Quarterly Review of Film and Video
ISSN: 1050-9208 (Print) 1543-5326 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gqrf20
We Had Faces Then: Sunset Boulevard and the
Sense of the Spectral
Grayson Cooke
To cite this article: Grayson Cooke (2009) We Had Faces Then: Sunset Boulevard and
the Sense of the Spectral, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 26:2, 89-101, DOI:
10.1080/10509200600737762
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10509200600737762
Published online: 21 Feb 2009.
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Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 26: 89–101, 2009
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1050-9208 print / 1543-5326 online
DOI: 10.1080/10509200600737762
We Had Faces Then: Sunset Boulevard and the Sense
of the Spectral
GRAYSON COOKE
Sunset Boulevard (1950), a product of the Billy Wilder/Charles Brackett writing team that
also produced Double Indemnity (1944) and The Lost Weekend (1945), is one of the enduring
classics of mid-20th century Hollywood cinema. It is a film about film, a Hollywood film
about Hollywood, packed with an ironic self-referentiality that never falls into postmodern
ennui, but remains firmly within a dry yet theatrical noir tradition. Most importantly, it is
a film about the female star and the most valuable ‘asset’ of the female star, her face. As
such, the film presents us with a scenario in which to examine the mechanisms of stardom,
and highlights the importance of youth and beauty to the star system, with the face of the
star at the centre of the system. Further, in its depiction of a silent-movie star enmeshed
in the memory of her own cinematic image, Sunset Boulevard invokes what we will call a
“cinematic apparatus of the face”, an apparatus that dictates the experience of possessing,
or being possessed by, a face.
The face is a vital element in the grand narratives of “being” for contemporary Western
culture, a culture obsessed with shiny clean surfaces, a culture enamored of images of
itself, a culture preoccupied with technological prostheses of many kinds. It is the face
that appears first when the human is examined; it is the face that we peer into, that we
search for and project signs on, that we treat as the document of any person who stands
before us. We greet each other, as human beings, and we look into each other’s face. We
read what is written there, and perhaps even what has been erased. Yet, simultaneously,
the face is also a kind of public-relations exercise for clandestine technological becomings,
for it is through an ever-complexifying system of technological and cosmeceutical “cures’
that the perfected, cosmetic, clear image of the face appears. The face is everywhere in
the media, stage and screen, it sits at the centre of a vast apparatus encompassing lights,
cameras, spectators, mirrors, markets, make-up artists and white-coated lab-technicians
furtively grinding fetuses into expensive white paste; the cinematic apparatus of the face.
While the use of the term “cinematic apparatus” may seem to imply a nod towards
the apparatus theory of Jean-Louis Baudry, I would like to use it in a different sense.
Baudry talks primarily about the apparatus as an ensemble of projecting and spectatorial
technologies, and through Lacanian psychoanalysis places his emphasis on the effects of
the apparatus on the spectator (see Baudry “Apparatus”; and Baudry “Ideological Effects”).
As much as the spectatorial environment is important, however, I would also like the
cinematic apparatus of the face to be understood as encompassing the broader market in
which the faces and images of stars are produced, commodified and consumed. Cinema
Grayson Cooke holds an interdisciplinary Ph.D. from Concordia University in Montreal, and is
employed as a lecturer in Multimedia at Central Queensland University, Bundaberg, Australia. He has
published in the journals Culture Machine and M/C Journal, and has exhibited works of interactive
art and photography in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
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is always an industry, and what is produced by cinema—films, spectators and stars, and
in the case of Hollywood cinema, merchandise (and cinema as merchandise for other
merchandise)—exists in a capitalist economy. Within this economy, faces play a central
role; not merely do they become the hallmark of a star, but, as we have implied, they
become one of the star’s most important assets, and are thus the site of much capital
investment, and subject to much technological intervention. Faces are commodified, and in
that commodification take on a life of their own, existing in a complex, (im)possible space
always in-between the individual and the market, the real and the image, the biological and
the technical, the embodied and the disembodied, the incarnate and disincarnate.
The cinematic apparatus of the face, then, contributes to what we could call, with
Derrida in Spectres of Marx, the “spectral” aspect of the face, that aspect of the face that
renders it (im)possible, ghostly, there by not being there. Derrida’s project is the process
of “hauntology”, the properly deconstructive ontology of beings that are, quite simply,
not (10).
The narrative of Sunset Boulevard concerns Joe Gillis (William Holden), a down-onhis-luck Hollywood scriptwriter whose car is going to be re-possessed unless he can raise
$200 immediately for the insurance. While on the run from the insurance agents, he ducks
into the garage of an overgrown Sunset Boulevard mansion. Weeds in the yard, rats in
the swimming pool, and an antique car on blocks in the garage, the house is a metaphor
for past glories gone bad or been forgotten. As Joe’s voiceover says, “a neglected house
gets an unhappy look; this one had it in spades.” In the house, Joe meets Norma Desmond
(Gloria Swanson), an aging movie star from the silent era, and Max (Erich von Stroheim),
her butler and erstwhile husband and director. Although initially preoccupied with the
death of her monkey, who somehow seems less like a dead monkey and more like a dead
husband, Norma soon asks Joe to edit her script for a movie adaptation of Salome, written
as a come-back to be directed by her former friend and director Cecil B. deMille (playing
himself). Reluctantly Joe takes the position, and is hastily moved in to the bedroom above
the garage.
Time passes, and soon Joe is Norma’s “kept man”, with a rack full of dinner suits,
expensive ties and expensive tastes, and only a modicum of embarrassment regarding his
circumstances. Joe continues to edit Norma’s script, which is eventually shown to deMille
who, finding himself unable to add one more rejection after “thirty millions fans have given
her the brush”, remains silent on the unlikely prospect of its production, leading Norma to
assume that it will go ahead. Norma begins a brutal regime of facial rejuvenation, preparing
herself for her big appearance, while meanwhile Joe begins work on a new script with
a friend’s fiancé, Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson). These clandestine writing sessions are
conducted under cover of darkness, and soon the inevitable happens; Betty falls in love
with Joe and Norma finds out about Betty and the other script. Madness, which had already
begun to rear its head while Norma prepared her face, arrives fully on the scene, and Norma
kills Joe in a fit of jealousy before descending the stairs into the waiting arms of the police
and media. “Alright Mr. deMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”
Sunset Boulevard “examines the aftermath of the transition to sound, in which the
power of the writer (and the spoken word) displaces the acting skills of the silent stars”
(Ames 196). It is both futurological and archaeological, heralding the ascendancy of
the writer and the screenplay, and picking through the pieces of the silent era. On a
narrative level, the film is a noir thriller about the death of a Hollywood writer, murdered in
some oblique way by the machinations of the system he works in. On a discursive level the
film is a meditation on the star system, and the face of the silent film star as this system’s
most emblematic manifestation. Of prime importance to the star system is the spectral
We Had Faces Then: Sunset Boulevard and the Sense of the Spectral
91
nature of this face, and the way in which the star system hinges on the production of
ghosts.
Ghosts and spectrality give this film its poignancy and bitter ironies, as well as its
touches of dark humor. Most obviously, the film is narrated by a ghost. Joe Gillis, whose
death brackets the film in a strange but not unheard-of narrative convention, speaks to us
from beyond the grave. The stories of ghosts are always cautionary, and the ghost of Joe
Gillis returns to us, and to the film, to tell his woeful tale. We first see Joe floating dead
in the water. The camera is submerged and we are down there, in the waters of death, we
are with Joe on the “other side”. And then, like all ghosts, we rise out of the waters, we
look back, and the ghost story begins. Joe meets Norma and becomes her ghostwriter, her
literary prosthesis, and the servomechanism of her desire to return to the cinema, and thus
to life. Indeed, Norma surrounds herself with ghosts, the “waxworks”, her bridge partners,
all older actors who, like her, have experienced better days. Discussing the filming of Sunset
Boulevard, Swanson described the waxworks and their milieu of bridge parties, caviar and
cigarette smoke as a “ghostly world”, kept separate from the world of the living: “Billy
Wilder and Charles Brackett had cleverly kept [the] ghostly world of oldies separate from
the young Hollywood . . . therefore, I had no scenes with Nancy Olson or Jack Webb”
(Ames 205).
Norma’s mansion is the archetypal haunted house. The opening shots are gothic; a
swimming pool empty save for rats fighting over a rotting orange, the “ghost of a tennis
court”. Overgrown, rambling and in disrepair, Joe assumes the house is uninhabited, and he
is only half wrong, for it is less inhabited than possessed. When Joe first enters the house
and is mistaken for the undertaker, Max ominously tells him “if you need any help with
the coffin, call me”. The house is dark and eerie; candelabras gather dust in the hallway,
their flames guttering slowly in the gloom. Joe encounters Norma, dressed all in black,
wearing dark glasses even though it is daylight outside; she leads him to the massage
table, upon which lies a curiously small corpse. Throughout the film, the house maintains
a distinctly vampiric air. The curtains are almost always drawn, not simply to keep out the
light but to maintain a strict separation between the incarnate world of ’50s Los Angeles,
and the strangely “disincarnate” world of Norma, Max and their collective memories,
their photographs, paintings and memorabilia, relics of the ancien régime of ’20s silent
film.
The vampiric air of the house is celebrated most succinctly in the scene in which
Joe rushes into the house to ask why his belongings have mysteriously arrived in his
bedroom overnight. Accompanied by the evocative strains of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue
in D Minor, from an exterior long-shot we cut to an interior close-up in deep focus, with
Max’s white-gloved hands in extreme foreground hovering above the keys. Apart from the
high-kitsch overtones, the use of the Toccata and Fugue completes the referential chain.
Like Nösferatu’s coachman, Max announces that he brought Joe’s belongings, and our
questions regarding how Max did such a thing overnight, without knowing where Joe lived,
without a key, and with the car on blocks in the garage, are resolved without being resolved;
the house operates on a logic all its own, and its inhabitants are subject to a law that is
thoroughly other than that which governs Joe and the outside world.
Norma herself is the arch-ghost of the film, possessing her house as she is possessed
by, and preoccupied with, her face and image. Lucy Fischer, in “Sunset Boulevard: Fading
Stars,” reads Norma as a vampire, one of the cinematic “undead”, and finds in her depiction
the conflation of fears of aging with fears of bodily decay; the figure of the vampire
encapsulates these fears and packages them into a form for which it is acceptable to
feel revulsion. Fischer notes how Joe Gillis’ attitude towards Norma’s aging, and most
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specifically her aging body and face, is expressed in his description of her house, “which
is alternately described as ‘rundown’ or ‘neglected’” (102).
Gillis points out its “ghost of a tennis court with faded markings and a sagging
net.” It is clear from these descriptions that a horror of bodily decay lies at the
root of Joe Gillis’ attitude toward the mansion—a fact that emerges when he
refers to the place as “crumbling apart in slow motion.” Thus the aging process
is viewed as somehow repulsive, to be shunted away. (Fischer 102)
Gillis’ revulsion at the aging body of the house and of the woman, is legitimated in the
film, Fischer argues, by the depiction of Norma Desmond as a vampire, one of the undead,
neither alive nor dead, feeding on death and maintaining only an illusion of life (103).
Within the narrative, we can easily see how Norma appears to “feed” off Joe’s youth, and
how this nourishment improves her appearance. At one stage, she says, “I’ve never looked
better in my life . . . because I’ve never been as happy.” Like all vampires, this feeding on
the life-blood of the young brings Norma back. It returns her to an earlier state, reanimating
her and preparing her for her comeback. Likewise, we see Joe feeding off Norma’s wealth;
indeed, popular conceptions of the “kept-man” scenario have these readings built-in, and
Sunset Boulevard constantly plays with these conceptions, neither entirely critiquing nor
justifying them, doing little to endear either Joe or Norma to the spectator looking for some
kind of positive identification.
However, there is another kind of feeding in Sunset Boulevard, which has more to do
with the relation of the star to her image. Fischer notes that as Norma watches her younger
self in silent films, “she seems almost to ‘feed’ on her youthful persona”, as if nourished
by this image of her own youth in the circular logic of auto-consumption (103). Norma
produces herself at the same time as she consumes herself; constantly trying to put herself
back together, she re-members herself in order that she can devour herself again and again.
Indeed, we could say that Norma’s ultimate goal in the film, a goal she pursues with all her
power, a goal Max serves to facilitate and foster, is to re-member herself, to reconstitute that
which she was, and to become that re-membered self. In so doing Norma essentially haunts
herself, for it is her image she wishes to become, her image, which is always becoming and
always receding.
Yet this image exists solely as a function of the cinematic apparatus of the face, it
is the specular, spectral other, the other that is unutterably other, the other which exists
never as that which was and will be, but that which promises to be again. “At bottom, the
spectre is the future, it is always to come, it presents itself only as that which could come
or come back” (Derrida 39). One of the central ironies of the face in the star system, then,
is that it ensures that the face, and the individual attached to the face, will be immortalized
and forgotten at the same time, in one and the same movement, and this is the logic of
the spectral. The cinematic image of the face suggests at the same time immortality and
disappearance, which is the state of existence characteristic of ghosts, those beings that are
neither here nor not-here, in the present only by virtue of an eternally recurring past, which
is thus also a future.
As a product of the silent screen, Norma Desmond is pure spectrality, and pure face.
Norma, decrying the rise of the writer, tells Joe “We didn’t need dialogue, we had faces
then.” And as Christopher Ames notes, “silent film acting, with its reliance on gestures
and close-ups, puts more emphasis on acting with the face than do stage acting or talking
motion pictures. Sunset Boulevard reminds us frequently that the face of Desmond/Swanson
is cinematic property” (Ames 199; my italics). The duplicity of “property” is made clear.
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93
Norma lives inside and is defined by the remains of the cinema’s image of herself. She is
surrounded by photographs of herself in her heyday, and entranced by private screenings
of her movies in which she appears always young and beautiful. While Norma lives
surrounded by images of herself, however, it is not the case that she therefore possesses her
image; rather she is possessed by her image. Her image was produced by and remains the
property of the Hollywood star system, and of the cinematic apparatus; in other words, the
market.
As Walter Benjamin notes, commenting on the rise of the star system and Hollywood
cinema, “This market, where [she] offers not only [her] labor but also [her] whole self, heart
and soul, is beyond [her] reach” (224). Norma’s physical body may remain her own, but
her face, and thus her image or appearance, is moldering on Paramount’s asset register, and
has been considerably depreciated. Norma’s sense of self, which we could call use-value,
the use to which she wishes to put herself, has been entirely supplanted or defined by an
exchange-value wherein her self/image is subject to the whims of the market. Even this
exchange-value is primarily imagined; in the New Hollywood of talking pictures, her image
has value only as nostalgia. Like a diva-style Phantom of the Opera, Norma is the ghost of
Hollywood, and her face is the purest expression of the commodity fetish, a thing which
has had any sense of use-value entirely subsumed by the mysterious movements within the
cinematic apparatus of the face, and the social relations it feeds and feeds upon (Marx 77).
Walter Benjamin concurs: “The cult of the movie star, fostered by the money of the film
industry, preserves not the unique aura of the person but the ‘spell of the personality’, the
phony spell of a commodity” (244).
There are four key sequences in Sunset Boulevard that depict the functioning of the
cinematic apparatus of the face. Each sequence implicates the next in an expanding matrix
of technologies, until the tragic cinematic finale is played out. The first of these sequences
is the scene in which she and Joe watch one of her early films (incidentally, the film they
watch is the never-released von Stroheim film Queen Kelly, which starred a young Gloria
Swanson; one of the many insider-references Wilder and Brackett packed into the film). It
ends with Norma exclaiming, “I’ll show them, I’ll be up there again, so help me!” The “up
there” Norma speaks of is the space and time of the screen. To be “up there” is to be in a way
that her current form of being cannot compare with; her being is always oriented towards
this being up there, elsewhere, floating through the air like a ghost and projected onto the
screen. As Derrida notes, “[t]he specter is also, among other things, what one imagines,
what one thinks one sees and which one projects—on an imaginary screen where there is
nothing to see” (101). In this scene, after the camera focuses for some time on the film on
the screen, in which a young Norma/Swanson lights a candle and prays for her wickedness
to be cast out, it switches to Norma and Joe. Standing up, lit by the flickering beam of the
projector, Norma’s profile is harshly back-lit, and the contrast between the youthful figure
“up there” on the screen, and her current state down here, is brought sharply into focus
(Ames 200).
The second key sequence occurs during Norma’s visit to Cecil B. deMille on set.
Norma arrives at the Paramount studio gates, and after finally being recognized by an older
security guard, she is ushered onto the set by deMille and seated in the director’s chair
while deMille makes a phone call. A microphone brushes Norma’s hat and she angrily
pushes it away, whereupon a lighting technician recognizes Norma and turns a spotlight
on her. “Let’s get a good look at you” he says, and the apparatus springs into action. It is
suddenly as if, there in the middle of the soundstage, the screening of an unexpected film
begins. Where before, unlit, Norma entered the set unnoticed, now, in the spotlight, her
“presence” re-asserts itself. Cast-members become spectators and flock around, fascinated
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with this apparent resurrection, drawn to the light of this spectacle unfolding in their midst:
“There’s Norma Desmond”, they exclaim; “Why, I thought she was dead!”
Norma basks in the light that is shone upon her, which is concurrently the light
of a technical projecting apparatus, and the light of public adoration, the light of the
spectatorial gaze. For a moment the ghost is real, and Norma becomes a spectator upon
her own spectrality. Back from the dead, lifted from down here, the resurrected Norma is
momentarily up there again, bathed in the light of the projector and the light that glints
in the eyes of the audience. Of course, the light is extinguished as quickly as it began;
deMille arrives and orders the technician to “turn that light back where it belongs”, the
light turns away and the crowd disperses. The spectacle is over, Norma is left to compose
herself after her brief foray up there. “Did you see them? Did you see how they came?”
As Christopher Ames notes, we are left with a powerful sense of the “transforming power
of movie technology, its power to turn a person into an icon and, conversely, to extinguish
that transfiguring light” (206).
In an eerie foreshadowing of the contemporary obsession with the makeover and the
technologies of appearance, the third sequence is the “makeover frenzy” montage sequence
that follows Norma’s visit to the set. Convinced that the filming of Salome will go ahead,
Norma begins what Joe’s voiceover calls “a merciless series of treatments”, a grueling
regimen of therapies designed to ready her “for those cameras that would never turn”. Her
skin is subjected to electric shocks, heat treatments, steam, massage, mudpacks and lotions.
Through a magnifying glass every pore and wrinkle is examined and every impurity excised.
