Sunset blvd. (1950)

Watching Sunset blvd (dir. Billy Wilder), I couldn't stop thinking about Fassbinder's Veronica Voss. In my mind, the two films were almost completely inseparable. In reality, of course, this is not the case, even though both films feature a scary ageing film diva living in seclusion. In the present film, we are introduced to Norma, a silent film star who is now living in a weird-looking mansion with her stiff butler (but of course there is a s-s-s-ecret...) Max. It so happens that a b-movie writer turns up at her doorstep. The star needs somebody to keep up the illusions. The poor writer is happy to indulge in luxury (and thereby he upholds an illusion of his own). It also turns out that the butler (played by silent film director Erich von Stroheim - brilliantly!) is not who he appears to be, and there we have a third example of self deception. In a typical noir fashion, Sunset blvd has a cynical and hard-boiled voice, but it also has a sad heart that makes the film ambiguous. We have the usual fatalistic drill, but also something that points in another direction, so that we ask ourselves how people become like this, how deep illusions can go.

Every now and then, I tried to imagine what a film about a male Norma would look like. The focus of the film may not be Norma's wrinkles, but her being stuck in a world that no longer exists. We are led to believe that no beauty tranformation in the world can make her eligible for a contemporary place in the sun. She has lost it. Gender issues are of course still present, especially in the way the relationship between the actress and the writer is developed: for him, dependency is humiliating; he is sometimes presented as a male prostitute, contented with being precisely that, enjoying the easy life. But the emphasis is rarely placed on gender here, even though we have the typical "femme fatale" who puts a man under her spell. Illusion and disillision - the main themes of the film (I don't know what to say about possible meta-filmic ideas in Sunset blvd.).