Summary:
A heavy December rain leaks through Joe’s room over the garage, forcing him to relocate to a room in the main house, one adjacent to Norma’s room and formerly used by her 3 ex-husbands. When transferring his possessions to his new room, Joe asks Max why there aren’t any locks on any of the doors in the house. Max reveals the lack of locks, sleeping pills, and razor blades are due to Norma’s previous suicide attempts during her “moments of melancholy.” Joe ponders why Norma would be suicidal, as he is under the impression that she’s not a completely forgotten star and still receives fan-mail. Max implies he forges the fan-mail, stating, “I wouldn’t look too closely at the postmarks.” When Joe inquiries further about this, Max steers away from the topic and reminds him of the New Year’s Eve party which Norma is organizing. Joe then peeks into Norma’s ornate, gloomy bedroom and comments, via voiceover, “...[it was] the perfect setting for a silent movie queen. Poor devil, still waving proudly to a parade which had long since passed her by.”
Later, Joe descends the staircase dressed in his new tuxedo and discovers the “sad, embarrassing revelation” that the grand party—complete with an orchestra and a full buffet—is staged just for Joe. Norma plans to seduce him, asking him to tango on her recently waxed ballroom floor. As they prepare to dance, Norma reminds Joe of the grandeur of her distant past—“You know, this floor used to be wood. But I had it changed. Valentino said, 'there's nothing like tile for the tango.” As they tango, Joe bends back because Norma’s headdress of paradise feather tickles him. Norma throws her headdress to the floor, and Max somberly and cautiously picks it up.
At a quarter past 10ten Joe asks when the guests plan on arriving. Norma tells him, "There are no other guests. We don't want to share this night with other people. This is for you and me.” An hour later, Joe and a slightly drunk Norma sit on a sofa. She reveals her overblown plans for the upcoming year, which include filling the pool for Joe, opening her house in Malibu, buying Joe a boat and sailing them to Hawaii. Joe protests and demands her to stop buying things for him, but Norma gives him another present, a leather box containing a lavish cigarette case and lighter. Joe resists again, and Norma brags, “Shut up! I'm rich. I'm richer than all this new Hollywood trash. I've got a million dollars...I own three blocks downtown. I've got oil in Bakersfield, pumping, pumping, pumping. What's it for but to buy us anything we want.”
Joe stands up and angrily accuses Norma of taking advantage of him. He attacks her selfishness, stating "Has it ever occurred to you that I may have a life of my own. That there may be some girl that I'm crazy about...What I'm trying to say is that I'm all wrong for you. You want a Valentino, somebody with polo ponies, a big shot." Sensing his rejection of her, Norma stands up and decries, “what you're trying to say is that you don't want me to love you. Say it. Say it.” She slaps Joe and rushes up to her room. The camera follows her up the stairs, down the hallway, and into her bedroom as she slams the door; it then lingers on the gouged-out lock.
After evaluating his surroundings—the still-playing orchestra, a disapproving Max—Joe takes his Vicuna coat and prepares to leave the mansion. He pauses at one of the prison-esque doors and clumsily gets his keychain stuck on the door handle. Joe leaves anyway, craving to be in a place with “people my own age” and hear “somebody laugh again.”
Without a car, he then hitches a ride to a boisterous, crowded party hosted by assistant director Artie Green, one of Joe’s friends. Artie is shocked to see Joe and asks him where he’s been, and Joe replies, “a deep freeze.” Artie then jokes that he was close to reporting Joe to the Bureau of Missing Persons as the “the well-known screenwriter, opium smuggler and Black Dahlia suspect.” Once their banter ends, Joe asks him if he can stay at his place for a few weeks, and Artie generously offers him the couch.
Joe encounters Betty, the script reader, again, now revealed to be Artie’s girlfriend. Betty admits she felt guilty for inadvertently insulting Joe’s script in front of him, so she went back and read some of his other screenplays. She tells Joe six pages of his Dark Windows script showed promise, and they move to the bathroom to “shop talk.” Betty states that a short excerpt of the script—a flashback based on Joe’s real-life experience with one of his teachers—was “true” and “moving,” to which Joe sardonically replies “Who wants true? Who wants moving?” The two develop a flirtation and a sarcastically melodramatic banter—when Joe leaves to make a phone call, he promises Betty that he will return, and Betty says, “with a wild beating heart.”
When Joe phones the mansion, he asks Max to pack his belongings. Max says there isn’t enough time because the doctor is at the mansion attending to Norma, who has slit her wrists with Joe’s razor blade. Stunned, Joe immediately leaves the room and a baffled Betty to return to the mansion. Once he arrives, the musicians—oblivious of the debacle—are still nonchalantly playing, and Joe rushes upstairs to see Norma, who is laying in her bed with bandages on her wrists.