The sequence ends with Norma examining her face in a make-up mirror, her features rigidly
locked in place by a series of straps. She has been immobilized, conditioned, examined
minutely by an abstract cinematic eye as much as by the eye of the beauty technician. As
Ames notes, “[l]ight, mirror, magnifying glass, and giant eye symbolize the remorselessness
of the close-up and its demands” (201).
If, as Deleuze and Guattari suggest, the face is by nature a close-up, the face is also
necessarily a function of the apparatus that gives us such a thing as a close-up, and the
industries that condition the form and appearance of the face in close-up (Deleuze and
Guattari 171). The face is technologically produced in two senses. Firstly, it is conditioned
by cosmetic technologies, it is scraped clean, sucked dry, plucked and re-surfaced. Secondly,
it must “pass” in the abstract but no less judgmental eye of the cinematic apparatus of the
face. Both Sander Gilman, in Making the Body Beautiful, and Deleuze and Guattari, in
the “Faciality” chapter of A Thousand Plateaus, argue that the face’s public appearance is
conditioned by a mechanism of “passing”, wherein faces are judged to pass or fail in their
degree of fitness to be recognized as a face as such (Gilman 22; Deleuze and Guattari 177).
For Deleuze and Guattari, the “abstract machine of faciality” which governs processes of
passing is intrinsically computational, a mechanism of the “yes/no” type; the question is
of whether a certain face can pass as a certain type, whether its organization of traits is
proper, or in accord with, the recognized organization of traits proper to that type. The face
that appears upon the screen, the face that is projected and which “passes” before the eye
of the spectator, must first “pass” under the discriminating eye of the cinematic apparatus
of the face.
The fourth key sequence is the final scene, in which Norma prepares herself for the
cameras as police and media fill the downstairs foyer, and she descends the stairs to utter her
famous last words, “Alright Mr. deMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” Both before killing
Joe and after, Norma stares upwards and off-screen-right, her eyes wide as if stretching to
encompass a huge picture of herself, yet also as if in terror, as if some horrible/beautiful
thing is unfolding “up there”, where the stars are. It is her own ghost she stares at, the
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ghost of her that the cinematic apparatus of the face still projects above her, beyond her,
and back upon her, and which she is possessed by. Ironically, Norma is simultaneously star
and spectator. Later, as the policemen interrogate Norma in her bedroom, she sits silently
at her dressing table, entranced by her image in the mirror. We can interpret this scene in a
number of ways.
With Lucy Fischer, we could see in this image a depiction of the narcissism frequently
projected onto women in painting and cinema, just as we could read in it a “regression” of
the Lacanian type to the possession of and with the self-characteristic of the mirror stage.
“Clearly she is ‘subordinated’ to her screen persona, and, like the Lacanian infant, stands
‘jubilant’ in the ‘assumption’ of her specular image. While the infant has only commenced
to be distanced from its true identity, Norma has had a lifetime to experience the radical
loss of self visited upon women in our culture” (Fischer 108–109). Rather than revert to the
now quite commonplace usage of Lacanian theory, however, let us highlight the slippage
between specular and spectral, between what appears on the screen as in a mirror, and what
appears by not appearing, by haunting the screen and possessing the spectator. With the
mention of the cameras that the newsreel men have arrived with, Norma’s attention returns
to the present. Max assures her that “the cameras have arrived” and she prepares herself
for her scene. We cannot be blind to the presence of the apparatus here, and its promise
of a ghostly becoming. Regardless of where—mirror or screen—her image appears, it is
the cinematic apparatus, with its promise of appearing “up there”, that defines Norma’s
preferred mode of “being’.
Max, playing the part of deMille, directs the scene. Through a frozen tableau of police,
newspaper reporters and photographers, Norma descends the stairs as the Princess Salome.
Cameras and lights follow her down; ironically however, it is the Paramount news team, and
we are presented with the cruel conjunction wherein Norma’s fantasy of returning to bask
in the uplifting light of the cinematic apparatus, is abruptly juxtaposed against the harsh
and comparatively “real” light of the news media. At the bottom of the stairs she breaks
character briefly to express her happiness at having been allowed to return to pictures.
She admits that this thing she has returned to, this cinematic apparatus that has apparently
re-admitted her, is her whole life. “There’s nothing else. Just us, and the cameras, and
those wonderful people out there in the dark.” And then she is ready for her close-up; she
advances menacingly on the camera and on “those wonderful people out there”, twirling
her hands like Nösferatu, her face blurring to fade-out.
Norma’s final admonition is telling, for a number of reasons. Firstly, she succinctly
describes the cinema in its entirety as the only thing that exists. Actors, cameras and
spectators are joined together in a single apparatus which is all encompassing, and within
which she finds herself and defines herself. Secondly, it is an acknowledgement that the
ghost of her that the apparatus presents her with is “real”, and that there is nothing else. She
wishes to be her ghost and to have no existence outside of that spectral state. To be, finally,
ready for her close-up, is to be ready once again to be pure face. When she is up there, or
at least preparing to be up there, she exists; when she is down here, she does not exist. As
we mentioned earlier, Norma’s possession by the cinematic apparatus of the face is such
that the only form of being she values is the being that is not, the being that is immaterial,
that is pure light, that is absolute. Pure star, pure face, nada. Norma’s “face value” is not
her use-value, it is her value as something that does not exist, that will never exist, that flits
about at the periphery of her gaze, off-screen-right, where she stares enraptured at the sight.
It is therefore through spectrality that we wish to understand a film like Sunset Boulevard, and consequently the cinematic apparatus of the face. Norma Desmond surrounds
herself with ghosts; Joe Gillis, a ghostwriter; the “waxworks”, those silent ghosts of Old
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Hollywood. Her house is the archetypal haunted house, and Norma herself is depicted as
some kind of vampire, explicitly feeding off Joe’s youth, implicitly feeding off the image
of her youth, which is also her ghost. This image, this ghost surrounds her, she wallows in
it, it is apparent in paintings, photographs, old films, letters and the adoration of Max, who
perhaps more than any other character in the film represents a sanctioning and legitimating
force behind Norma’s possession of and by her image. Indeed, Max “conjures” Norma’s
ghost, in the various senses Derrida inflects “conjuration” with in Spectres of Marx.
Firstly, conjuration involves a “swearing together” or conspiring, the taking of an oath,
which is an oath to keep something secret. In its first moments, conjuration keeps revelation
in reserve. Derrida’s primary example comes from Hamlet; having seen and spoken with
the ghost, Hamlet enjoins Horatio and Marcellus to swear together to keep silent regarding
what they have seen, just as the ghost, from beneath the stage, enjoins the group to swear to
secrecy also. “It is the apparition that enjoins them to conspire to silence the apparition, and
to promise secrecy on the subject of the one who demands such an oath from them” (Derrida
41). With this sense of conjuration in mind, we can see that Max maintains Norma’s ghost
by keeping silent about it. Max protects Norma from the knowledge that she has, essentially,
ceased to exist; the fans no longer write, Paramount doesn’t want her, she no longer matters,
and is in that sense “immaterial”. Max maintains Norma’s desire to become her image, to
become her ghost, by hiding from her the fact that she has already become a different kind
of ghost, and by keeping “alive” the fiction of her ghost as something she is, still, yet to
become.
Thus, secrecy leads us to the second meaning for conjuration, whereby conjuration
signifies the incantation or spell necessary to bring forth some spirit or spectre (Derrida
41). Max hides Norma’s awareness of herself as a ghost by bringing forth the fiction of her
ghost as something that had been attained once and will yet be (re)attained. Through his
insistence that “Madam is the greatest star who ever lived”, through his constant refusal to
let Norma lose her grip on the old Hollywood in which she reigned, Max conjures Norma’s
ghost again and again, projecting it above and around Norma so that she sees it constantly,
and wishes to join it and merge with it up there. Let us not forget that Max is not merely
Norma’s ex-husband, but that more importantly, he is Norma’s director, the architect and
choreographer of her spectrality; while Cecil B. deMille is given a privileged status as her
director par excellence, it is Max who was with her at the beginning and who is with her
at the end. As Norma descends the stairs in the final scene, it is Max playing deMille who
directs the scene, and who presides over her final transfiguration.
As well as a function of Max’s machinations, Norma’s ghost is a function of the
cinematic apparatus of the face. The cinematic apparatus has given her an image of herself
which haunts her, and which thus possesses her. Norma is possessed by her image, controlled
or dominated by a spectral force, it haunts her, returns to her again and again, calling to
her, beckoning her on. From the screen and in the mirror the ghosts call to her, exhorting
her to become one of them, to ascend to their realm. It is thus as if she is the property of her
image, rather than the other way round. While it is normal to possess one’s image, in that
it is one’s property, and has one’s properties, here, Norma’s image possesses her, she is a
property of her ghost, she is “pre-occupied” with and by her image. This image in turn is
possessed by the vast system of studios, executives and spectators, which functions on the
circulation of images, on commerce with ghosts. Cinema trades on ghosts, it is trade with
ghosts and, most significantly, the ghosts trade amongst themselves. Cinema produces and
commodifies the spectral dimension of the face.
If Sunset Boulevard tells us about the face and the star at a certain moment in the
history of Hollywood cinema, can it also tell us something about the face and the star
We Had Faces Then: Sunset Boulevard and the Sense of the Spectral
97
today? Our formulation of the cinematic apparatus of the face places the face at the centre
of a system concerned with the production, dissemination and consumption of images of
beauty and youth. Time and aging are thus also central concerns; the face must remain
young, it must not admit of any of the flaws wrought by time and age, it must exist out of
time, forever calcified in the world of the image. There is thus a disjunction between “real”
life and time as they are physically lived, and the life and time of the image. In Norma’s
case at least, it is real life which is subordinated to the life of the cinematic image, and we
are presented with the fascinating conundrum of a star being both a star and a spectator
upon her own stardom. She is always both and neither “up there” and “down here”, and
that is her problem. This disjunction, and subordination of life to image, is echoed in the
problematic relation of the star to herself as a commodity. Where we might expect her face
to be her own property, here, it is the property of the cinematic apparatus. To have a face is
to be had by the face, possessed or haunted by the spectral face that will only ever exist as
a promise, as something always yet to come but never to arrive.
This scenario relates to contemporary cinema and its context in many ways. Stars,
obviously, continue to play a vital part in cinema, and in culture more widely. They are
part of an ever-morphing celebrity culture, which is distributed across numerous industries,
such as the entertainment, fashion, cosmetics and beauty industries. As Benjamin argued,
stars have an intrinsic relation to the commodity, and this is as true today as it was in
the middle of the 20th century. The relation of the contemporary star to the commodity is
complex and multifaceted. With what some have dubiously labeled the “triumph” of liberal
democracy, globalization and the explosion of intellectual property law, commodities have
become increasingly ephemeral, frequently existing purely as signs and symbols, gestures,
logos and brands.
Stars are marketed not merely as commodities themselves, or as the value-add of faces
and names attached to products via product endorsement, but as the intellectual property
of their own production companies. After attaining office as Governor of California,
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s holding company sued a toy maker that had produced a
“Schwarzenegger-like bobblehead doll”, arguing that “Schwarzenegger is an instantly
recognizable global celebrity whose name and likeness are worth millions of dollars and are
solely his property” and that the doll infringed on this property (Epstein 299). Not merely
do stars (and their production or PR companies, and to a large extent we need not recognize
any separation between the two) own and attempt to control their own images, but they can
also legally own and attempt to control the image of this image—their likeness, divorced
from any photographic and physical reality, is still able to be trademarked and copyrighted.
Accordingly, and in contrast to the trend in the mid-20th century, contemporary stars
exert massive influence over the content of today’s cinema, their “star power” frequently
functioning as an independent brand that must be marketed, massaged and disseminated
like any cinematic product. The publicity machine that markets Tom Cruise is a case in
point: during the filming of Mission Impossible II (2000), back-stories were circulated
that asserted Tom Cruise performed all his own stunts, despite the fact that up to six stunt
doubles were used for Cruise’s part, and the insurance company that underwrote Cruise’s
appearance in the film would have been highly unlikely to allow their client to risk himself,
and thus their investment, in such a manner (Epstein 180–181). Questions of veracity aside,
the back-stories functioned to emphasize the heroic persona of Cruise-as-Star, and his
supposed similarity to the fictional hero of M:I-2, Ethan Hunt.
The face of the star is still one of the central mechanisms of stardom, one of the star’s
primary assets, and the site of much capital and technological investment; it is also the
site where questions of property become even more complex, and where the logic of the
98
Grayson Cooke
spectral re-emerges. The cosmetic treatment frenzy which has gripped the entertainment
industry over the past few years is due testament to this, and it is testament also to cinema
and culture’s continuing emphasis on youth and beauty, and continuing problem with time.
Despite the power that comes with playing a pivotal role in celebrity and commodity culture,
then, as in the case of Norma Desmond, stardom is still beholden to filmed entertainment,
and to the many industries, such as the entertainment and tabloid media, that encircle the
cinema industry and which disseminate images of stars. Disappearing from the tabloids,
while it may be a fantasy for many stars whose private lives are so regularly exposed to
the cruel light of the media, is also tantamount to media suicide. Whether a star gets to
appear in the tabloids in a positive or negative light is hardly the point; as always, it is the
appearance that matters.
Botox and the panoply of cosmetic technologies Botox fits within is central to this issue.
Since the cosmetic use of Botox entered the mass-market in the early 1990s, questions have
circulated regarding its long-term effects, and its status as simultaneously a “miracle cure”
and a derivative of one of the most powerful poisons known, Botulinum Toxin. The tabloid
obsession with “has he/she had work done?” has spawned an entire hermeneutic genre
consisting of the paparazzi portrait and the medical interpretation of their cosmetic history,
which along with frock-shots and relationship gossip makes up a sizable contingent of
the appearances of stars in tabloid publications and magazines. Most importantly for this
analysis, recent accounts of Botox use in the film industry have focused on the problems
faced by casting agents and film directors, who find that Botoxed actors can no longer emote
as required. In maintaining the face required of them by the cinema and entertainment
industries, some stars are faced with the irony that this very maintenance can exclude
them from appearing in film altogether. Stars may own their faces as intellectual property,
but if their faces no longer look like their faces, this form of ownership becomes highly
questionable. Indeed, it starts to look less like ownership and more like licensing; the face
of the star is not so much owned as licensed to them for a certain period of time, and for a
certain set of uses, and when the time period runs out, or when the face is overly tampered
with, the licensing contract is rendered null and void.
Of Mickey Rourke, London casting agent Jeremy Zimmermann notes: “I had to veto
Mickey for the leading role in a British film I’m working on. I had to explain to his agent
that we wouldn’t be using him because his face looks so frozen after his recent operations
. . . he looks so strange now” (NW Magazine, April 21, 2003). Martin Scorsese and Baz
Luhrmann have also been frustrated in their ability to find actors able to express non-verbal
emotion, especially anger. As Luhrmann notes, “their faces can’t really move properly”
(MX Magazine, Feb 10, 2003). Denise Chamian, casting director for Tim Burton’s 2003 film
Big Fish, comments: “You look through magazines and watch television and you see that
a lot of these women don’t even look like themselves anymore” (Weiner 34). Although not
looking like oneself is a common epithet used to describe someone who seems out of sorts,
Chamian’s comment is telling. Only within a culture in which a person’s image circulates
and precedes them, and indeed subordinates their physical self to their publicized image, is
it possible to not look like oneself in the manner Chamian proposes, and it is precisely this
problem that haunts Norma Desmond, stranded as she is in the nympholeptic pursuit of the
image of her younger self. There is an increasing pressure on stars to maintain a youthful,
fit and healthy appearance despite the inevitable effects of time, and the explosion of Botox
and other cosmetic treatments is indicative of this pressure.
If, as Richard Dyer suggests in Heavenly Bodies, stars are important because they
“articulate what it is to be a human being in contemporary society” (8), and if we can
generalize from the star as depicted in Sunset Boulevard, to the experience and function of
We Had Faces Then: Sunset Boulevard and the Sense of the Spectral
99
stars today, what can our analysis of this film tell us about the face in contemporary society?
Obsessions with youth and with Botox, cosmetic surgery, and makeovers to halt the effects
of time, are not confined to those stars and celebrities whose existence is defined by the
cinematic apparatus of the face. These obsessions, and the mélange of cosmeceutical and
technological interventions that accompany them, are now commonplace in many cultures.
Anti-aging treatments have existed for many years, but it is only recently that the market
has grown so quickly, and with such variety in cosmetic products, cosmeceutical treatments
and technological interventions.
In part, this may be a function of the aging of the baby-boomer generation and their
increase as a percentage of the population in many countries; not merely are baby-boomers
aging and thus becoming more concerned with the appearance of aging, but baby-boomers
also tend to be those in power, the cultural elites who dictate directions in policy and
technological development. As Dion Dennis predicted in “Late Boomerology And Beyond:
Singing The Body Virtual/Geriatric”, “[t]hese virtual elites will become, over the first half
of the 21st Century, geriatric cyborgs (geriborgs), deploying a remote and detailed net of
technology to extend their bodily and informational privileges over an extended time-span”.
It would be difficult to pinpoint exactly what is behind the growth of the anti-aging industry,
and we are only making general points here. No doubt the baby-boomer phenomenon or
incipient “gerontocracy” play some role in this, but there are most likely a number of other
causes working together. Regardless, it is fair to say that Norma Desmond’s issues with
time and aging and the conflict between the physical self and the imaged self are common
issues in contemporary society.
This is also to suggest that the commodification of oneself as image is now a commonplace fantasy. In this fantasy, materiality is produced as immateriality, to be is to be an
image in circulation, and the image only has value by virtue of its place in the market. This
much has already been theorized in many postmodern critiques and most particularly in
Baudrillard’s theory of the simulacrum. But there is also a temporal aspect to this imaging,
a conflict between the temporality of life as it is lived and experienced, and the atemporality
of the commodity image. As it was for Norma Desmond, time is still a problem, more so
now perhaps than in previous eras; in Derrida’s borrowed phrase, “the time is out of joint”.
Given the temporal equivocation of the commodity image, it is worth asking the question
of what is really bought and sold here; is it the image, or is it in fact a certain relationship
to time that is the commodity, a certain appearance of the cessation of time?
