the house and find the dead man floating in the house’s pool. A low angle from the bottom of the pool displays the face and body of the lifeless man, and the narrator says, “The poor dope. He always wanted a pool. Well, in the end he got himself a pool—only the price turned out to be a little high.” As he proceeds to say, “Let’s go back about six months and find the day when it all started,” a slow dissolve reveals the busy Hollywood streets of Franklin and Ivar.
This story is told in flashback, and the audience now sees that the off-screen narrator is also our central protagonist - a struggling screenwriter named Joe Gilles. Joe frantically works on his typewriter in his one-bedroom apartment, trying to write an original story. Two car repo men buzz Joe’s apartment and tell him they have a court order to repossess his car; Joe is three payments behind. Joe tells them the car isn’t there, to which one replies, “that car better be back by noon tomorrow, or there’s going to be fireworks,” and Joe, with his signature acerbic wit, replies, “You say the cutest things.”
After the men leave, a desperate Joe wonders how he’s going to pay for his car, which is kept a few miles away in Rudy’s Shoeshine Parlor. Joe picks up his car and drives to Paramount Studio to pitch a script to Sheldrake, a well-respected producer.
Joe sits in Sheldrake’s luxurious office—complete with mahogany furniture, photographs of stars, and an Academy Award on the wall—and pitches his original story, Bases Loaded, about a rookie baseball player with a troubled past. Sheldrake calls in a script reader, a young woman named Betty Schaefer, to give her opinion on the script. Betty harshly criticizes it, calling it dull and trite, unaware that Joe is the writer. Sheldrake sarcastically remarks, “I’m sure you’ll be glad to meet Mr. Gilles. He wrote it.” Betty turns around and sees Joe, and, though embarrassed, she stands by her critiques. Joe and she then argue whether films should have messages. Joe cynically states he’s only trying to make a living with his career, whereas Betty says she knows Joe has talent and that he should have ambition and “say a little something” in his scripts.
Sheldrake thanks Betty for her time, and she leaves. Sheldrake tells Joe he’s not interested in doing the script. Joe asks if there are any available writing positions, and Sheldrake says there’s nothing. Desperate, Joe asks him for a personal loan, and Sheldrake humorously gives an anecdote as a roundabout way to shoot Joe down.
Joe stops at Schwab's Drug Store, a pharmacy and popular spot for informal gatherings. Joe goes to the telephone booth and begins to make some calls to some other executives, who once again turn him down. Joe locates his agent and asks him for 300 dollars, to which his agent icily replies, “Maybe what you need is another agent.”
With no money on hand and his car about to be repossessed, Joe’s only option is leaving Hollywood for his old daytime newspaper job in Dayton, Ohio. While Joe is deep in thought, the car repo men beginning chasing Joe to repossess his car. After a lengthy chase sequence, Joe narrowly escapes, but his right front tire blows out. He turns the careening car into a driveway of a huge, seemingly deserted mansion.
Analysis:
In addition to themes like the superficial celebrity image, faded stardom, and self-delusion, Sunset Boulevard ultimately centers on the poisonousness of the film industry and how it neglects and disastrously treats its participants. Wilder’s corrosive view of Hollywood immediately begins with its opening image of a street name, Sunset Blvd, stenciled in the gutter. The opening image darkly establishes the dark ironic tone of Sunset Boulevard: while Sunset Blvd is inextricably associated with the grandeur, luxury, and wealth of Hollywood, we are introduced to the notorious street in the gutter surrounded by dead leaves and debris, in stark black-and-white photography. The street name’s placement in the gutter symbolizes how members of the industry become unjustly abandoned and “kicked to the curb,” left to fade out and die forgotten in Hollywood’s gutter. From its opening sequence, Sunset Boulevard adopts a bleak tone and refuses to romanticize the film industry, unlike many films at the time about Hollywood that were upbeat comedies and musicals.
Joe’s introduction to the film as a dead floating corpse additionally marks another instance of irony in the opening scene. As Joe floats face down in the pool, the narrator savors the dramatic irony of the moment - “The poor dope. He always wanted a pool. Well, in the end he got himself a pool.” Here, Joe sardonically reflects on the cost of his dreams of fame and personal fulfillment—his “pool"—upon moving to Hollywood. As usual in film nor, it turns out that the price of these dreams was much too high, and a doomed Joe ends up drowning in them. Hollywood never offers a sanctuary for Joe to truly pursue his ambitions; instead, it marks the sunset of his life.