Joe removes her shoes and asks her, “What kind of a silly thing was that to do?” Norma sobs and replies it was idiotic for her to fall in love with him. Joe then wonders what her sensationalized headlines would have been if her suicide attempt had been successful—“It sure would have made attractive headlines—‘Great star kills herself for unknown writer.’” Ashamed, he attempts to comfort Norma and tells her she’s the only one in Los Angeles who treats him well. He also says he lied about having a girlfriend only because he thought Norma and him were wrong together. Norma covers her eyes with her bandages and assures him she will attempt to kill herself again. As “Auld Lang Syne” begins playing, Joe approaches her bed and wishes her a happy New Year. She replies “Happy New Year, darling” and wraps herself around his arms; Joe accepts the embrace, essentially deciding to become her gigolo.
Analysis:
In these chapters, the film finally allows us to sympathize with Norma. Up until this point, Norma was nearly an antagonist given her manipulative control over Joe, but here we are given crucial exposition to her character. No longer do we see a narcissistic has-been obsessed with her own self-image, but rather a casualty of the hostile film industry. When Max notifies Joe of Norma’s previous suicide attempts, we suddenly realize Norma is more vulnerable than grand assertions of her supposed enduring stardom—“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small”—lead on.
Because the film industry has rejected Norma for her age and failure to transition into talkies, she would rather be a recluse suffocated by symbols of her past life and live a lie fueled by Max, who deceitfully sends her fan letters, than confront the reality of her faded stardom. Nonetheless, because Norma experiences “moments of melancholy” and has made suicide attempts, she realizes she’s no longer beloved and feels a discontent toward her life, which results in unsuccessful attempts to gleefully live in her own fantasy. Her dissatisfaction provides a previously unforeseen recognition of her diminished status: she is not completely delusional at this point. Beneath Norma’s private screenings, diatribes about the demise of film, and bombastic demeanor are a desperately lonely woman whose feelings of abandonment and neglect lie at the root of her irrationality. We can’t help but sympathize with her.
Meanwhile, both Joe’s distance from and sympathy toward Norma amplify in these scenes. After Norma declares her love for Joe at an extravagant New Year's Party she orchestrates just for the two of them, Joe finally gathers the willpower to leave Norma’s mansion. However, his reclaiming of his own agency occurs far too late. Even when Joe departs the estate, he struggles to remove his long keychain from the door handle, an action emblematic of his umbilical-cord-esque dependence upon Norma. Joe can tease with his previous lifestyle and party with Artie, Betty, and his other young Hollywood colleagues, yet his and Norma’s toxic, codependent relationship has ruptured his potential to fully reintegrate with that lifestyle. When a rejuvenated Joe banters with Artie and flirts with Betty, the audience sees his previously hidden light-hearted demeanor. Joe feels prepared to abandon the desolate, pernicious ennui of his life with Norma and Max, but his conscience and guilt prevail over his fleeting enjoyment once Max informs Joe of Norma’s suicide attempt. Joe abandons Artie’s party without hesitation. which is unequivocally the morally correct thing to do, but it also demonstrates his inability to distance himself from Norma. His return to the mansion engenders a sense of dread, as we see Joe progressing closer and closer to his tumultuous, doomed fate.
Since the beginning of his relationship with Norma, Joe has exhibited a condensing pity toward Norma, best showcased by his comment “Poor devil, still waving proudly to a parade which had long since passed her by” upon voyeuristically gazing into her excessive, ornate bedroom. Once Joe returns to Norma’s estate after her suicide attempt, however, his genuine sympathy toward her arises. At first, he is remarkably callous, condemning her actions as frivolous and “silly.” He then paces around the room, presumably attempting to reconcile his guilt and pondering how he should act toward Norma, who is at her most vulnerable. Notably, Joe’s snarky, darkly comedic narration is absent in this scene, leaving the audience temporarily detached from Joe’s point of view, which has dominated the film thus far. Furthermore, whatever emotions provoke Joe to rush back to Norma and accept her embrace are left not only unsaid—we don’t hear Joe’s inner monologue and thoughts on his forfeit—but also visually unreadable, since his back faces the camera and we can’t identify with his facial expressions by extension. All we even hear is his soft utterance of “Happy New Year, Norma,” which can either be interpreted as a moving declaration of affection or a jaded resignation. Since we can’t hear Joe or see his face, his motivations behind the comment are ultimately up for interpretation. Regardless, Joe voluntarily surrenders himself not only to become subservient to Norma as her gigolo, but also to feed into her illusions of eternal fame.
Several events in these scenes foreshadow Joe’s imminent murder, which produces a bleak dramatic irony. When Norma says, “I’ll fill the pool for you!” to Joe, it hints at his impending death—foreshadowing—but dramatic irony also permeates the statement, as the audience knows the refilled pool is where a lifeless Joe floats once the police and press find him, though of course Joe is unaware of this. Additionally, when Joe imagines the sensational newspaper headlines if Norma died (“It sure would have made attractive headlines—‘Great star kills herself for unknown writer'” ) he does not realize he himself will become the subject of a sensational headline after his scandalous, gossip-column-ready death. The dramatic irony instills fear and dread within the audience as we inch closer to the tragic ending of Sunset Boulevard.