At the same time that issues faced by those in the public eye have spread out into
the public sphere more widely, with the rise of reality television, the cult of celebrity has
become far more egalitarian, although no less virtual; “stardom” of one sort or another is
now only a Big Brother or Survivor audition away. There is a kind of celebrity-lust at work
here, an incessant and roaming search for the signifiers of celebrity without the extensive
production infrastructure and talent necessary for stardom; someone like Paris Hilton can
only be explained by virtue of such a phenomenon. Celebrity-lust is intrinsically cinematic,
it places us all potentially on show, projecting us all “up there”, or rather, projecting
before us the spectacle/spectre of ourselves projected up there. If cinema is now, in some
metaphorical or projected sense, a way of being, then it is the face that continues to stand
as the paradigm of this mode of being-cinema. The face stands as that thing which is seen,
which defines one’s appearance, which smoothes and eases one’s way through the world,
but which must be maintained through a constant and ongoing series of technological
interventions and capital investments. It is in this very maintenance—this maintenance of
the maintenant, the now—that the face loses any relation with the here and now and enters
the conflicted space-time of the spectral.
100
Grayson Cooke
As we can see, while Sunset Boulevard is ostensibly concerned with a certain moment
in the history of Hollywood, echoes of its concerns regarding the face and the star are
still sounding today, louder, even, than in the middle of the 20th century. In many parts
of the world we now live within a cinematic society, a society of the spectacle and the
commodification of increasingly ephemeral items of cultural and industrial production, and
the ephemerality of capital marks it out, like the film star, as a spectral form par excellence. In
employing the spectral to analyze the fleeting, eternally retreating and temporally troubled
face of the star, I have only touched the surface of the concept as Derrida uses it in Spectres
of Marx. There, it is used to analyze discourses of the end of history and the triumph of
liberal democracy, as well as to elucidate Marx’s own spectres, the spectres of communism
and of capital. Derrida does not even mention cinema, concentrating more on the theatrical
scenario of Hamlet and his father’s ghost. He does, however, place spectrality within a
scenario of looking, and much is made of the etymological relation of the spectre to
spectacles and spectatorship. It is for this reason that I have chosen to use the spectral in
my examination of certain cinematic and wider cultural structures. The spectre is looked
for and looked at, and being both there and not there it is seen and not-seen, requiring
always more effort to be apprehended. In a cinematic society, we are all spectral, and are
thus surrounded by spectres.
Crucially, however, in Derrida’s formulation at least, the spectre also looks back at us:
“[G]host or revenant, sensuous-non-sensuous, visible-invisible, the specter first of all sees
us. From the other side of the eye, visor effect, it looks at us even before we see it or even
before we see period” (101). The visor effect describes a scenario of seeing without being
seen, or conversely, of being watched by someone or something that cannot be seen; it is
a screen in both senses, enabling and denying the look. Norma Desmond experiences this
also, for her watching of herself is always thwarted by the visor effect, by that mechanism
that ensures she hides from herself at the same time as she searches for herself. As we stare
into an increasingly cosmeticized and commodified future, and as we try to predict what
role cinema will play and what form it will take in the future, thinking this (im)possibility,
this hauntology of searching for oneself while hiding from oneself, remains a vital task.
Works Cited
Ames, Christopher. Movies About the Movies: Hollywood Reflected. Kentucky: Kentucky UP, 1997.
Baudry, Jean-Louis. “The Apparatus: Metapsychological Approaches to the Impression of Reality
in Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism, 4th Edition. Ed. Gerald Mast, Marshall Cohen, Leo
Braudy. New York: Oxford UP, 1992: 690–707.
———.. “Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus.” Film Theory and Criticism,
4th Edition. Ed. Gerald Mast, Marshall Cohen, Leo Braudy. New York: Oxford U.P., 1992:
302–312.
Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. Tr. Harry Zorn. London: Pimlico, 1999.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. Tr. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: Minnesota U.P., 1987.
Dennis, Dion. “Late Boomerology and Beyond: Singing the Body Virtual/Geriatric.” CTHEORY.
Article a075, 20th October 1999. <http://ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=118>. February 23, 2006.
Derrida, Jacques. Spectres of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New
International. Tr. Peggy Kamuf. New York: Routledge, 1994.
Dyer, Richard. Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1986.
Epstein, Jay Edward. The Big Picture: The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood. New York:
Random House, 2005.
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Fischer, Lucy. “Sunset Boulevard: Fading Stars,” Women and Film. Ed. Janet Todd. New York:
Holmes and Meier, 1988: 97–113.
Gilman, Sander. Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton UP, 1999.
Marx, Karl. Capital. Ed. Frederick Engels. Tr. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling. Moscow: Progress
Publishers, 1954.
Weiner, Allison Hope. “Saving Face: How Cosmetic Surgery is Freezing Careers and Hurting
Movies,” Who Magazine December 20, 2004: 34–36.
The War between Words and Images—Sunset Boulevard
Author(s): Katelin Trowbridge
Source: Literature/Film Quarterly , 2002, Vol. 30, No. 4, August Wilson Interview
(2002), pp. 294-303
Published by: Salisbury University
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/45116773
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The War between Words
and Images -
Sunscr öoukvaRd
In levard
levardBilly
, an, uncanny
Wilder's incongruity
an uncanny classic
betweenincongruity film Sunset between Bouwords and images penetrates the heart of cinematic convention. The formal aspects of the
film itself do not unsettle the spectator;
Wilder constructs a visual narrative which
rarely departs from the standard techniques
of the medium. A voice-over narrator both
introduces each scene and interprets the
film's visual imagery, guiding the viewer
through a series of events leading up to a
murder. This familiar suturing of script and
spectacle lulls the viewer into a false sense
of security. Uncanniness insinuates itself into
the picture through Sunset Boulevard's subject matter, which tears apart the sutures
which hold words and images together. The
film thus exposes a tenuous, contrived, and
potentially antagonistic partnership between
those repre sentamens upon which cinematic signification depends. Sunset Boulevard
deconstructs the "natural" affinity between the seeable and the sayable by polarizing the
movie's leading roles. Joe Gillis, the narrator, writes screenplays. His tendency to disparage
images reveals his conviction that they undermine the authenticity of words. His nemesis,
Norma Desmond, is a former silent screen star who believes that the advent of talking
pictures has destroyed her career. Norma despises words, which she insists, have vitiated
the purity of visual imagery in the film medium. The ill-fated union between these two
characters dramatizes the disaster which ensues when words and images refuse to complement each other, creating a rupture in representation as signs struggle for an autonomous
existence of their own.
The presentation of the title in the initial scene foreshadows the film's morbid fascination
with words and images. The camera zooms in on the street name, Sunset Boulevard , painted
on a curb side. The ominous music which accompanies this title, the close-up of the dirty,
cracked pavement, the gutter-level perspective (which subsequently drags the opening credits
along the surface of the street), and the oblique camera angle which sets the painted text offkilter, all imbue the title's fusion of words and imagery with sinister significance. Of course,
the name, Sunset Boulevard , further conveys thematic import. Besides designating a real
street in Los Angeles, the adjective "Sunset" also denotes a road which leads to a literal
death for Joe Gillis, and in Norma Desmond's case, a symbolic one. In examining this title,
however, one must not overestimate the power of words to contain the meaning of the film.
Both the script and the spectacle of Sunset Boulevard resist the sort of delimited signification that would lead one to the facile conclusion that a rupture between words and images
simply leads to self-annihilation. One cannot ignore the irony that a film with the suggestive title, Sunset Boulevard , a story enacting a writer's violent death and an actress's descent into madness, begins (and ends) at sunrise, a conventional symbol of rebirth.
The dawn designates the narrative "present" the moment that a swarm of police, report-
ers, and photographers descend upon Norma Desmond's house and discover Joe Gillis's
body floating in the pool. This scene both initiates Joe's recollection of his own demise and
294
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Sunset Boulevard/295
also concludes his story. By bringing the plot full circle, the sunrise scene subverts the
linear temporality of the flashback narrative. In other words, while Joe Gillis delineates a
causal progression of events which ends in Norma's homicidal mania and his own murder,
the cyclical structure of both their stories resists narrative closure. Obviously, the sunrise
scene depicts psychotic delusions and tragic death, but it also signifies a bizarre reincarnation and a macabre wish-fiilfillment for both characters. While Joe's mute corpse floats in
Norma Desmond's pool, the free-floating, disembodied words of the deceased take on a life
of their own. Before his death, Joe Gillis had "only a couple of B pictures to his credit."
Moreover, relentless tampering with his scripts during the film-making process rendered
his own words unrecognizable. At the time that Joe meets Norma Desmond, his screenplays
are not selling at all. The threat of losing his car drives him to the desperate measure of
ghostwriting her inviable script. While all of these circumstances sabotage his artistic freedom, his death finally empowers him, as a literal "ghostwriter," to author his own story.
The sunrise scene represents a rebirth and a fulfillment of desire for Norma Desmond as
well. Losing her Self in psychotic delusions enables Norma to eliminate the rift between her
own identity and her celluloid persona. In other words, while the fallen star annihilates her
Self, she ultimately resurrects her screen idol image. An audience fills her formerly "empty
house," captivated by her dream world. The cameras, which lure Norma out of her room, are
also drawn into her fantasy, reinforcing the delusion that she is filming a scene from her
Salomé screenplay. Joe remarks, "So they were turning after all - those cameras. Life, which
can be strangely merciful, had taken pity on Norma Desmond. The dream she had clung to
so desperately had enfolded her" (Wilder). Though the police officers and reporters profess
to play along with Norma only because it will encourage her to "go quietly," the fact that the
viewer never witnesses her arrest sustains the illusion that Norma has finally gratified her
craving to return to the silver screen.
The shared fate of the screenwriter and the movie star, that is, their concomitant self-
annihilation and wish-fulfillment, results from Joe and Norma's immoderate faith in the
potency of words and images. Joe Gillis believes that language possesses the power to
define reality rather than merely reflecting or interpreting it. Joe asserts this position most
forcefully when he leads the viewer to the scene of the crime at the beginning of the film.
Yes, this is Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California. It's about five o'clock in the morning. That's the homicide squad - complete with detectives and newspapermen. A murder
has been reported from one of those great big houses in the ten thousand block. You'll read
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. 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. If so, you've come to the right party.
(Wilder, emphasis added)
This excerpt signifies that the narrator, whose murder has reduced him to nothing more than
a disembodied voice, considers his words to be gospel. Joe's testimony forbids any room for
interpretation, foreclosing any possibility that he presents just another version of reality.
His nonchalant tone and matter-of-fact disclosure suggests that he has a privileged access to
"the whole truth" denied to "those Hollywood columnists" and other media imagemakers
who will distort the reality of his story.
Authentic speech and writing represents Joe Gillis's ego-ideal, an ideal of self-contained
truth which he realizes only in death. Prior to his murder, two opposing desires divide the
narrator's identity. Joe vacillates between a yearning for artistic credibility and a craving to
write scripts which will win him commercial success. In psychoanalytic terms, Joe Gillis is
torn between vocative and oral gratification. In other words, one may perceive the split in
his Self as a conflict between the two primary functions of the mouth - to speak and to eat.
If such an observation seems outlandish, one may recall that the flashback narrative commences with Joe sitting at his typewriter, a pencil clenched between his teeth. This scene
denotes Joe's attempt to vanquish his desire to write with integrity, and instead to consider
his scripts simply as a means to feed himself. This strategy becomes transparent when he
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296 ¡Sunset Boulevard
tries to peddle his "Bases Loaded" script at Paramount. Betty Shaffer, who has read the
script and condemned it to the scrapheap, observes that Joe Gillis writes from "hunger," a
hunger which she contends has stifled his artistic voice.
Betty informs Joe that his story disappointed her because she had heard that he had some
talent. Though the disgruntled writer offers her a flippant response, "that was last year, this
year F m trying to earn a living," his wholesome critic does not let him off the hook. Betty
scoffs, "so you take plot 27 A, make it glossy , make it slick. . ." (Wilder, emphasis added).
These visual adjectives insinuate that Joe Gillis has prostituted his writing ability, misshaping words into cinematic images. The reader's assessment shows foresight, since the opportunistic writer indentures himself to Norma Desmond immediately thereafter, and consequently ensnares himself within the greedy clutches of the image. Though Joe Gillis does
triple duty as the silent star's ghostwriter, gigolo and audience, in exchange for lavish gifts
which overindulge his acquistive appetite, he cannot silence the clamoring of his vocative
drive. Consequently, when Betty asserts at the New Year's party that she found the flash-
back sequence of his "Dark Windows" story "true and moving," she wields a seductive
power over him. Betty's appeal to his literary mind convinces him to collaborate with her in
expanding the six pages she deemed worthy into a full-fledged screenplay.
In addition to feeding his craving for creative freedom, Joe Gillis 's eagerness to please
his most uncompromising critic derives from an intolerable disgust with himself for perpetuating a washed-up star's world of illusions. His self-induced imprisonment in an abode
crammed with images represents a breach of his own faith in linguistic truth. Joe's increasing sense of obligation to pay lip service to his patron's distorted vision of reality teems
with irony, because during their initial encounter his words not only manifest a mistrust for
images, but they also suggest an ill-concealed contempt for them. For example, Joe derides
the former screen idol with the remark, "Next time I'll bring my autograph album along, or
maybe a hunk of cement and ask for your footprint" (Wilder).
Joe's mocking reference to the footprint as an index for Norma's empty "celluloid self'
bears some resemblance to Brunette Willis's theoretical description of the cinematic image
in her work, Screen/play. She observes that the image
issues from an absent or "dead" reality, much in the same way that writing is held, at least
structurally speaking, to issue from a dead author. The image is conceived, in these terms,
within the perspective of reality's absence; it is meant to be received, and is allowed to
circulate, without that reality. . .the image is a trace, it is the mark of an absence . . .(75)
Willis's explication clearly converges with Joe's interpretation of the various images which
fill Norma's insular world. His depictions of the spectral tennis court with its fading markings, the drained pool crawling with vermin, and the plethora of photographs which transform the star's home into a museum, all signify that Joe perceives Norma's mansion as a
barren womb that protects the traces of her dead reality.
While Willis's analysis applies to Joe's conception of the image, the narrator would certainly not appreciate the analogy she posits between the "dead reality" of the image and of
writing, despite the fact that his own disembodied speech reifies the concept of the dead
author. In presenting his story, Joe does not recognize any différance between his words and
"the facts, the whole truth." He never doubts the existence of a monolithic, objective reality,
nor does he question his ability to harness it through linguistic signs. Joe would further
resent Willis's conflation of the visible and the articulable because it is exactly this sort of
complementary relationship that he aspires to abolish. Joe does not necessarily wish to
obliterate images; rather, he endeavors to establish the supremacy of language as a means of
"authentic" signification, to declare the word's independence from images while still preserving the latitude to exploit images for his own ends.
Conversely, the writer's inclination to subjugate visual signs with ironic speech stems
from his anxiety that they may supersede the authority of language, thus wielding the power
to (mis)represent reality and/or may convert words into images, twisting them into their
own misshapen picture of truth. This anxiety explains Joe's refusal to recognize that Norma
Desmond's screenplay has any relationship whatsoever to words. He dismisses the Salomé
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Sunset Boulevard/291
story as an incoherent hodgepodge of "wild hallucinations" (Wilder). The narrator's sarcastic remark, "I wonder what a handwriting expert would make of that childish scrawl of
hers" (Wilder), further suggests that he does not acknowledge the script as intelligible writing; he discerns only images on paper.
While Joe fears that images will thwart the signifying power of words, he retaliates by
translating visual representation into the language of literature. This strategy of using images to affirm the authority of speech becomes manifest in his initial description of Norma's
mansion. Joe Gillis's voice directs the camera toward her house, reducing the spectacle
which accompanies his speech to a mere accessory. Joe further marginalizes the image by
importing literary allusions into his depiction. He declares,
"It was a great big white elephant of a place, the kind crazy movie people built in the crazy
'20s. A neglected house gets an unhappy look. This one had it in spades. It was like that old
woman in Great Expectations - that Miss Havisham in her rotting wedding dress and her
torn veil, taking it out on the world because she'd been given the go-by." (Wilder)
The wordsmith's reference to the "white elephant," which, according to Webster's dictionary, denotes "something of dubious or limited value," reveals his trifling estimation of
Norma's realm of illusions. Moreover, the allusion to Great Expectations signifies Joe's
attempt to neutralize what he deems the unpredictable mischief of images by subsuming
them into a familiar literary narrative.
Joe Gillis's disasterous power struggle with the image incarnate, Norma Desmond, underscores his incompatibility with the film medium. His tendency to fetishize words and to
denigrate images signifies a frustrated desire for authorship, the sort of autonomy which
motion pictures obviously deny the screenwriter. The writer's resentment surfaces when,
shortly after he agrees to work with Betty Shaffer, he becomes the captive audience for
another of Norma's silent performances. While he views the latest rendition of "The Norma
Desmond Follies," the voice-over exposes his bitter reflections: "The audience doesn't
know somebody actually sits down and writes a picture, they think the actors just make up
the words as they go along (Wilder). Despite his effort to produce a script that eschews
sensational images, Joe cannot overcome the prevailing attitude in the movie industry that
the visual spectacle reigns supreme.
Erwin Panofsky expresses this viewpoint in his essay, "Style and Medium in the Motion
Pictures." He writes that in the film medium
any attempt to convey thought and feelings exclusively, or even primarily, by speech leaves
us with a feeling of embarrassment, boredom, or both - Contrary to naive expectation, the
invention of the sound track in 1928 has been unable to change the basic fact that a moving
picture, even when it has learned to talk, remains a picture that moves and does not convert
itself into a piece of writing that is enacted. (156)
The critic further contends that
the screenplay, in contrast to the theater play, has no aesthetic existence independent of its
performance , and that its characters have no aesthetic existence outside the actors. (165,
emphasis added)
Panofsky's disparagement of the word's capacity to articulate "thoughts and feelings"
effectively on film, and his denial that the screenplay possesses any intrinsic value, obviously relates to Joe Gillis's dilemma as a movie writer. Sheldrake's plan to transform his
"Bases Loaded" thriller into a cute Betty Hutton musical exemplifies Joe's total lack of
artistic freedom. Like the Paramount producer, Norma Desmond also pulls him into a creative stranglehold, disputing every change he attempts to make in editing her Salomé script.
Ultimately, when he strives for an aesthetic existence independent of the actress's perfor-
mances, she kills him, thus bringing his and Betty Shaffer's "Untitled Love-Story" to an
untimely end. Joe's haunting of the murder house, invisible to the audience's gaze, but
filling their ears with his spectral speech, represents a vindication for the dead writer. In
"ghostwriting" his own story, Joe exercises the artistic freedom denied him in life, and
resurrects his fantasy that words alone can apprehend truth.