These expository opening scenes are crucial for the characterization of Joe, the film’s central protagonist. Before becoming fully engrossed in Norma’s theatrics and delusions, it is important to get a sense of Joe’s character—his cynical disposition, his biting wit, and his desperation. This is partly because Sunset Boulevard is famously told from Joe’s perspective as a dead man. After the prologue cements him as the narrator, the main story is told with Joe’s off-screen voice-over constantly informing us of his inner thoughts about Norma, Max, and Betty. By doing this, the film daringly rejects narrative verisimilitude, dispensing with the reliability that would be provided by a living first-person narrator or an omniscient perspective.
In the prologue, Joe's narration declares, “But before you hear it all distorted and blown out of proportion, before those Hollywood columnists get their hands on it, maybe you'd like to hear the facts, the whole truth.” Here, he claims that his own retelling of the film’s events is the definitive version of the story, the “whole truth.” However, it is important to not accept Joe’s story as an objective reality. He is an unreliable narrator: his own subjective perspective dominates the film, and counter-narratives or different points of view rarely become offered. It is entirely possible Joe hides certain truths and embellishes the story to make Norma appear a villain, and him a victim. After all, Joe is a screenwriter simply crafting a story in a similar vein to the films of his own time. He controls the pacing of the story and manipulates our emotional responses to the events, further distancing us from the true knowability and dispositions of characters like Norma and Max.
Nonetheless, through his narrative and recount of the events leading up to his death, Joe does characterize himself as a deeply flawed person and often depicts himself in an unflattering light. He is unabashedly broke and about to lose his car, and his pursuit of quick cash is so pathetic, we nearly pity him. However, Joe may be defeated but he is still astutely self-aware. He feels shame about his dilemma—this becomes particularly evident when he abruptly asks Sheldrake for a personal loan—but he does not go about crying and sulking. Instead, he maintains a self-deprecating humor and attempts to sensibly confront his problems until he considers moving back to Ohio.
Also intrinsic to Joe’s demeanor is his cynicism toward Hollywood—an industry which has beaten him up and left him dissatisfied—which subsequently intensifies once he gets to know Norma and Max. The prologue's voice-over illustrates his pessimism when he dismisses the sensationalizing of the press in its coverage of movie stars: “You'll read all about it in the late editions, I'm sure. You'll get it over your radio, and see it on television, because an old-time star is involved - one of the biggest.” Later, Joe expresses frustration over his lack of success in selling his stories, saying “maybe they weren’t original enough. May they were too original.” Joe alludes to the rigorous standards the industry imposes on its writers; films must follow a general formula to appeal to audiences, but it must be cloaked in false originality and authenticity. Joe finds this balance impossible to achieve, hence his scripts often lean too hard on one side of the original/unoriginal binary, and it is suggested that he has given up on his ambitions and reduced himself to producing banal scripts.
Betty notices Joe's evolved uninterest in his own writing, and she especially critiques his Bases Loaded script because she recognizes Joe’s name and knows he has some talent. Joe rebuffs Betty’s sentiments and states he can’t try to write a meaningful film because he “has to earn a living," thereby illuminating a preference for commercial success over his yearning for artistic merit. In the scenes centering on the Betty-Joe dynamic, their respective optimism and cynicism clash. Betty enthusiastically aspires to be a writer and believes movies “should say a little something,” while Joe feels jaded by the artifice of Hollywood and his career stagnation. Ironically, they effectively collaborate with each other later in the film, which in some ways echoes the nature of the partnership between Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett. Wilder was a blunt cynic and Brackett was a polite, upbeat gentlemen, but they nonetheless created countless of brilliant and commercially successful films together: The Lost Weekend, Ninotchka, and Sunset Boulevard.
Notably, the beginning of Sunset Boulevard spoils the ending: we know Joe will die. When he contemplates a return to Ohio, we know it’s not going to happen. Likewise, when Joe is chased around Los Angeles, we know he will somehow escape. Ultimately, the examination of Joe’s life and relationships take precedence over his murder, and the circumstances and inevitability surrounding his death drives the film’s suspense. Joe’s narration guides us through the events leading up to his murder, and because we know his fate is doomed, witnessing his slow demise produces its own unique form of tension. We know Joe is murdered—but how did it happen; who did it; where did it happen; why did it happened?
