The superficial celebrity image
Above all else, Sunset Boulevard is a cautionary warning about the artifice of Hollywood. Norma’s massive stardom was entirely constructed around her youthful beauty, and once that freshness faded as she aged, the movie industry had no use for her. The celebrity image is ephemeral, a vicious cycle of championing youthful sex appeal and marginalizing older women. Even though Norma’s stardom has diminished, she is still enslaved to her appearance, as her face provides the sole means of value and purpose in her life: without her superficial self-image, she has nothing. She clutches onto her own image desperately, suffocating her house with old photographs from her heyday and watching her old silent films regularly. As preservers of Norma's former stardom, these cultural artifacts represent an era where show business and fans worshiped her beauty. Norma prefers to live solely in the past; even when she plans a triumphant return to film, she refuses to acknowledge her age or how the industry has evolved. Instead, she endures various brutal beauty treatments in an attempt to revitalize her decades-old image. It is Norma’s obsession with her own celebrity that endangers not only herself, but others around her, namely Joe and Max.
Control
Joe’s agency becomes completely stripped under Norma’s meticulous control over him. Though he initially believes he outsmarted her in his ploy to receive a quick, high-paying screenwriting job, the next morning he awakes with all of his belongings moved in and his rent paid without his permission. Norma immediately gains the utmost control over Joe, and her manipulation doesn’t stop there. Soon, she gifts Joe with expensive clothes, trinkets, and jewelry, which forms the basis of him being ostensibly pressured into becoming her gigolo. Norma also interferes with Joe’s personal life, destroying his one chance of happiness with Betty. This is when Joe finally attempts to reclaim his independence and leave Norma—which makes it also the point where she must destroy him.
Love
For a story so bleak, Sunset Boulevard isn’t completely devoid of sentiment, and love informs the relationships between several characters. Though Norma confesses her love for Joe throughout the film, these grandiose declarations seem mostly disingenuous, mere tactics designed to make Joe feel guilty and so prolong his stay with her. Thus, their relationship isn’t based on real love and affection. This contrasts with the moving and pitiful one between Norma and Max. Max loves Norma so much that he dutifully abandons his filmmaking career to fulfill the subservient role as her butler, forging her fan mail to feed her delusions. While Max’s actions contribute to Norma’s dangerous detachment from reality, his care for her nonetheless helps to convince the audience that there is something worth loving in Norma. Otherwise, he wouldn’t bother loyally tending to her needs and defending her as the “greatest star of them all.” Sunset Boulevard also traces the budding romantic relationship between Betty and Joe. Betty falls in love with Joe and attempts to persuade him to run away with her, and it is plausible that Joe loves her too, as he admits Betty is someone he’s “crazy about,” and boldly sneaks out of Norma’s house every night to collaborate on the script with her. However, both of these relationships have tragic endings: Max "directs" Norma’s descent into police custody, and Joe knows there’s no possible future with Betty and convinces her to abandon him forever. Through the bleak finales of these relationships, Wilder and Brackett suggest love is ultimately unattainable in lethal, soul-crushing Los Angeles.Deceit
Deceit is a vital theme pervading the film, and it is present within Max, Joe, and Norma. Deception affects the exterior relationships of these characters, as well as their internal selves. Through forging fan letters, Max deceives Norma into believing she’s still a star adored by millions. Because he withholds the unorthodox details of his relationship with Norma, Joe deceives Betty into thinking he lives a normal, un-extraordinary life. Norma, of course, also deceives herself, asserting that she still has fans and that her grand re-entrance into film is inevitable.
Death
Death, both literally and figuratively, casts a looming presence in nearly every scene of the film. Sunset Boulevard begins with Joe’s corpse in the pool, immediately introducing audiences to the film's bleak, cynical tone. Norma’s dead monkey signifies the emptiness of her existence and the opening for a new companion in her life—a role soon fulfilled by Joe. At the same time, Norma’s career is figuratively dead; she is no longer wanted in Hollywood due to her age and her associated with outmoded silent films. A sense of death also permeates her rotting, decaying mansion—it is a type of house “crazy movie people built in the crazy 20s,” thereby belonging to the forgotten era of Hollywood silent film. Death is narratively and symbolically integral to Sunset Boulevard, which renders a film noir-esque, unflinching portrait of Hollywood.
Self-delusion
Sunset Boulevard blurs the distinctions between fantasy and reality. The film industry relies on its ability to create illusions, and Norma—herself a product of this toxic system—can no longer detach her real self from her former onscreen persona. Her grandiose gestures and dramatic expressions evoke the physicality of a silent film actress, but, more importantly, she, with Max's help, has fooled herself into believing she is still a massively adored star. Many characters work tirelessly to feed Norma’s illusions: Joe is compliant when Norma demands that he not cut out her scenes in Salome because “you don’t yell at a sleepwalker,” DeMille tells her “we’ll see what we can do” instead of outright declining to shoot her Salome script, and Max regularly forges her fan letters. By the time Joe finally gets up the courage and reveals the truth of her obsolesce, Norma’s delusions have become so entrenched that she refuses to believe the truth and soon murders him because “No one leaves a star. That’s what makes one a star.”
But Joe, too, lives in a delusion of his own concerning the relationship between him and Norma. He refers to Norma’s attempt at seducing him on New Year’s Eve as a “sad, embarrassing revelation,” but at this point, Norma has already bought him lavish, expensive clothes and taken him for rides around Hollywood. Either Joe is oblivious to Norma’s sexual advances, or represses them; regardless, he refuses to confront the reality of his situation until Norma forces him to do so on New Year's.
Discontent
Discontent underlies both Norma and Joe’s demeanors in Sunset Boulevard. Norma is unsatisfied because of the neglectful film industry and public who have forgotten her and left her to rot in her dilapidated mansion with her ex-husband—another dim figure from the silent era. Joe is a fundamentally dissatisfied person, something that's evident in the first sequences in the film where he expresses frustration in his career and crippling financial status. He initially dreamed of fame and success when arriving in Hollywood, as suggested by his “He always wanted a pool” comment in the film’s prologue. After a lackluster screenwriting career, Joe is discontent, jaded, and ambivalent, which explains why he endures his relationship with Norma—a clearly manipulative and unstable person—for so long. With Norma, Joe no longer has to put forth any legitimate effort in his life: by succumbing to her opulence and narcissism, he gets a home and lavish belongings, which is preferable to getting into car chases and asking for personal loans from studio executives out of sheer desperation. The pervasiveness of discontent in Sunset Boulevard illuminates the predatory, vicious nature of Hollywood; the industry constantly rejects aspiring filmmakers and destroys their ambitions, resulting in a multitude of tormented, troubled souls.