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298 /Sunset Boulevard
While Sunset Boulevard enacts Joe Gillis's struggle to define reality through language, it
also dramatizes Norma Desmond's desire to replace reality with visual signs. Norma idolizes images, loathing the words that Joe idealizes as gospel truths. Norma wishes to inhabit
a world in which speech does not shatter the spell that cinematic illusions create. While
viewing one of the actress's silent pictures on her private movie screen, Joe Gillis observes
Norma's vicarious participation in her own starring roles. The narrator remarks, "Sometimes as we watched she would clutch my arm or my hand, forgetting she was my employer - just becoming a fan, excited about that actress up there on the screen. I guess I
don't have to tell you who the star was. They were always her pictures, that's all she wanted
to see" (Wilder). The ex-celebrity's habit of forgetting her present obscurity by becoming
her own fan underscores the fact that the celluloid reproduction of herself, the screen idol,
represents her ego-ideal, an ideal which lends her Self an illusory wholeness.
Norma's overzealous identification with her own silent image signifies a retrogression
into what Jacques Lacan designates the Mirror Stage. Lacan defines this phase of cognitive
development as the moment in which a rudimentary sense of Self emerges. He explains that
when the child first perceives his own specular reflection,
The I is precipitated in a primordial form, before it is objectified in the dialectic of identification with the other, and before language restores to it, in the universal, its function as a
subject. This form would have to be called the Ideal-I . . . [which] situates the agency of the
ego, before its social determination, in a fictional direction, which will always remain irreducible for the individual alone, or rather, which will only rejoin the coming-into being {le
devenir ) of the subject asymptomatically, whatever the success of the dialectical syntheses
by which he must resolve as I his discordance with his own reality. (123)
In comparing Norma's regressive condition with Lacan's description of the Mirror Stage,
one must first note that like the infant whose "Ideal-I" appears from his mirror reflection,
Norma's perception of her screen image also situates her ego in a fictional direction. The
following interchange with Joe Gillis elucidates how Norma's identification with the cinema's
imaginary gestalt estranges her from her own corporeal existence. When Joe remarks, "you
used to be big," she retorts, "I am big. It's the pictures that got small" (Wilder). Norma's
rebuttal implies that despite the twenty-year hiatus in her movie career, she still envisions
her own body as inflated into the gigantic proportions of the movie screen. She imagines
that the reason she no longer appears in films is that the pictures have shrunk, so that her
monumental figure no longer fits in the frame.
Lacan's exposition of the Mirror Stage further illuminates Norma's warped psyche by
emphasizing the split between the unified image of the ego-ideal and the subject's experience of the self as dis-integrated and incomplete. Norma's fanatical devotion to her own
image renders the rift between her Self and the ego-ideal nearly unbearable. Whenever her
true status as a washed-up actress begins to overmaster her mind's capacity for self-deception, threatening to obliterate the image of Norma Desmond, the movie goddess, she attempts suicide. Through most of the story, however, Norma displays formidable powers of
repression. Therefore, her recognition of the split between the idealized image and her Self
manifests itself only indirectly, through two conflicting desires: Norma wishes to be seen,
but she also wishes to hide.
The actress's emotional reaction when she delivers her script to Paramount evinces her
craving to expose herself to the eyes of the world. While visiting Cecil De Mille's movie set,
a studio technician directs the spotlight upon her, attracting a curious crowd of extras and
stage-hands who Norma misinterprets as adoring fans. A bystander's comment that he thought
Norma Desmond was dead reveals the underlying reality that the star needs an audience to
affirm her existence. Despite Norma's haughty vow to "return to the millions of people who
have never forgiven [her] for deserting the screen" (Wilder), throughout most of the film,
Norma's ex-husband- turned-butler, Max von Mayerling, and her editor-turned-gigolo, Joe
Gillis, serve as the only spectators who sustain her star power. Max, the perpetual yes-man,
resembles a magic mirror, forever proclaiming that Norma Desmond is the fairest of them
all. He supports Norma's deluded belief that an audience eagerly awaits her return by send-
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Sunset Boulevard/299
ing her bogus fan letters. Joe Gillis, on the other hand, represents a rather inferior substitute
for the dead chimpanzee that he has replaced. Though he may make the actress feel desirable in a way that the ape obviously could not, his ability to talk threatens Norma. For
example, the fact that he initially protests her sexual advances, a rejection which prompts
Norma's suicide attempt, demonstrates the disillusioning menace of his speech.
Despite the inadequacy of Norma's "audience," Max and Joe represent a lifeline connecting her Self to her movie star image. She depends on them primarily because although she
yearns to be seen, she also fears the gaze of the outside world, which would "remind her that
time had passed" (Wilder), and thus further alienate her from her "celluloid self." Norma's
urge to hide manifests itself in her tendency to wear dark glasses, veils, and heavy makeup.
By retiring into her own darkened theater, captivated by the image of herself projected on
the screen, Norma also betrays a compulsion to shun the light that would reveal the ravages
of age. However, while she conceals herself behind a protective wall of images, such as the
row of photographs which adorn her living room, these replications of herself ironically
exacerbate her sense of inferiority, by attesting to her own obsolescence. The narrator contemplates the sinister influence of the ubiquitous images in Norma's mansion, wondering,
"how could she breathe in that house so crowded with Norma Desmonds ?"(Wilder).
Joe's insinuation that Norma's plethora of copies threaten to smother their original, parallels Brunette Willis's discussion in Screen/play , where she suggests that cinematic images
subvert the reality that they seem to represent. She argues that such images
claim to be only slightly different from reality when compared with other forms of representation, more a deferral than a difference. But the effect of such a priority based on proximity to a supposed original is to undermine the integrity of the original and so to throw off
the whole basis for comparison. The problem, of course, is that the closer the copy seems to
be to the original and the more the idea of difference that the copy demonstrates and con-
ceals is suspected to reside within the original itself, the more one comes to conceive of the
original as composed of an interminable series of minute differences and deferrals. (83)
Willis's explication accounts for the ennervating effects of Norma's idolatry. The glamorous appearance of her screen image makes the actress feel inferior. Moreover, the fact that
her celluloid Self does not depend on the real Norma Desmond to sustain its existence
arouses a dismaying sense of illegitimacy. By making Norma feel inauthentic, these images
compel their degraded original to hide behind them. Therefore, the illusions which shield
the star's fragile ego also imprison her in the isolated domain of the imaginary. In other
words, Norma's identification with images that bear a decreasing resemblance to her Self
drives her into a domain of invisibility, that is, her "empty house." The actress's compulsion
to watch her films thus signifies, in part, a masochistic act. The sense that, while a star
graces the screen, Norma herself has become a non-entity, provokes her angry outcry, "I'll
be up there again so help me" (Wilder), and a defiant display of fist-shaking toward her own
image.
Now that this discussion has established the actress's ambivalent relationship with her
ego-ideal, the screen image, one must return to a final, crucial issue in Lacan's Mirror
Stage, which will initiate an investigation of Norma Desmond's war with words. In the
previous citation, one may recall that Lacan describes this phase of development as prelinguistic. This insight is essential to constructing an analysis of Norma's pathology, because her regression into the Mirror Stage represents an escape route out of a world of
disillusioning speech. Considering that her career foundered with the advent of talking pictures, Norma's preference for her pre-linguistic fantasyland hardly seems surprising. Norma
blames language for what she perceives as the film industry's fall from grace, cursing the
words that have overturned her prelapsarian pedestal in silent cinema. She fulminates,
'They're dead, they're finished! There was a time in this business when they had the eyes of
the whole wide world. But that wasn't good enough for them, oh no! They had to have the
ears of the world too. So they opened their big mouths and out came talk - talk, talk!!!"
(Wilder).
Norma's tirade reveals her conviction that the industry's fascination with new technol-
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300 ISunset Boulevard
ogy has crippled the film medium by contriving an unholy union between images and words.
Norma contends that these incompatible words have depleted the motion picture's power to
enchant the viewer. The star projects her resentment onto the writer, Joe Gillis, who for
Norma, embodies the hubris of contemporary Hollywood. She decries, "you've made a
rope of words and strangled this business! But there's a microphone there to catch the last
gurgles and Technicolor to photograph the red swollen tongue! "(Wilder). Norma's derisive
references to the microphone and Technicolor denotes her belief that these innovations have
bastardized the artistry of silent film. However, the fact that her talk of strangulation compels Norma to clench her own throat implies that beneath a façade of concern for the fate of
the film medium, what really haunts the former star is the death of her own career.
Norma's inability to cope with the words that have ruthlessly smashed the silent screen
idol thus accounts for her regression into the Mirror Stage. The urge to bar herself from the
outside world manifests her fear that words will infiltrate her imaginary realm. Of course,
as previously mentioned, the images surrounding Norma also promote her desire to hide
from the world, feeding the actress's paranoia that words may sunder the tenuous bond
between her Self and her ego-ideal. This anxiety explains her defensive manuever of creating a script large enough for "six important pictures" but short on conversation. When the
enemy ultimately penetrates her fortress of illusions, in the person of the writer, Joe Gillis,
the "silent" screenplay awaits him. Unsurprisingly, Norma construes Joe's advice that the
Salomé screenplay needs more dialogue as an attack against visual representation. She fires
back, "Why? I can say anything I want with my eyes " (Wilder).
Norma's aversion toward language forecloses any possibility that her act of inviting the
writer into her home represents an attempt to reconcile the realms of the imaginary and the
symbolic. The actress's interactions with Joe Gillis never assume the dialectical character
of social exchanges. Rather, Norma's conduct toward him always amounts to a one-sided
display of dominance. Her invasive act of transferring Joe's possessions to her own home, a
task which she delegates to Max without consulting her "guest," her continual interference
with Joe's attempts to edit her work, her callousness when he loses his car, her unilateral
decisions on how he should dress, and her relentless surveillance of Joe's every move, all
exemplify Norma's strategy to neutralize the disillusioning threat of language by denying
the writer any autonomy whatsoever.
Norma does not simply desire to crush Joe's independence, however; she also wishes to
convert him to her way of thinking. For example, while they watch one of her silent films,
Norma avers, "Still wonderful, isn't it? And no dialogue. We didn't need dialogue, we had
faces " (Wilder). Norma's remarks endeavor to lure Joe into her own idolatry. She suggests
that the grandeur of the star's face renders speech superfluous and distracting. Her pantomimic routines as the Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty and as the "Little Tramp" also intend to
challenge Joe Gillis's commitment to language. Such performances advocate the immortality of the silent spectacle. Norma's effort to seduce Joe at her New Year's party further
exerts a manipulative influence over the writer. By arranging an intimate celebration for just
the two of them, as if their love affair had already begun, Norma strives to preempt any
doubts regarding the desirability of the screen idol.
Although Joe initially recoils at these schemes to brainwash him, by protesting, "don't
you understand that I may have a life of my own?" (Wilder) his increasing complicity in
perpetuating Norma's illusions affirms her dominance over him and thus corroborates her
belief in her own star power. Norma's renewed confidence that an adoring audience awaits
her return emboldens the actress to venture out of her haven more frequently. In addition to
taking Joe shopping and to parties, Norma delivers her script to Paramount personally. When
a security officer fails to recognize the actress and attempts to deny her admission onto the
lot, Norma admonishes the deferential guard who approves her entry to teach his impudent
friend how to treat a star with proper respect. She brags, "without me, he wouldn't have any
job, because without me, there wouldn't be any Paramount studio" (Wilder). Norma's narcissistic assertion manifests her misguided belief that she has created Paramount and that it
cannot survive without her, a delusion which Joe has wrongfully invigorated by ghostwrit-
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Sunset BoulevardßOi
ing her fatuous script and by playing the role of the obsequious lover.
Norma's subsequent discovery that Joe's show of submission has been a charade threatens, therefore, to annihilate the actress's delusions of grandeur. When Norma finds the evidence of Joe's betrayal, the "Untitled Love-Story" he has written with Betty Shaffer, she
strives to stave off the crisis by exposing the details of Joe's parasitic existence to her rival.
Norma's scheme backfires, however, motivating her heretofore spineless companion not
only to abandon her but also provoking him to belie her most precious illusions. Wielding
the iconoclastic words which had smashed the idols of the silent screen, the writer resurrects the trauma of Norma's lost career by informing her that Paramount does not want her
and that only Max writes her fan letters. The terrifying revelations that Joe intends to leave
the actress to her "empty house" and has also sought to sunder the lifeline connecting Norma
to her celluloid image, compels her to murder the back-stabbing writer.
By killing the man who, for Norma, embodied the treachery of language, the actress
severs all ties to a reality beyond her imaginary realm. Norma transforms the scene of her
crime into a movie set, performing Salomé's veil dance even as the officers within her home
prepare to arrest her. This detachment from reality represents a pathetic victory for the
forgotten star; by allowing madness to devour her own identity, Norma revives her "celluloid self." Norma's assurance that she has resurrected her screen idol image is painfully
evident when she addresses her "entourage." She announces triumphantly,
I just want to tell you all how happy I am to be back in the studio making a picture again!
You don't know how much I've missed all of you. And I promise you, I'll never desert you
again, because after Salomé we'll make another picture and another picture! You see this is
my life. It always will be! There 's nothing else - just us - and the cameras - and those wonderful people out there in the dark. (Wilder, emphasis added)
In dramatizing the ill-fated union of Joe Gillis and Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard
speaks volumes about the film industry but also paints a very controversial picture of it. The
movie's message parallels Joe's faith in the power of words to define reality, by asserting its
own ability to expose various facts about the film medium. In polarizing the roles of word
and image, Sunset Boulevard elucidates the underlying tension between movie professionals, emphasizing the creative differences and the bitter struggles for authorship which arise
during film production. By tearing the sutures between sound and spectacle, the movie
deconstructs the superficial unity of its own medium, presenting the film as a patchwork of
disparate parts, each vying for recognition.
Wilder's picture also reveals and reflects upon the history of cinema. The split between
words and images in Sunset Boulevard reenacts the historical debate concerning the merits
of silent versus talking pictures. The popular conviction that sound had upstaged silent film
in the height of its glory sent many prominent critics scrambling to defend the primacy of
the cinematic image. Erwin Panofsky, for example, argues that despite the advent of sound,
the film's "substance remains a series of visual sequences held together by a uninterrupted
flow of movement in space . . . and not a sustained study in human character and destiny
transmitted by effective, let alone 'beautiful diction'" (156). While Panofsky seeks to suppress the aesthetic aspirations of the screenwriter by denying the motion picture's capacity
to convey "effective, let alone 'beautiful diction,' Sunset Boulevard affirms the film script's
creative potential. Its own Academy Award- winning screenplay challenges Panofsky 's denigration of cinematic speech, flouting the restrictions he attempts to impose upon it, and
further, contests his belief in the hegemony of visual representation. Sunset Boulevard exemplifies that a preponderance of clever dialogue, in combination with a literary style of
narration, hardly compromises the film's ability to engage the audience, even as the script
exerts its power to rein in the image by interpreting the visual signs presented to its viewers.
While Wilder's film attests that well-crafted words enrich the motion picture medium,
Sunset Boulevard also expresses sympathy for those who were sacrificed at the altar of
sound technology. The pitiful plight of Norma Desmond reveals how Hollywood's fascination with this technical innovation, and the sensation that these talking pictures produced
among movie audiences, induced the film industry to treat its silent stars as obsolete mer-
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3021 Sunset Boulevard
chandise. In "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," Walter Benjamin
accounts for the fickleness of movie fans and film producers in endorsing screen idols. He
contends, "The cult of the movie star, fostered by the money of the film industry, preserves
not the unique aura of the person but the 'spell of the personality'; the phony spell of the
commodity (624). Benjamin's assertion underscores the fact that the success of the motion
picture industry depends upon its ability to attract a capricious and easily bored audience by
promoting enticing new commodities. In describing the untimely demise of Norma
Desmond's silent film career, Sunset Boulevard suggests that in the case of talking pictures,
Hollywood demanded fresh faces to usher in its new age of sound.
In an essay titled, "Film and Theater," Susan Sontag offers a different perspective on the
history of cinema. Rather than evaluating the industry's strategy of inventing commodities
that cater to its audience, Sontag elucidates the ways in which the movie medium embalms
its own past. She explains,
the youngest of the arts is also the one most heavily burdened with memory . . . Movies
resurrect the beautiful dead; present intact vanished or ruined environments; employ, without irony, styles and fashions that seem funny today; solemnly ponder irrelevant or naive
problems. The historical flavor of anything registered on celluloid is so vivid that practically all films older than two years or so are saturated with a kind of pathos. (260) Sunset
Boulevard addresses issues similar to those that Sontag has raised, insofar as they relate to
the movie industry's infatuation with novelty, and to the casualties that such an infatuation
inflicts. By assimilating certain anachronistic elements into its portrait of modern Hollywood, Wilder's picture emphasizes that despite the industry's eagerness to efface its history
in order to embrace the latest trends in film, movies nevertheless preserve the remnants of
their own defunct past.
In ascertaining the thematic significance of these anachronistic elements, one may first
note that while Wilder sustains cinematic tradition by filming in black-and-white, Sunset
Boulevard alludes to Technicolor. Ironically, the character who embodies an extinct era of
movie history, Norma Desmond, articulates the film's awareness of and ambivalence toward this innovation. The former screen idol punctuates her tirade against talking film with
the sardonic remark that Technicolor can film the "red swollen tongue" of an industry
strangled by its own rampant technology. The anachronistic presence of a real silent star,
Gloria Swanson, in the film's leading role, signifies the most salient means by which Sunset
Boulevard exhumes a cinematic history that the Hollywood industry first preserved on film
and then buried beneath myriads of trendy new movies. Wilder's picture pairs the lost art of
silent film acting alongside a quintessentially modern performance. Gloria Swanson's gran-
diose gestures and exaggerated expressions contrast so strikingly with William Holden's
understated performance that the discrepancy in their acting styles seems to rupture the
cinematic space that the two actors share. The incongruity between these two representatives of old and new Hollywood underscores the antagonism between those filmmakers
who would build upon the cinema's artistic traditions and those who would depart from
them in favor of innovations that will attract movie audiences.
While Sunset Boulevard offers insights about its own medium and asserts its ability to
expose various facts about the film industry, it also demonstrates the power of cinematic
images to distort an audience's perception of reality. Wilder's fictional account parallels the
real lives of two leading cast members, Gloria Swanson and Erich von Stroheim. Art imi-
tates life in that Norma Desmond's fictitious career foundered at the same time that Gloria
Swanson's real one did, when the advent of talking pictures eclipsed many of the luminaries
of silent film. Also, like her fictional counterpart, Gloria Swanson's first starring role was
directed by Cecil De Mille, as were her most successful films thereafter. Furthermore, when
Norma Desmond's servant, Max, informs Joe Gillis that in the days of silent film "There
were three young directors who showed promise . . . D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. De Mille and
Max von Mayerling" (Wilder), the actor who plays Max, Erich von Stroheim, is actually
referring to himself. Sunset Boulevard also includes footage from his unreleased film, Queen
Kelly , starring Gloria Swanson, a debacle which ended his career as a director. Wilder fur-
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Sunset BoulevardßOl
ther incorporates elements of real life into his film by recruiting Cecil De Mille, Buster
Keaton, Anna Nilson, H.B. Warner, Hedda Hopper, and Jay Livingston to play themselves,
and by making Paramount, the studio that produced Sunset Boulevard , a subject of the film.
Such verisimilitude does not merely provide the resources with which the movie can
create a credible depiction of modern Hollywood; it also blurs the boundaries between
appearance and reality, and thus compels the audience to identify with Norma Desmond's
delusional world. Like Norma, who lives vicariously through her celluloid self, the audience cannot necessarily distinguish the borderline where facts end and fiction begins. As
the audience attempts to analyze the film's insights into cinematic history and to examine
the revelations it imparts about its own medium, Sunset Boulevard lures diese viewers into
its own grim picture of a self-serving and vicious industry, a Hollywood haunted by the
vengeful ghosts of its own past.
Katelin Trowbridge
New York University
Works Cited
Benjamin, Walter. 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in Film Theory and Criticism , Eds.
Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen. London and New York: Oxford UP, 1974. 624.
Lacan, Jacques. "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience,"
in Modern Literary Theory. Eds. Philip Rice and Patricia Waugh. London and New York:
Routledge 1989.
Panofsky, Erwin. "Style and Medium in Motion Pictures," in Film Theory and Criticism. Eds. Gerald Mast and
Marshall Cohen. London and New York: Oxford UP, 1974. 156-65.
Sontag, Susan. "Film and Theater." Film Theory and Criticism. Eds. Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen. London and
New York: Oxford UP, 1974. 260.
Wilder, Billy, dir. Sunset Boulevard. Perf. Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich von Stroheim and Nancy Olson,
Paramount Pictures, 1950.
Willis, Brunette. Screen/play. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1989.
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"Sunset Boulevard": Illusion and Dementia
Author(s): Joan F. DEAN
Source: Revue française d'études américaines , Février84, No. 19, HOLLYWOOD AU
MIROIR / HOLLYWOOD, FACT AND FICTION (Février84), pp. 89-98
Published by: Editions Belin
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20873130
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Sunset Boulevard : Illusion and Dementia
BY
Joan F. DEAN
Sunset Boulevard is among the most ascerbic, uncompromised
films ever made about the movie business. Its cynicism about Holly
wood is rivalled only by that of John Schlesinger's adaptation of
Nathanael West's novella The Day of the Locust (1975). The scathing
bitterness of Sunset Boulevard results not from its depiction of an
apocalyptic nightmare, but from its verisimilitude, especially in the
film's casting. Several of the characters - Buster Keaton, H.B. War
ner (who played Jesus Christ in King of Kings (1927)), Hedda Hopper,
and Anna Q. Nilsson - play themselves in extremely unflattering
fashion; moreover, Norma Desmond seems to be none other than
Gloria Swanson after she has discarded the last of the seven veils in
the dance of Salome. Swanson actually was a Mack Sennett Bathing
Beauty. She did indeed make the silent film Queen Ketty (1928) that
she watches and was directed in it by Eric von Stroheim. Swanson
might legitimately claim, as Norma does, credit for a large mea
sure of the success Paramount Studios enjoyed in the 1920's.
The agonizing realism of Sunset Boulevard accounts not only for
the film's durability, but also for its shock value. Predicated on the
certainty that audiences of any era can confound reality and illusion,
the film's impact depends on the candid, sometimes ruthless depic
* University of Missouri at Kansas City.
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JOAN F. DEAN
tion of the illusions that sustain any film. Billy Wilder recalls, not
without some pride, the outrage with which the film initially was
met. He was, after all, the magician who had revealed his powers as
mere trickery; worse, in the eyes of many, he had confirmed popular
suspicions about the depravity of Hollywood. Wilder remembers that
Louis B. Mayer's response was akin to the wrath of God : We
should horsewhip this Wilder ! We should throw him out of this
town ! He has dirtied the nest ! He brought disgrace on the town
that is feeding him ! 2 But five years after Sunset Boulevard was
released, Theda Bara, the quintessential Hollywood vamp of silent
movies, would confirm the premise of Wilder's film : To undestand
those days [the era of silent film], you must consider that people
believed what they saw on the screen. Nobody had destroyed the
grand illusion. They thought the stars of the screen were the way
they saw them. Now they know it's all just make-believe.
Sunset Boulevard ranks among the finest and most enduring works
of Billy Wilder, who here, as in all his directorial efforts, also contri
buted to the screenplay. It is characteristic of Wilder's work between
1944, when he made Double Indemnity, and the early 1950's when his
tone was lightened by a penchant for sardonic comedies such as The
Seven Year Itch (1955), Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment
(1960). Along with Double Indemnity and The Lost Week End (1945),
Sunset Boulevard deals directly with Wilder's most distinctive the
mes of this period : obsession, failure and madness. Like Walter Neff,
the failed salesman obsessed with money (played by Fred MacMur
ray) in Double Indemnity and Don Birnam, the failed writer consum
ed by alcoholism (played by Ray Milland) in The Lost Week End, both
of the principal characters in Sunset Boulevard are plagued by their
failures, their unrealized potential. Joe Gillis, played by William
Holden, tells us that his prospects added up to zero ; that he has
lost his touch. Norma, who is at the age of 50 still obsessed by
the youth, beauty and fame of her film career, has not worked in
twenty years. Like Wilder's earlier characters whose lives are marked
by frustration and failure, Norma and Joe are willing to explore vir
tually any possibility to succeed. They have grown so desperate that
they are primed to appear grotesque or ridiculous.
As Gordon Gow points out in Hollywood in the Fifties, Sunset Bou
levard along with All About Eve (also 1950) were the first of a number
of films about the entertainment business to appear in the fifties.
The Star (1952, Stuart Hesler), A Star is Born (1954, George Cukor),
Executive Suite (1954, Robert Wise), The Country Girl (1954, George
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SUNSET BOULEVARD I ILLUSION AND DEMENTIA
91
Seaton), The Barefoot Count essa (1955, Joseph L. Mankiewicz),
Jeanne Eagels (1957, George Sidney), and The Goddess (1958, John
Cromwell) were all to follow.2 Wilder's particular approach to this
subject was a systematic inversion of the formula and conventions
of the back-stage movie. That formula had been used hundreds
of times in films ranging from the Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland
movies epitomized by Babes in Arms (1938), through cinematic adap
tations of plays such as 42nd Street (1932), and would reach its apo
theosis in the best known movie about movies, Singin' in the Rain
(1952). By 1950 the plot of the backstage movie had already become
a clich : a talented, beautiful aspiring actress meets a cagey, inven
tive writer and their collaboration produces a smash hit and true
love for them both. In Sunset Boulevard this pattern is completely
inverted : Norma's final performance does indeed result from her col
laboration with Joe, but it is infused with madness and occasioned
by Joe's death.
Focusing on death and madness, Sunset Boulevard appropriately
employs a murky, invidious atmosphere that recalls Wilder's earlier
works in film noir style. Wilder marshals many of the devices of film
noir without allowing them to intrude upon the film's realism so that
the style of Sunset Boulevard underscores its themes. The opening
scenes suggest the makings of conventional film noir : the wail of
the police sirens, the faded opulence of the mysterious mansion, the
aroma of ill-gotten goods. In this particular underworld, however,
people hide themselves not from private eyes, but from the public
eye. As Joe's tale unfolds, it is fraught with images of death : his own
corpse floating in the pool; the remains of Norma's pet chimp laid
out and later buried; his own voice which reminds us that his narra
tion comes from beyond the grave. Joe, then, takes refuge from his
creditors behind the same barriers that Norma has raised against her
once devoted audiences. A complex of walls, gates, doors, gauzes,
screens, glasses, and veils seclude Norma in her delusions and shield
her from the reality of the outside world. The first time she is seen
in the film she is screened by two such devices; she is standing behind
a bamboo blind wearing her sunglasses as she calls out Young man,
why have you kept me waiting so long ? Wilder carefully wrings
suspense from Joe's passage through these barriers and sustains it
throughout the film as the truth is revealed only in installments.
The debt to film noir style can also be seen in the shabby room
over the garage to which Joe is first assigned. Its bare light bulb
and naked walls recall the seedy hide-outs used by everyone from
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JOAN F. DEAN
James Cagney in The Public Enemy (1931) to James Caan in The
Godfather (1972); everyone, that is, on the lam. Furthermore, the
black and white stock Wilder chose is ideally suited not only to the
realism of Sunset Boulevard, but also to the creation of the oppres
sive atmosphere typical of film noir. And whereas the physical vio
lence of film noir is some-what lacking, Wilder has substituted the
wrenching psychic violence that permeates Sunset Boulevard.
The stark contrast between the film's interiors and its exteriors, a
contrast all the more evident in black and white, reinforces the cha
racter development of Norma. Norma is entirely ambivalent towards
light. She craves the spotlight but is most comfortable when enve
loped in darkness - the darkness, for instance, created by her sun
glasses (which are worn even indoors); the darkness in which she
watches herself in Queen Kelly. Light will, of course, reveal the rava
ges of age and in her aversion to light and her fear of age, Norma
evokes the comparison of herself and Blanche de Bois, the heroine
of Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire. (Williams's play
had appeared on the New York stage three years before Sunset
Boulevard; Elia Kazan's film version would appear the year after
Wilder's film.) Like Norma, Blanche is obsessed by her fear of age
(and, indirectly, of death) and distances herself from reality by
living in the past. Both come to rely on what Williams terms the
kindness of strangers, calling upon others to perpetuate their illu
sions, to play parts in the scenarios they have scripted. As Blanche
puts it, I don't want reality, I want magic ! - words that might
easily have come from Norma. Blanche and especially Norma are gro
tesque in their refusal to accept the passage of time, chilling in their
sexuality (particularly in relationship with a younger man), and
detached from reality because of their illusions. Both end in mad
ness : Blanche vainly awaits the arrival of her phantom beau, Shep
Huntley; Norma, the arrival of Cecil B. de Mille.
The California setting makes Wilder's treatment of light and dark
ness even more a study in contrast. The very first image of the film
establishes that this is California, that this certainly is Hollywood,
that, indeed, this is the celebrated Sunset Boulevard. But Wilder's
starting point is the gutter and from there the film plumbs the
depth of depravity and dementia, California-style. Even the mansion
itself, which actually once belonged to J. Paul Getty, suggests the
nefarious as it is overtaken with what Joe describes as creeping
paralysis. On closer inspection, house appears as a wasteland. Wild
er provides a visual analogue to T.S. Eliot's rats, feet over broken
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SUNSET BOULEVARD : ILLUSION AND DEMENTIA
93
glass as Joe spies the vermin in the swimming pool. The Hollywood
landscape is also ideally suited to Wilder's cynicism because in
the world he portrays there are few innocents to be corrupted. While
Betty Schaeffer, Joe's perky young acquaintance from the studio, and
her fianc represent the world in which the girls are still young
enough to believe the promises of casting directors, the rest of South
ern California, particularly the rich, the old, and the unsuccessful, are
almost universally corrupt. California is that land where furniture is
overstuffed like everything else ; where a clothing salesman can
recommend that Joe choose only the most expensive clothing as
long as the lady's paying ; where legends are unfortunately embo
died in human flesh.
In revealing the film's distinctively American quality, the Califor
nia setting is geographically as well as metaphorically appropriate.
Joe's story can be summarized to show how typically American it
is : a young, independent, adventuresome man filled with vitality,
intelligence, and physical prowess seeks to prove himself by going
west. Once he reaches the frontier, which in this case proves to be
the moral wilderness of Hollywood, his innocence and instinctive
goodness are challenged by the allure of money and pleasure. He must
first recognize that, true to the Puritan scheme of things, money plus
pleasure is bound to equal evil and, having recognized evil for what it
is, he then must overpower and escape it.
Similarly, Norma's story is as characteristically American as Joe's
although it is more often found in fact than fiction. Here is the story
of enormous fame achieved in youth, followed by a great gaping
void (otherwise known as middle age), and finally an attempt at that
remarkably American phenomenon, the comeback. (Norma, of course,
recognizes this pattern for exactly what it is and loathes the word
comeback preferring the euphemistic term return. ) The bru
tality of a system that creates the immense celebrity Norma once
enjoyed is underscored by Cecil B. DeMille's remark, A dozen press
agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spi
rit. Like the legions of Americans whose youthful fame destroyed
them or drove them to self-destruction (the Marilyn Monroes, Janis
Joplins, Freddy Prinzes, Lenny Bruces, Jimi Hendrixes, Jim Morri
sons, John Belushis, Montgomery Clifts, Elvis Presleys, the Bills of
Bill Hailey and the Comets, the Dannys of Danny and the Juniors),
Norma's biography follows the dictum set forth by F. Scott Fitzge
rald in The Last Tycoon : There are no second acts in Americans
lives.
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94
JOAN F. DEAN
Any physical contact between Joe and Norma is doomed by a parti
cularly rigid taboo against even an honest or platonic relationship
between an older woman, especially a wealthy one, and a younger
man, especially a virile but penniless one. In Tennessee William's
Sweet Bird of Youth (play, 1959; film, 1963), for instance, the gigolo
client relationship is, as in Sunset Boulevard, a humiliation, a com
promise, and ultimately an admission of failure for the man. When
treated hyperbolically and with exquisite irony and delicacy by Hal
Ashby, the older woman/younger man relationship could produce
a moving comedy, Harold and Maud. Although Wilder, too,
had begun with the idea that this relationship could be treated comi
cally (intending Mae West in the role of Norma), later, Wilder
says, it evolved into a tragic story. 3 The strength of this taboo is
also confirmed by the fact that the part of Joe was originally written
expressly for Montgomery Clift who turned it down expressly because
he did not want to be seen making love to an older woman. In the
film itself, Joe's nightmare reaffirms the idea that he is replacing the
dead chimp as the object of Norma's attention and affection; in his
dream, the chimp is dancing for pennies as Joe later will at Norma's
New Year's party. When fully conscious Joe makes the same erro
neous assumptions about his profession as does his colleague played
by Richard Gere in Paul Schrader's American Gigolo (1980). Both
mistakenly believe that they control their situation, that they have
the freedom to walk away from their trade when they choose, that
they can still reclaim their integrity. Both Sunset Boulevard and
American Gigolo rely upon superb scenes of reversal when the gigolo
finds himself trapped, that is, exploited by the very situation he him
self sought to exploit.
This pattern of reversals is corroborated by the feelings the film
elicits for its characters - feelings that are rarely wholly negative
or positive. If characters are young, good-looking, and wholesome,
like Betty Schaeffer, they are also ignorant, chose to remain so, and
are inclined to sentimentally. For Joe, too, there is a decided ambiva
lence in both his actions and our response to them. Twice he decides
to admit his failure and return to an enervating job as a reporter in
Dayton, Ohio. The first time, he changes his mind, thinking he can
use Norma to his own ends. By the time he realizes that Norma can
exploit him more than he can exploit her and again decides to leave,
it is too late as Norma has purchased the revolver, pointed it at his
back, and fired three times. Similarly, the character of Max, played
by Eric von Stroheim, is a morass of admirable intentions gone awry.
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SUNSET BOULEVARD : ILLUSION AND DEMENTIA
95
The development of Max's character can be charted by the successive
revealations as to who he really is. First, Joe learns that he is the
author of Norma's fan mail; then, that he was her first husband; and
finally, that he discovered Norma and directed her pictures. Simul
taneously Max is portrayed as the despoiler of the sweetest sixteen
year old girl you ever met and as the man who has sacrificed the
most promising of careers (on a par with those of D.W. Griffith and
Cecil B. DeMille) to devote himself to Norma. If, as Richard Corliss
suggests in Talking Pictures, Sunset Boulevard is the definitive
Hollywood horror movie, 4 then Max is Dr. Frankenstein and Norma
the monster he has created but can no longer control.
There is much about Norma's character to suggest that she was
artificially created rather than naturally born. She has little contact
with life or reality and what contact does exist is a constant source
of anxiety and frustration for her. To combat reality she deploys an
arsenal of straps, masks, gadgets, and devices. She is most comforta
ble, most herself, truest to her self image when she plays one of the
many scenes carefully scripted as a star vehicle for herself : the
solemn ritual of her pet chimp's interment; her auto-voyeurism in
watching her own pictures; her romantic New Year's Eve assignation
with Joe; her suicide attempt; her final mad scene as the Princess
(not the Queen) descending the grand staircase while the cameras
roll. She has surrounded herself with scores of images, photographs
of herself, that suggest how completely fragmented her personality
truly is. She is most real to herself when preserved on celluloid. To
use Jean Genet's terminology from Le Balcon, she has installed her
self in la nomenclature and now exists on an entirely abstract and
immortal plane. Although much has been written about the ghoulish
nature of Norma - her consummate vanity, her predatory nature,
her fiendish domination of others - it is essential that the film elicit
some measure of sympathy for her. Max's disclosures establish a
trace of compassion, but more important is DeMille's treatment of
her. As DeMille explains to an impatient assistant, Norma's delusions
are the inevitable by-product of the system which they support and
which, in turn, supports them.
By the time of this sequence with DeMille, Wilder has shown the
ambivalence if not schizophrenia of the principal characters, as well
as the fact that the same act can be simultaneously cruel and kind.
Hence, the obliging Jones at the gate of Paramount Studios, who
recognizes Norma from the old days and admits her, and even
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96
JOAN F. DEAN
DeMille himself reinforce Norma's illusions and inadvertantly make
it even less probable that she can be reconciled with reality.
The main characters of Sunset Boulevard, Joe and Norma, are
ideally suited to one another. Both are vain, egotistical, and self-seek
ing. They seem to share the sentiments voiced by the title character
in William Gaddis's J.R., maybe we can use one another. Implicit
in their mutual exploitation and corruption is the analoguous rela
tionship between the star and her public. The public may be ador
ing, agog, and awe-struck, but it is also vicious, fickle, and demanding.
Norma did indeed receive 17,000 fan letters in one week, but, as
DeMille says, thirty million people have forgotten her. The star needs
her public, but builds barriers against it; she loves her audience, but
also despises it. That relationship between the star and her public
is epitomized in a brief story recounted by Max : A wealthy mahara
jah paid court to Norma, besieging her for weeks, begging only for
a discarded silk stocking. Once he had it, he used the stocking to hang
himself, thereby drawing Norma into complicity in his suicide. Again,
cruelty and kindness are confounded, inseparable.
These reciprocal and corrupting relationships, between the public
and the star, between Joe and Norma, confirm the fundamental pessi
mism of Wilder's film. Even sincerely good intentions misfire and the
best laid plans end in ruins. Furthermore, the ambivalence of the
personalities involved, Norma's madness, the web of illusions in
which the characters find themselves trapped, belie any possibility
for a happy ending. Even the truth will not set them free. Norma
cannot be saved by the truth, only destroyed by it. At the film's end,
Joe finds himself in a similar situation : he can no longer abide the
suffocating atmosphere of Norma's star presence yet he knows has
succombed to the power of her illusions, believes that she has trans
cended the limits of morality and mortality, and remarks, stars are
ageless, aren't they ? just before killing her lover. Moreover, if there
is a path left toward innocence, it is also the way of ignorance. Thus,
when Betty finally breaks with Joe, she leaves Norma's mansion
refusing to register the truth, denying that she has seen what she has
seen, and heard what she heard. Indeed, Betty walks out on Joe to
retain her own illusions, which appear as ideals but are nonetheless
very much like the illusions of Norma's public. Rather than face the
truth, Betty chooses to deny it altogether.
Herein lies an important connection between Sunset Boulevard and
a theme which frequently surfaces in modern theatre and film. That
theme, in general, is related to the larger questions of illusion and
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SUNSET BOULEVARD : ILLUSION AND DEMENTIA
97
reality, madness and belief, but one specifically modern variation
examines what happens when illusions have been stripped away
and only the bare truth remains. Once divested of illusions and
forced to confront reality directly, can man sustain life and support
hope ? It is the question posed in Ibsen's The Wild Duck, the title
of which indicates the play's symbol of illusion and hope. In O'Neill's
The Iceman Cometh, the theme is played out as one character,
Hickey, a recent convert to truth-telling, sets out to save the denizens
of Harry Hope's bar from their pipedreams. In more whimsical
fashion, this theme also appears in The Wizard of Oz when the cur
tain is drawn back and Dorothy discovers that there is no real
wizard, only an old man creating the illusion of omnipotence. Per
haps the bleakest treatment of this theme appears in Genet's Le
Balcon in which the human condition seems to be nothing more
than an intricate network of illusions tenuously strung together and
universally ensnaring. In Sunset Boulevard Wilder demonstrates that
the movies, for all their power, are ultimately only an enormous
complex of illusions. That movies can create gods and goddesses,
along with their attendant myths, legends, and apocrypha is never
in question. In the case of movies, those myths are attached to a
human being and therein lies the seed of Norma Desmond's tragedy.
Like characters in Walker Percy's The Moviegoer and David Madden's
Bijou, Norma is most real when ensconced in the illusion of film.
Her madness is the ultimate result of her confusion of reality and
illusion and her inability to distinguish herself from her celluloid
image. As Joe says of her at the film's end, the dream she had
clung to had enfolded her ; as Norma says of herself, This is my
life, the movies... there's nothing else. Just me and the cameras.
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NOTES
1. Billy Wilder, The Celluloid Muse: Hollywood Directors Speak, ed.
Charles Higham and Joel Creenberg (New York : New American Library, 1969),
p. 284.
2. Gordon Gow, Hollywood in the Fifties (New York : A.S. Barnes, 1971), p. 147.
3. The Celluloid Muse, p. 283.
4. Richard Corliss, Talking Pictures : Screenwriters in the American Cinema
(New York: Penguin, 1975), p. 147.
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Word & Image
A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry
ISSN: 0266-6286 (Print) 1943-2178 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/twim20
Allegorizing cinema: word, image, and motion in
Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard
Mario Klarer
To cite this article: Mario Klarer (2015) Allegorizing cinema: word, image, and motion in Billy
Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, Word & Image, 31:4, 450-458, DOI: 10.1080/02666286.2015.1053039
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02666286.2015.1053039
Published online: 16 Oct 2015.
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https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=twim20
Allegorizing cinema: word, image,
and motion in Billy Wilder’s
Sunset Boulevard
MARIO KLARER
When William Blake wrote in A Vision of the Last Judgment (1810) that “Time &
Space are Real Beings, a Male & a Female. Time is a Man, Space is a
Woman,” he pinpointed a latent gender stereotype in Western thinking.1 As
a poet-painter, Blake obviously conceived of time and space in Gotthold
Ephraim Lessing’s famous dichotomy; Lessing in his Laocoön categorized
literature as a temporal and painting as a spatial art. Even Lessing had
subliminally evoked a gender-specific deep structure associated with the arts
when he, for example, condemned the influence of French literary pictorialism as an effeminization of masculine German poetry.2 It is therefore not
surprising that the medium of film, which combines the temporal and the
spatial in multi-faceted ways, uses these gender terms for meta-cinematic
reflections. According to Lessing’s conceptual grid, film would employ
spatiality, or the spatial arts, by relying on visual images, and it would
feature temporality, or temporal art, by joining pictures with language.
However, temporality is not only present through superimposing syntactical
speech over silent pictures, but also literally through converting still photographs into a temporal succession, thus producing moving images. Film is
therefore, at least when conceptualized through the traditional binaries of
time and space, a multi-layered hybrid of these two contending dimensions.
Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950) is a striking example of how these
meta-cinematic dimensions can be rendered in a major feature film. In a
manner reminiscent of medieval allegorical personification, Wilder incorporates Time and Space, or Word and Image as physical human beings, in the
manner of Blake: “Time & Space are Real Beings, a Male & a Female.”3
Sunset Boulevard is the story of a destitute scriptwriter, Joe Gillis (William
Holden), an aging silent movie diva, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson),
and her butler, Max von Mayerling (Erich von Stroheim). Chased by
car repossessors, Gillis accidentally maneuvers his car with a blown-out
tire into Desmond’s driveway on Sunset Boulevard, using her garage as a
hiding place. Mistaking him for an undertaker who is supposed to dispose of
a dead pet monkey, the butler asks Gillis into the mansion. When Norma
Desmond realizes that Gillis is a scriptwriter for the Hollywood talkies
industry, she hires him to rewrite her own movie script, The Story of Salome.
Gillis accepts the offer as an unavoidable escape from his dreary financial
and professional situation. However, he soon realizes that the script which
Norma considers her ticket to a successful comeback as a movie star is too
bad for any studio to accept, and he also learns that Norma is too stubborn
to accept any of his proposed changes. Given his financial troubles and his
physical immobility –– the financing company soon found his car and towed
450
WORD & IMAGE, VOL.
1 – William Blake, The Portable Blake, ed.
Alfred Kazin (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1979), 667.
2 – On the gender-specific dimension of
Lessing’s Laocoön, see “Space and Time:
Lessing’s Laocoon and the Politics of Genre,”
in W. J. T. Mitchell, Iconology: Image, Text,
Ideology (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1986), 95–115, particularly the charts
on p. 110; see also W. J. T. Mitchell,
“Ekphrasis and the Other,” South Atlantic
Quarterly 91, no. 3 (1992): 698–719, at 698.
3 – Blake, The Portable Blake, 667.
31, NO. 4, OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02666286.2015.1053039
# 2015 Taylor & Francis
it away –– he stays with Norma and eventually becomes her lover. After
Paramount turns down Norma’s script and Gillis threatens to leave her for a
younger woman, Norma shoots Gillis. The voiceover reflections of Gillis,
floating dead in the swimming pool of Desmond’s mansion, are one of the
opening scenes of the movie. The plot leading up to Gillis’s death unfolds as
a long flashback, continuously commented on by the first-person narration
of the deceased protagonist.
It is quite obvious that Wilder, when staging Norma and Gillis’s first
meeting, also suggests an allegorical encounter between the two major
structural features of modern movies — Word and Image. Here the allegorical Image, the diva of the old days of silent film, engages in a debate with
the incarnate Word, the scriptwriter of modern talkies.
GILLIS:
NORMA:
GILLIS:
NORMA:
GILLIS:
NORMA:
GILLIS:
NORMA:
4 – Quotation from the typescript of the
screenplay for Sunset Boulevard. Charles
Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D. M.
Marshman, Jr., Sunset Boulevard (Paramount
Pictures Inc. P. 11454, March 21, 1949; rev.
through July 19, 1949), 22.
5 – Ibid., 37.
I know your face. You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in
pictures. You used to be big.
I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.
I knew there was something wrong with them.
They’re dead. They’re finished. There was a time when this
business had the eyes of the whole wide world. But that wasn’t
good enough. Oh, no! They wanted the ears of the world, too. So
they opened their big mouths, and out came talk, talk, talk . . .
That’s where the popcorn business comes in. You buy yourself a
bag and plug up your ears.
Look at them in the front offices –– the master minds! They took
the idols and smashed them. The Fairbankses and the Chaplins
and the Gilberts and the Valentinos. And who have they got now?
Some nobodies — a lot of pale little frogs croaking pish-posh!
Don’t get sore at me. I’m not an executive. I’m just a writer.
You are! Writing words, words! You’ve made a rope of words and
strangled this business! But there is a microphone right there to
catch the last gurgles, and Technicolor to photograph the red,
swollen tongue!4
Wilder juxtaposes the two figures in the tradition of the paragone, the debate
about the hierarchy of the arts. Norma’s connection to visuality and pictures
is as obvious as Gillis’s association with writing and language. The silent
movie star Norma literally embodies the visual arts, or spatiality, and the
screenwriter Gillis represents language or temporality, a binary which Sunset
Boulevard reinforces on a number of levels through a tightly knit web of
allegorical allusions.
Norma’s self, for example, is closely associated with pictures, stills in
particular (figure 1). When Gillis and Norma quarrel whether or not to cut
a particular scene out of her script, Norma equates her fame with still
images: “Then why do they still write me fan letters every day. Why do
they beg me for my photographs? Because they want to see me, me, me!
Norma Desmond.”5 In the same scene, photographic still images of Norma
become the overbearing presence in the room. “On the table in front of her
are the photographs which she is signing. On the long table in the living
room is a gallery of photographs in various frames –– all Norma Desmond.
451
Figure 1. Still from Sunset Boulevard (1950),
directed by Billy Wilder (Hollywood:
Paramount Home Video, 2004). DVD.
On the piano more photographs. Above the piano an oil portrait of her. On
the highboy beside him still more photographs.”6
Wilder thus uses Norma as one of the fundamental elements of film –– the
still photograph. The immobile image in a photographic frame is like a
framed painting and thus to be associated with the spatial arts. It is therefore
not surprising that Wilder characterizes Norma through spatiality. Gillis, for
example, connects the myriad photographic images of Norma with claustrophobia, insinuating that she takes up so much space that he is left without
any room for himself: “Norma Desmond! Sometimes I felt I couldn’t breathe
in that room, it was too thick with Norma Desmonds. Staring at me,
crowding me, stampeding me –– Norma Desmonds, more Norma
Desmonds, and still more Norma Desmonds.”7
However, it is not necessary to go into detailed interpretive strategies to
uncover Norma’s link to spatiality. She is closely associated with her mansion, whose spatial dimensions the film continuously foregrounds, as in the
script’s directions to the scene when Gillis enters the house for the first time:
“It is grandiose and grim. The whole place is one of those abortions of silentpicture days, with bowling alleys in the cellar and a built-in pipe organ, and
beams imported from Italy, with California termites at work on them.”8
Wilder’s diction in describing spatiality is revealing –– it is abortive, i.e.,
stillborn or dead, rotting away, eaten by vermin.
While Norma’s realm abounds in space, Gillis’s world lacks space but
throbs with movement. Wilder comically contrasts Norma’s “half paralyzed”
mansion, which is “crumbling apart in slow motion,”9 with the tiny but lively
apartment of Gillis’s writer friend Artie: “It is the most modest one-room
affair, jam-packed with young people flowing over into the miniature bathroom and the microscopic kitchenette.”10 Space is of minor importance in
452
MARIO KLARER
6 – Ibid.
7 – Ibid.
8 – Ibid., 19.
9 – Ibid., 31.
10 – Ibid., 55.
11 – Ibid.
12 – Ibid., 56.
13 – Ibid., 63.
14 – Ibid., 15.
15 – Ibid., 17.
16 – Ibid., 23.
17 – Ibid., 29.
18 – Gillis always reflects on his situation in
relation to his car: “I took the rest of the
script and Max led me to the room over the
garage. I thought I’d wangled myself a pretty
good deal. I’d do a little work, my car would
be safe down below, until I got some money
out of her” (ibid., 30).
19 – Ibid., 41.
20 – Ibid.
21 – Ibid., 17.
22 – Ibid.
23 – Ibid., 42.
24 – Ibid., 18.
this world; it is instead characterized by temporal movement or, as we learn
from the directions in the script, “everybody is having a hell of a time.”11
Allegorized time manifests itself in various ways as, for example, in books:
“Artie rolls up the Vicuna coat and tucks it above the books on a bookshelf.”12 When Gillis leaves in a rush, he pulls the coat “from the shelf, some
books tumbling with it.”13 The syntactical, temporal flow, which characterizes writing, produces movement, the major element of Gillis’s allegorical
self.
One of the most powerful symbols that aids the allegorical identity of
Gillis as Word, or temporal movement, is the car. We have to remember
that the delays in Gillis’s car payments serve as the catalyst for the unfolding
plot. Gillis’s self is thus closely associated with his automobile. The car is
both his “auto” — Greek for “self” — as well as his mobility, which is the
major feature of his allegorical persona. As a screenwriter he is, or should be,
endowed with the ability to provide the syntactical movement of language to
the visual images on the screen. Gillis’s professional problems are thus
always linked with car problems. In a conversation with his agent, for
example, he explicitly equates the loss of his car with amputation: “If I
lose my car it’s like having my legs cut off,”14 and the directions in the film
script call Gillis’s car with a flat tire a “limping vehicle.”15 When Norma
Desmond asks Gillis if he really is a writer, he answers “I think that’s what it
says on my driver’s licence,”16 again connecting his persona with cars and
driving, i.e., movement. When Desmond hires Gillis, she makes him stay in
“a room over the garage,”17 thus associating him once more with
automobiles.18
When the financing company finally finds Gillis’s hidden car and tows it,
he engages in a dialogue with Norma about the vital importance of the car
for his self, “a matter of life and death.”19 Norma, however, introduces a
new dimension when she points out that: “We don’t need two cars. We have
a car. And not one of those cheap new things made of chromium and spit.
An Isotta-Fraschini.”20 Upon his first arrival at Norma’s mansion, Gillis was
overwhelmed by the empty car space: “It is an enormous five-car affair,
neglected and empty.”21 On closer inspection, however, he finds a “large
dust-covered Isotta-Fraschini propped up on blocks. . .. It had a 1932 license.
I figured that’s when the owners must have moved out.”22 Thus it has
probably been sitting there for seventeen years.
Until now we have been given the impression that the driver/writer
Gillis is the only “moving agent” in this cinematic allegory. However,
with the old Isotta-Fraschini, Wilder introduces the third allegorical
dimension crucial to the film’s self-reflexive plot, a dimension personified
by Max von Mayerling. When Norma reactivates the old automobile
after Gillis’s car has been repossessed by the financing company, Max
turns out to be the driver and therefore the second male persona linked
to cars, or temporal movement. The script reads: “Max is at the wheel,
dressed as usual except for a chauffeur’s cap.”23 Throughout the film
Max is associated with movement, or the loss of movement, thus structurally resembling Gillis’s “automobile” persona. We learn that Max “is
semi-paralyzed,”24 i.e. restricted in his ability to move or, to express it in
Gillis’s automobile diction, “part of his brain wasn’t hitting on all
453
cylinders.”25 Max’s temporal movement has structural similarities with
that of Gillis but manifests itself in different ways.26
A prime example for Max’s allegorical function is the scene following the
one in which we saw Norma’s living room with hundreds of her still
photographs. Wilder turns Max into the moving agent of cinema by literally
endowing him with the power to make still images move. He superimposes
moving images over framed pictures when a huge oil painting in the living
room turns out to be the cover for Norma’s private movie projection screen.
“Max . . . shoves the painting up towards the ceiling, revealing a motion
picture screen.”27 It is telling that Max is the one who changes the still frame
into a moving one, i.e., transforms “stills” into “movies.” Gillis’s voiceover
reflects on this matter: “They were silent movies, and Max would run the
machine, which was just as well — it kept him from giving us an accompaniment on that rusty organ.”28 Max provides all the temporal movement
that makes the silent film work: the mechanical flow of pictures through the
projection machine and, as we witnessed before, the music that accompanies
silent film.
The allegorical function of Max as the moving, temporal agent receives
full meaning when we learn towards the end of the plot that Max is not just
a servant but also Norma’s former husband and the director of her most
successful movies, including the one being shown in the living room. Not
only is he the moving agent operating the projector but also the prime
mover, the director of the very films he projects. “I directed all her early
pictures. There were three young directors, who showed promise in those
days: D.W. Griffith, C.B. deMille, and Max von Mayerling. . .. You see, I
was her first husband.”29
Wilder even adds another dimension to this meta-cinematic scenario
when he uses part of the unfinished Queen Kelly (1928–), Erich von
Stroheim’s alleged masterpiece, as the inset movie clip projected within
Sunset Boulevard. The figure of Max von Mayerling is not only Norma
Desmond’s former director/husband in the movie but in real life Erich
von Stroheim was the director of the movie Queen Kelly with Gloria
Swanson in the leading role.
An independent producer had commissioned Erich von Stroheim, one of
D.W. Griffith’s most gifted students, to write and later direct Queen Kelly as a
“star vehicle” for Gloria Swanson. However, the project Queen Kelly turned
into a professional disaster for Erich von Stroheim, damaging his reputation
as a director to such a degree that he never fully regained his previous
position in the Hollywood industry. While still shooting parts of Queen Kelly,
von Stroheim was removed from the set at the insistence of Swanson, who
feared that censorship of sexually explicit scenes could harm her public
image. Salvaging Queen Kelly ultimately proved impossible, partly because
of the movie industry’s conversion to talkies. Hollywood’s turn to sound
served as a pretext for Erich von Stroheim’s enemies to deny him further
projects as a director. Wilder thus uses Swanson and Stroheim as major
“real life” figures in the historic struggle between silent film and talkies in the
early 1930s in order to problematize self-reflexively archetypal questions of
cinematic media.
But Wilder also addresses this historical aspect of the Hollywood industry
on a very subliminal level when Norma and Max, for example, bury the
454
MARIO KLARER
25 – Ibid., 31.
26 – For example, he engages in music ––
also a syntactical, temporal activity akin to
language but ultimately different. On his first
morning in the mansion organ music coming
from the main house wakes Gillis. The script
reads “A PAIR OF HANDS IN WHITE GLOVES,
PLAYING THE ORGAN . . . They belong to Max
von Mayerling. He is sitting erect, his bull
neck taut as a wrestler’s as he fights out
somber chord after somber chord” (ibid., 34).
27 – Ibid., 37.
28 – Ibid., 38.
29 – Ibid., 98.
30 – Ibid., 27.
31 – Ibid., 8.
32 – Ibid., 42.
dead chimpanzee, whom Gillis deemed “a very important chimp. The great
grandson of King Kong, maybe.”30 King Kong (1933) was one of the first
widely successful talkies and is therefore an allusion to the death of the silent
movie industry as well as to the birth of a new era in film. The plot of King
Kong, which is also about filmmaking, shares the meta-cinematic bent of
Sunset Boulevard. It is important to remember that in King Kong the movie
director Denham embarks on a journey to a faraway island in order to shoot
a movie.
The alliterative title King Kong parallels as well as provides a contrast with the
equally alliterative title Queen Kelly. In Wilder’s scenario, the “talkative,” male
King Kong is victorious over the female, silent Queen Kelly. When Norma and
Max bury the symbolic successor of King Kong, they do so in the spirit of a new
beginning in which the new Norma Desmond and Max von Mayerling, with the
aid of Joe Gillis, will reshape the Hollywood industry. Also the expired license
plate on the Isotta-Fraschini establishes a connection to King Kong as the turning
point in the Hollywood movie factory. The 1932 plate is only valid until 1933,
the year King Kong was released; 1932 was also the year when Erich von Stroheim
directed his last movie, his only talkie, Walking Down Broadway, which was
released under a different title a year later after massive re-shooting and changes
by a number of other directors. Until 1932 Max von Mayerling’s, i.e. Erich von
Stroheim’s, old Hollywood silent movie industry was still “moving.” When the
new momentum of sound took over, the “old car” was no longer the sole motor
of the medium. The Isotta-Fraschini was put on blocks as a quasi-museum piece
and replaced by the nimbler “Plymouth convertible with the top down,”31 the
screenwriter Gillis’s automobile.
When Wilder places Norma, Gillis, and Max in the Isotta-Fraschini, where
“Max is at the wheel” and “Gillis sits beside Norma”32 (figure 2), he suggests
how in an ideal modern cineastic world all three elements — in this case, all
Figure 2. Still from Sunset Boulevard (1950),
directed by Billy Wilder (Hollywood:
Paramount Home Video, 2004). DVD.
455
allegorical personae — form a symbiotic whole. Max is the driver/director
who provides the motion for Norma, the Image, just as in the days of the silent
movies when the two were a married couple. Now the scenario is different.
Although partly paralyzed, Max still provides motion as the chauffeur but he is
aided by Word, Image’s new lover.
The idyll of the three in the car is not meant to last. This new partnership
has been in danger right from the beginning, partly because of Image’s urge
for dominance. Image, still relying on the resources of Movement, took
Word as her new lover in order to guarantee her eternal fame. Before the
license plate expired in 1933, the partnership of Image and Motion in silent
film promised to make Norma immortal. With the change to talkies the
sexual union of Norma and Max could no longer ensure Image’s eternal
fame. A second sexual partner had to replace “that rusty organ”33 of Max,
substituting Max’s partly paralyzed mobility with the additional, temporal
movement of language.
However, it is clear from the very beginning that female Image only
superficially seeks the aid of masculine Word. Already Norma’s film
script, The Story of Salome, is indicative of a sexual hierarchy that corresponds to the struggle for dominance between the two modes of film.
Salome is the story of decapitation as an allegory of castration. The film
script thus foreshadows the climax of Sunset Boulevard when Norma shoots
Gillis, i.e. Image castrates Word. This castrating power of Image is a
leitmotif in the discussions of media. G.E. Lessing, for example, subliminally evokes it when he associates the visual arts with a doubly mutilated
male guard in a harem: “It is as though a man who can and may speak
were at the same time using those signs which the mutes in the Turkish
seraglio invented among themselves for lack of a voice.”34 Lessing associates visuality with muteness as well as indirectly with castration since the
tongue is not the only organ the guardians in a seraglio are commonly
bereft of. This almost Freudian conceptualizing of the visual arts as
feminine, i.e. an art that is defined through lack (of a penis), predates
Lessing’s Laocoön.
The symbolic equation of visuality and castration is not Lessing’s invention but the gender-specific deep structure of the Medusa myth. The head
of Medusa, surrounded by phallic snakes, is in itself an image of the
castrating power associated with her. Medusa’s petrifying gaze takes
away the (male) individual’s ability to move; it freezes the object of her
vision and turns temporality into spatiality. The power of image is to take
away masculinity, or to put it in French feminist terms, defeat phallogocentrism. W.J.T. Mitchell calls the Medusa myth ekphrastic poetry’s “primal scene.” Medusa is “a dangerous female Other who threatens to silence
the male voice.”35 Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard reenacts this archetypal
situation in which a Salome-like female figure struggles for dominance over
men and by doing so paralyzes Max and kills Gillis; i.e., she freezes
movement into a still image and she silences the word. Wilder’s sexually
charged allegorization of cinematic dimensions therefore very much resembles the representational spirit of the mid-twentieth century informed by a
modernist mimetic climate which is still based on Lessing’s dichotomies of
time and space.
456
MARIO KLARER
33 – Ibid., 38.
34 – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laocoön: An
Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, trans.
Edward Allen McCormick (Baltimore and
London: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1984), 59. The German original reads:
“Wäre es nicht, als ob ein Mensch, der laut
reden kann und darf, sich noch zugleich der
Zeichen bedienen sollte, welche die
Stummen im Serraglio des Türken, aus
Mangel der Stimme, unter sich erfunden
haben?” Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laokoon
oder über die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie, ed.
Kurt Wölfel (Frankfurt a.M.: Insel Verlag,
1988), 81.
35 – Mitchell, “Ekphrasis and the Other,”
709.
36 – Brackett, Wilder, and Marshman, Sunset
Boulevard, 70.
37 – Ibid., 99.
38 – Ibid., 95.
Interestingly enough, Wilder himself undercuts his own gender-specific
allegorization of Word and Image in Sunset Boulevard through the figure of
Batty Schaefer (Nancy Olson), a script reader at Paramount. We encounter
her early in the movie during Gillis’s unsuccessful attempt to sell an idea to a
producer at the studio. She heavily criticizes Gillis’s work but later in the
film, when they meet again, encourages Gillis to rework parts of an older
script together with her. She argues that she does not “want to be a reader
all my life. I want to write.”36 Later on we see the two cooperating on the
movie script for “Untitled Love Story by Joseph C. Gillis and Betty Schaefer.”37
It is dangerous to over-interpret the film’s fourth allegorical figure, the
Reader, who paradoxically turns into a Writer. Wilder thus undermines
the gender binaries of Word and Image which he originally established.
The female figure of Betty Schaefer started out pursuing a career as
Image in the footsteps of Norma Desmond. In a conversation with
Gillis, Betty reveals that she comes from a family which has been connected with the movie industry for generations. “Naturally they took it for
granted I was to become a great star. So I had ten years of dramatic
lessons, diction, dancing. Then the studio made a test. Well, they didn’t
like my nose –– it slanted this way a little. I went to a doctor and had it
fixed. They made more tests, and they were crazy about my nose –– only
they didn’t like my acting.”38 The passage clearly reinforces the stereotypical scenario that Wilder ultimately destroys: Woman is Image, or
supposed to be Image, but Woman can also become Word. By putting
Betty and Gillis as co-authors onto the cover page of the film script
Wilder clearly indicates that their intercourse turned out to be more
fruitful than the one between Gillis and Norma.
The big question that remains to be answered is why Billy Wilder
produces a movie about the transition from silent film to talkies in 1950,
and why is this debate set in 1950 and not in the late 1920s when this issue
was a hot topic. In order to approach this question we have to remember
that the film deals with a major paradigmatic change in the media landscape
that took place in the late 1920s and early 1930s with the introduction of
sound. However, a similar landslide of media change occurred in the late
1940s with the advent of television. Norma subliminally hints at this major
shift from cinema to television in her first encounter with Gillis, when she
claims: “It’s the pictures that got small.” She thereby also suggests that
movies in 1950 have to fit the size of a television screen.
Making recourse to older media constituents is a leitmotif of media
changes in general. For example, in the 1890s emerging film evoked older
media, such as photography, painting, sculpture, or tableaux vivants, in
order to conceptualize the new medium and self-reflexively fashion its own
media theory. Subsequent changes within the medium of film followed this
very logic by re-projecting and grounding these ruptures through evocations
of previous media shifts. It is therefore not surprising that Wilder discusses
the advent of television under the guise of a debate about the transition from
silent movies to talkies.
What is remarkable is that Sunset Boulevard renders the evolution of film
through gender allegorizations that imply heterosexual intercourse. The
transformation of photographic still images into moving pictures is represented through the sexual union of Norma as Image with Max as
457
Movement. For the transition from silent film to talkies Joe as Word needs to
be added to this allegorical sexual exchange. The advent of television as the
final media shift requires a new agent. Betty as the Reader represents the
new television audience as a choosing function. Betty thus stands for the
selective powers that the viewer adopts in the new medium of home
entertainment.
Despite the larger theoretical implications that Billy Wilder’s allegories of
media evoke in Sunset Boulevard there might also be an autobiographically
motivated element in the death of the script writer Joe Gillis, staged so
prominently in the film’s opening and closing sequences. Between 1936 and
1950, Billy Wilder collaborated with Charles Brackett as a screenwriter on
thirteen films — the last of which turned out to be Sunset Boulevard. After the
film’s completion numerous personal and professional differences put an end
to their decade-long teamwork on film scripts. The death of the screenwriter
Gillis in their last collaborative script thus uncannily evokes the termination
of Billy Wilder’s cooperation with Charles Brackett, who among other offices
served as president of the Screen Writers Guild and won Academy Awards
for numerous film scripts, including the one for Sunset Boulevard. Thus writing, and screen writing in particular, forms the center of the multifaceted
allegorizations in Sunset Boulevard, spanning both the history of the medium
of film and the personal history of Billy Wilder as a filmmaker and
screenwriter.
458
MARIO KLARER
DOI: 10.1002/aps.1797
C O M M E N TA RY
“The stars are ageless, Aren't they?”—An
exploration of fantasy in Billy Wilder's Sunset
Boulevard
Natalie Wilner
Department of Behavioral Health, Saint Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
Correspondence
Natalie Wilner, Department of Behavioral Health, Saint Elizabeths Hospital, 1100 Alabama Ave., SE, Suite 238, Washington, DC
20032, USA.
Email: natalie.wilner@dc.gov
KEYWORDS
admirable, fantasy, Hollywood
In the film Sunset Boulevard (1950), directed by Billy Wilder, the viewer is introduced to a changing Hollywood and the
casualties that ensue from it. The film depicts the story of Joe Gillis, a struggling script writer, and his fateful encounter with an aging Hollywood star, Norma Desmond. Joe quickly finds himself enveloped in Norma's world, swathed in
velvet curtains, armed with gold cigarette cases, and sated with champagne and caviar. Yet he fails to realize that he is
entering a dangerous world that ultimately “submerges” him in Hollywood's dark underbelly. Norma, for her part, has
created a world that is at once a slice in time, a freezeframe of her former stardom, and a desperate attempt to deny
the changing world of film. Her fantasies shade into delusions, allowing her to overlook hints, and to use information
to support her fixed ideas. With the assistance of Max Von Mayerling, her faithful retainer, as well as the recruitment
of Joe Gillis, Norma creates or recreates the world that Hollywood had offered her, thus fostering the illusion that
movies create for us all. Further, it is through Norma, that viewers encounter their own fantasies about Hollywood,
and come to realize the toxic narcissism and emptiness that exists within its fictional universe.
The film is constructed in flashback; from the beginning the viewer is privy to the ending, but without the
context for Joe's unfortunate demise. We are introduced to Joe Gillis, a young film writer in Hollywood, drawn to the
promises and potentials of cinema from a news desk in Dayton, Ohio. He finds himself in a pinch financially, owing
money on his rent and without a script that will sell, in danger of losing his beloved car, his only possession that he
truly values. He states early on to his agent when asking for a loan, “if I lose my car, it's like having my legs cut off,”
which later seems ironic since the quest to keep his car lands him in another sort of trap (Wilder, 1950, p. 9:55). While
out driving, Joe comes across the debt collectors who are trying to repossess his car, and he takes off, initiating a
car chase.
While barreling down Sunset Boulevard, one of Joe's tires blows, and his car, seemingly drawn by an invisible
force, turns into a nearby driveway. He finds an empty garage and a seemingly empty mansion, a womb-like place
to store his prized car and seek refuge. He quickly learns that the home is not abandoned, but is in fact inhabited
by Norma Desmond, an aging star, who found fame in the silent film era. Her faithful retainer, Max, mistakes Joe
for the man delivering the coffin for her primate companion who passed away (Wilder, 1950, p. 16:30). Fortuitously
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for Joe and Norma, after a discussion, they realize they can set up an arrangement, whereby Joe assists Norma with
the writing of a script, and she provides some monetary reimbursement, which is never enumerated, in addition to
a place to stay.
In agreeing to this arrangement, Joe seems to have undergone a sort of regression, acting out certain Oedipal
wishes with Norma, with Max becoming a sort of distant father-like figure. Norma is a quasi-maternal figure, a
woman with experience in Hollywood, and in possession of exactly what Joe needs—shelter and money. As Joe says
to Betty Schaefer, a young script reader for Paramount, near the end of the film, “Look, sweetie, be practical. I've got
a good deal here, a long-term contract with no options. I like it that way” (Wilder, 1950, p. 1:37:03). He tells Betty
this as he turns down her offer to leave with him. Joe recognizes the hopelessness of the situation, and that he no
longer can be “admirable” (Wilder, 1950, p. 1:37:13). It is unclear at this moment whether Joe is referring to an act
of moral self-sacrifice, his awareness of being “tainted” by corruption, or his sexual relationship with Norma, whom
he describes as, an "older woman who's well to-do” (Wilder, 1950, p. 1:36:14). His disdain for his patroness is so
succinctly captured in this phrase, words that would be crushing for an aging film star.
Although never shown explicitly, there are suggestions of a sexual relationship with Norma. Most notably, after
Norma cuts herself with Joe's razor and he returns home to find her, there is a moment of intimacy between them
that continues after the scene ends. Joe is uncomfortable with Norma's feelings for him, in part because he is aware
of exploiting her due to his lack of other options, and because he finds himself drawn to her flamboyant aura. Hence,
he fails to recognize her attempts at self-harm as a means of drawing him closer and arousing his sympathy. But whatever the case, her actions seem to pierce his cynical façade and cause him to succumb to her “appeal”.
Later in the film Joe develops a love interest in Betty Schafer, who happens to be the girlfriend of his close
friend, Artie. Joe starts sneaking out at night to work on a script with Betty at Paramount Pictures. Although Norma
seems aware of this, she is willing to overlook it, so long as Joe continues to stay with her. Joe's behavior is almost
reminiscent of a teenager, sneaking out at night to escape the weight of parental expectations. Norma is threatened
by Betty, creating a sort of skewed love triangle, as Joe acknowledges in his remark that Norma is “jealous” of Betty
(Wilder, 1950, p. 1:35:34). Their relationships are as shifting as sand, and as much a mirage as the Hollywood world
they inhabit.
A prominent consideration in the film is Norma's fantasies and her attempts to remain in denial of her fall from
stardom. In fantasy, the subject stages a scene in which a fervently held wish is fulfilled (Akhtar, 2009). In delusion,
the fantasy is not staged on an interior stage, but imposed from without as an unquestioned reality (Hawker &
Waite, 2007a,b, p. 207). Yet both provide a kind of escapist dream, a means of avoiding certain painful realities. One
could argue that -in the filmic context-fantasy and delusion occupy points on a spectrum, with the former tending
to devolve into the latter. Indeed, Hollywood found its raison d'etre in producing collective escapist fantasies shared
by the film community and its mass audience. As Gabbard notes in his introduction to his book on Psychoanalysis
and film, movies “tapped into the commonly held unconscious wishes and fears in the mass audience”. In the same
vein, filmmakers engage in myth making on a grand scale, offering “wish-fulfilling solutions to human dilemmas”
(Gabbard, 2018, p. 5).
Although we do not get a glimpse into Norma's dreams, her reality is filled with fantasies and unfulfilled wishes.
Norma's fantasies, or delusions, are perhaps sequelae of her embodiment of the role Hollywood offered her, and
her refusal to let it go. Norma may have experienced a kind of trauma when sound was introduced in film, and the
medium that granted her stardom became a figment of the past. As we learn in the film, Norma started acting at a
young age, 16, so being in the film industry has been a prominent part of her life. When Joe first meets Norma and
recognizes her, he says, “Wait a minute, haven't I seen you before? I know your face… You're Norma Desmond. Used
to be in silent pictures. Used to be big” (Wilder, 1950, p. 16:28). Norma says in response, in an iconic moment with
her chin raised and eyes flashing in disdain, “I am big. It's the pictures that got small” (Wilder, 1950, p. 16:38).
But is fantasy or delusion inherently debilitating? One can see another side to these thought processes, one
which offers ways of coping with painful truths and a means of escaping difficult life circumstances. The danger arises
when Norma becomes violent due to small ruptures in her delusional edifice, a forced reckoning with reality. It also
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COMMENTARY
COMMENTARY
seems that there is a refusal, perhaps intentional, on Norma's part, to reject the changing Hollywood and to view
herself as frozen in time at precisely the point at which Hollywood reached its zenith as a visual medium.
In the same vein, Norma seeks to avoid the issue of aging in Hollywood, and the quest for youth and new faces
to replace the old. Her world is placed in juxtaposition with the world Joe inhabits, most notably on New Year's Eve
when he begins the night at her party, and leaves to attend his friend Artie's party. Norma's party feels isolated, dark,
and dead, whereas Artie's is lively, jovial, and crowded. Later, when Norma prepares for her meeting with DeMille,
she engages in numerous treatments of her skin, including facials and heavy makeup to try to recapture her youth. It
seems that she not only faces the trauma of being cast aside by the film industry, but also the universal fear of decline
and death. This concern is mirrored in Hollywood's predilection to grant female leading roles to young women.
Norma is a Narcissus-like character, who has become so captivated with her own reflection, photos of herself,
and watching her old films in her home theater, that she has lost touch with the outside world. Narcissus, as he stared
into his reflection in the pool of water, became cut off from others. Yet there are hints that Norma has some grasp
of reality, for example, her acknowledging that DeMille had said she was his greatest star some years prior, and that
silent films have been eclipsed by newer technology in Hollywood. Norma presents as a highly dramatic character,
as if she is always on stage playing a scene. Her stardom in silent films has a reality-based counterpart, as the actress
playing Norma Desmond, Gloria Swanson, was in fact a major silent film star. Norma acts with exaggerated facial
expressions, a remnant of her silent film acting, and speaks as if she is delivering lines. We see Norma early in the film
autographing photographs of herself, a no-doubt self-indulgent task. But the viewer later learns that her fan mail is
in fact written and delivered by Max. He warns Joe, “I wouldn't look too closely at the postmarks,” as Max fosters the
illusion of an admiring fan base for Norma (Wilder, 1950, p. 40:06).
It is striking that others seek to preserve Norma's fantasy world, and to avoid breaking the difficult truth to her.
Max and DeMille never confront Norma, indeed, the only person to do so is Joe, which was perhaps his gravest error.
For example, DeMille doesn't tell Norma that the assistant director was only seeking to use her car; and allows her
to believe that they may work together in film again in the future. The character Max, Norma's major domo, not only
maintains her home, but also helps to keep Norma safe, a sort of protector of her person as well as her image. Neither
confronts the delusion or questions it. To the person, the delusion is reality, and to show evidence to the contrary is
shattering, and devastating. They have come to realize her need to maintain this bubble of false beliefs.
Although, early on Joe realizes that he cannot bring Norma face-to-face with her fantasies, saying very perceptively, “I didn't argue with her. You don't yell at a sleepwalker. He may fall and break his neck. That's it. She was still
sleepwalking along the giddy heights of a lost career. Plain crazy when it came to that one subject—her celluloid
self. The great Norma Desmond” (Wilder, 1950, p. 30:24). Joe, as the narrator, states this while working on editing
Norma's script. The thought comes in response to cutting a scene so that Norma would not appear in every scene
of the script she is writing, but she adamantly refuses to be cut. Joe sees a fragility in Norma in her refusal to let go
of her former fame. But despite his insight into Norma, Joe remains naïve to the threat she poses, accidently leaving
his razor blade out, and failing to recognize her escalating threats at the end of the film. Joe believes he can take
advantage of the situation with Norma, but he was terribly wrong. Joe's naïveté may reflect his willful efforts to ignore
reality, just as Norma has worked so diligently to do, and therefore borders -in its own way -on delusion.
The Hollywood Joe we get to know seems in stark contrast to the Joe who left for Hollywood, as this Joe is jaded
and cynical, his hopes dashed by the rough edges and rejections of the movie business. We do not know Joe before
his arrival in Hollywood from Dayton, Ohio, but his decision to leave his desk job for the glamour of Hollywood may
represent one kind of fantasy, perhaps one that is most universal. His quest follows the American Dream, and the
hope to better one's life. Hollywood represents this fantasy for many, a way of achieving celebrity status and inhabiting a world that is without the cares of ordinary life. The film critiques this Hollywood illusion, and the inherent flaws
of its design (drawn from the lecture by Thomas Wolman, MD, 2022). At film's end, Joe realizes his plight when he
expresses to Betty that their joint film project “may sell and very possibly will not,” and that there is no end in sight for
the treadmill that is Hollywood. This jaded worldview abuts against the world Norma has created for herself, a perpetuation of her prior stardom, and a refusal to acknowledge the losses she has endured (Wilder, 1950, p. 1:36:58).
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Perhaps Joe's realization of the delusory aspects of Hollywood was in part due to the arc of Norma's career. Once
the Queen of Hollywood, she had descended into emptiness. All that remains are her accumulated possessions -the
“junk” and detritus of her existence (Wilder, 1950, p. 1:35:36). Here Joe comes to a reckoning, questioning all his
efforts if the end is so miserable. Joe's murder at film's end may thus work as Hollywood's attempt to hide the jaded
film writer, to conceal the underbelly of the enterprise, and to allow the illusion to persist. The ending scene is very
powerful, with Norma in a sort of dream-like state, or a parallel reality. She disregards the “reality” of the cameras and
reporters there merely to record her arrest by police, and instead directs her gaze at the flash of the camera and the
opportunity for her moment of stardom once again. Joe so concisely says near the end of the film, “the dream she
had clung to so desperately, had enfolded her” (Wilder, 1950, p. 1:48:10). In the end, Joe may realize that escape is
as illusory as true success in Hollywood, if Norma is in fact its ultimate victim.
In the film Sunset Boulevard, the viewer comes to know another side of Hollywood. The film explores the forever
evolving nature of film, and the endless quest to achieve stardom that is exceedingly fleeting. We see that the standards within Hollywood are forever shifting; it is a moving target, a perhaps unachievable goal. Norma may fear being
forgotten, which is a universal sentiment. Through Norma's extensive fantasied life, the viewer encounters her deep
vulnerabilities and an understanding of our own insecurities. As night falls on Sunset Boulevard, the viewer bids
goodbye to her own wishes and dreams about Hollywood, and the myth of this cultural institution (drawn from the
lecture by Thomas Wolman, MD, 2022).
CO N FLI CT OF I NTE RE ST
I have no conflict of interest regarding this material.
R EF ERE NCE S
Akhtar, S. (2009). Comprehensive dictionary of Psychoanalysis. Karnac Books Ltd.
Gabbard, G. O. (2018). Introduction [introduction]. In 1950931259 1360813564, Psychoanalysis and film (pp. 1–16).
ROUTLEDGE.
Hawker, S., & Waite, M. (Eds.). (2007a). Delusion, Color Oxford Dictionary & Thesaurus (p. 147). OXFORD University Press.
Hawker, S., & Waite, M. (Eds.). (2007b). Fantasy, Color Oxford Dictionary&Thesaurus (p. 207). OXFORD University Press.
Wilder, B. (1950). Sunset Boulevard [video file]. United States: A Paramount release. (Director). Retrieved May, 2022, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRObt8mE3kY
Wolman, T. (2022). Psychoanalytic themes in six classic Hollywood films II. Lecture.
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COMMENTARY
Received: 16 January 2023
Accepted: 19 January 2023
DOI: 10.1002/aps.1796
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Breaching the frame: Psychoanalysis and sunset
boulevard
Nilofer Kaul
Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst, Delhi,
India
Correspondence
Nilofer Kaul, Training and Supervising
Psychoanalyst, Delhi, India.
Email: niloferkaul@gmail.com
Abstract
Sunset Boulevard is a film that breaches the frames that
cinema has conventionally used. It playfully satirises Hollywood with its silent era, its glossy nostalgia, its mystique
that conceals its brittle cynicism. Norma Desmond is satirised but she is also the means by which Hollywood stands
exposed. In many ways, the audience like Joe Gillis thinks
they are in on the joke, till it turns against them. This paper
argues that we can read this as a cautionary tale for psychoanalysts as we enter into an analysis of the patient, only to
discover that we have been recruited into a world that never
was in our control.
KEYWORDS
floating, hollywood, nostalgia, wilder
Sunset Boulevard (1950) has been an icon for 72 years-celebrated, cloned, and deconstructed. What can one say
about it today that has not already been said? Does it still deserve a contemporary perspective? Its star, Norma
Desmond (played by Gloria Swanson), is a relic of the silent era who aspires to return to the sleek dialogue-centric
Hollywood talkies. For years, she has been scriptwriting Salome for an epic comeback. She lassoes an out-of-work
scriptwriter Joe Gillis (played by William Holden) into helping her. Seduced by her wealth and an inchoate promise of
glamour, he stays on, while she fancies herself in love. When he finally tries to leave her, Norma shoots him dead. It
is his corpse that we see floating in her ample swimming pool, in the opening scene, his bloated face looking up at us
with an expression of stunned surprise.
Watching it for the very first time recently stirred up a melee of noisy associations. Hotel California played in my
head. You can check-out any time you like, But…“. Not forgetting the well-known silent star, Mabel Normand, I also
thought of the other Norma—Norma Bates and of course Norman Bates. Psycho (1960) followed Sunset Boulevard
a decade later. The noise in my head pointed me to the coming together of popular cultural tropes: Peter Pan and
Neverland, Dorian Gray, and Greta Garbo. Joe Gillis himself places Norma Desmond in a literary tradition with “Miss
Havisham and her rotting wedding dress”.
I would like to suggest that we revisit this film for its audacity in breaching frames. Civitarese (2010) suggests
that it is transference and the “eruption” of passion that is unique to psychoanalysis. When the analyst interprets the
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transference, he breaches the frame that separates patient from analyst. Civitarese draws a parallel between transference and the painter with canvas appearing in the foreground in Velasquez's painting Las Meninas (1656). Both
intrude into what is expected to remain outside. What I argue here is that, even as it mobilizes familiar tropes, Sunset
Boulevard also ruptures frames and interrupts the comfortable distance that separates us from the on-screen spectacle. The floating corpse as narrator, is only the first of these disruptions. Wilder's original idea that the film begins
in a morgue with corpses greeting the new entrant may have gone too far in this direction; and was considered too
outre for inclusion.
The film taps into the common enough theme of nostalgia with Norma Desmond's prolonging the silent era
in every possible way. But the viewing of an old film about nostalgia frames its viewing in an uncanny way. When
released 72 years ago, the silent era had already passed. Hence, its viewers would be looking at a bygone era, rendering the frame itself nostalgic, albeit with distance.
Moreover, watching it now is itself evocative of another nostalgia, for Hollywood of the 50s, with its angular, crackling dialogue, its endless cigarettes smoked by brill-creamed men and sharply coiffed women—a popular
sub-genre of its own. In our own era, platforms such as Netflix draw on this nostalgia in shows like Madmen, The
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and most recently, Hollywood. While the movie stirs up associations with the 50s, it very specifically alludes to “golden age” Hollywood and the classic film noir.
This framing is reminiscent of Balter's (2006) idea of a “nesting dream”—a dream within a dream-as we viewers
take on a disquieting resemblance to Norma Desmond in our living rooms, savoring a bygone era. Joudrey (2020)
writes “we are all Norma Desmond now” as “Clicks, likes and retweets transformed into a cryptocurrency” and being
seen has become everyone's right.
This nostalgia doesn't depend on our having been alive during the events depicted. Svetlana Boym (2001)
observes that nostalgia need not be for a past we have lost, but rather a melancholic yearning for something we never
had. Nostalgia has an emotional texture that uncannily picks up the tones and hues of something irrevocably lost, as
it taps gently at un-mourned knots in the mind. Note that the word “nostalgia” comes from nostos (home) and algia
(pain) and originated from sailors who sailed away for years and suffered terribly from homesickness. Yet as the term
traveled, the unbearable and unnamable pain of loss was disavowed with the promise that what you once possessed
can be recovered. It is in this sense that nostalgia shades over into delusion in the form of “once upon a time” and
“Garden of Eden illusions” (Steiner, 2018).
Here we see Norma Desmond idealizing the silent era and her status as reigning queen. She rails against the
world for no longer having space for her. But unable to bear this loss, she thunders against “talkies”: “We didn't need
dialogs. We had faces” or again:
Joe: Wait a minute, I know you, you’re Norma Desmond. You used to be big.
Norma: I am big, it’s the pictures that got small!
Her celebration of the bygone era is caricatured to the point of ridicule. The past was sublime, the present
egregious, but the future will circle back to the past, thanks to her belief in a comeback. The delusion is twofold: It
glorifies the past but also anticipates a return to her glory days. The film's nostalgia/delusion thus becomes especially
fraught, since watching it today stirs up the very nostalgia that it exposes. Like much else in the movie, nostalgia is
both evoked and made the subject of irony. Repeatedly the film arouses in us the same feelings that are being held
up for ridicule, with results that are decidedly disconcerting for viewers.
In this regard, the movie opens with ravenous journalists looking for a scoop on the murder by an aging star.
Voyeuristically, we join the hungry press, as the movie draws us in with the whiff of scandal. As we know, a corpse
has been found floating in Norma Desmond's swimming pool. The body's arch expression signals a sardonic tone and
irreverent mood, emblematic of Film Noir's flaunting of Hollywood conventions. 1 Once again the distance between
the viewer and the hungry press collapses, as both become “voyeurs.”
There is also something profane about the way the film mixes fact and fiction. So even though it has been
read as the most scathing of critiques of Hollywood (Ames, 2021), an expose of its brittleness, gloss, and cynicism,
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Wilder executes his narrative in a provocative, even sensationalist way, creating unease in the viewer. We see, for
example, Norma playing weekly bridge with other stars from the silent era whom Gillis, in his snarky voiceover, refers
to as “waxworks”. Oddly enough, Buster Keaton, H.B. Warner, Hedda Hopper and Anna Q. Nilsson agreed to play
themselves and be alluded to as “waxworks”! Joe Gillis becoming Norma Desmond's gigolo is thus another of these
instances of crossing the line between film and fact, between satirizing the other and making himself the subject
of irony: Wilder had worked as a gigolo back in Poland before immigrating to America. Indeed, the crossing of lines
cuts so close to the bone that many actresses including Greta Garbo refused the role. Perhaps she intuitively sensed
that it would be “too revealing…something akin to analysis” (Sunset Boulevard 1999, p.11). Gloria Swanson certainly
felt something akin to this since playing Norma Desmond was a transformational experience for her, in which the
container (actor) transformed the contained (role).
The film's indictment of the Hollywood system and its paradoxical reveling in its excesses is captured in an early
exchange between Joe Gillis and Betty Schaefer, a script reader. We enter the scene with Joe overhearing his script
being savaged by Betty. She finds it trite, despite having heard that he has talent. She derides him for not living up to
his promise, to which he responds with: “That was last year. This year I'm trying to earn a living.” At this stage, Joe is
on the run from car repo men and about to be evicted.
In search of a place to hide his car, he stumbles upon the gothic looking mansion (that in real life apparently
belonged first to Paul Getty and then to his ex-wife). The power of the cinematic medium is especially potent here
in the sharp cut from the bustle of the city to the eerie quiet of the mansion. Interestingly, the film is shot in black
and white, even though color photography had been around since 1940 and was beginning to be used commercially. Yet the black and white film stock intensifies the phantasmatic mood of Norma Desmond's domain. The mood
ruptures and divides Gillis's existence in the external world from his entry into a make-believe world. It is an encounter between the present and the past, between external and internal worlds, between sanity and insanity. We may
be forgiven for thinking at this point that Norma Desmond represents delusion and Joe Gillis is the voice of sanity.
At first, Norma Desmond appears to live up to the textbook narcissist: controlling and pathetic, insecure, and
haughty by turns. The aging actress (she even refers to contemporary actresses being no good, except Garbo—an
exception which is clearly a nod) withdraws into this decaying mansion, because she cannot face the passage of time.
This caricature mode continues with a comedy of errors style of humor, as Joe Gillis is mistaken as the “coffin maker”
for her chimp. An elaborate coffin has been ordered for the departed pet. “Is her life really that empty?” the narrator
muses. But we trust this narrator only at our own peril. His ironic comments on the dead chimp, the decaying house,
the Miss Havisham reference, all seem to uphold him as the voice of sanity. But assumption slowly crumbles (perhaps
his dead corpse at the beginning can be read retrospectively as a warning). In heavily laden symbols, we can see death
as pervasive. Joe's conscience is already dead and like the dead chimp, he too is looking for a coffin as a means of
laying to rest his own “empty life”.
But like him, we cruise obliviously into the trap of this version of Hotel California. In keeping with the modus
operandi of the film, we are lulled into believing there is a safe distance between us and the characters, between fact
and fiction, past and present, sanity and insanity. Yet somehow, the movie repeatedly leads us down the garden path
of “Sunset Boulevard”, so to speak.
Norma Desmond socializes with “waxworks” from her time, but also watches her own silent movies and in every
way possible holds on to a stopped watch. Steiner (2018) suggests that it is universal to look for that perfect time now
lost. He observes that such a time is associated with the absence of frustration and the presence of plenitude. This
longing for a life without frustration paves the way for the creation of personal Edenic myths. The illusion of Paradise is linked with hostility toward the relentless March of time. For time is the real enemy of the psychotic part of the
personality. It is the relentlessness of time passing that ruptures Norma's omnipotence, leading to what Akhtar (1996)
calls “Someday” and “If only” fantasies. These fantasies displace the present either through the past (memory) or the
future (desire).
Joe collaborates in what Steiner (1993) calls a “romantic perversion of time”: “Romantic daydreams commonly
involve an escape from the dreary world of needs and humiliations to scenarios where we are admired. Cinderella-like
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phantasies in which we are rescued from drudgery by an idealized prince figure and fantasies involving sporting or
military triumphs are common in both men and women and are used to deal with feelings of exclusion and inferiority.
The timelessness of the phantasy world is present in all of these.” (Steiner, 1993; Weiss, 2008). By entering the present (falling in love with Gillis) even if it is a “romantic perversion of time”, Norma has placed in Joe the hope for a future
escape from the solitary confinement to which she has sentenced herself. This comes through in a scene where she
actually leaves the desolate barrenness of her macabre house, taking Joe shopping for expensive clothes. In a brief
reprieve, she is able to step out and see the light of the day.
But in general, she strains to keep the awareness of time at bay, a task for which a delusional apparatus must
be established. Norma bribes and seduces Joe into helping her maintain her delusional worldview. Yet despite her
efforts, the delusional world, remains sterile. It needs constant pumping. It requires both preservation (Max) and
active fueling (Joe). The retreat into an idealized past, leaves her not just lonely but also frightened. For no matter
how much effort is made to keep time at bay, one may say with Andrew Marvell (2007), “at my back I always hear,
time's winged chariot drawing near”. As time ticks on, the effort to destroy it must be redoubled. It is that very terror
we see in Norma's frantic, deranged eyes.
Yet the youthful Joe exudes a promise of another stab at life, he promises to make time bearable. Perhaps she can
ease up on the violence with which she destroys time. Instead of knifing and stabbing it, perhaps she can suspend it:
“What a wonderful next year it is going to be. What fun we're going to have. If I fill the pool for you. Or I open my house in
Malibu, and you can have the whole ocean…”.
Norma's mental apparatus mimics a thinking apparatus, but in fact seems bent upon the destruction of truth.
Joe on the other hand is not yet lodged, his homelessness reading like a signifier of a search for containment.
Without any resources at his aid, he is far more vulnerable than his supercilious façade would indicate. Unlike
Norma who has built a retreat to preserve her delusional system, Joe has no “garage” to park his psychotic part.
At this point, Joe chooses to turn away from his own harsh reality and toward a world (theater) where his role
is handed to him on a silver platter (like Salome's with the head of John the Baptist) and he reluctantly begins
to play it. This reinforces Norma's fragile omnipotence. It seems to allow him to dwell in his delusion that he is
benefiting from this arrangement and that a bit of pandering to his crazed benefactress can do no harm. It is when
he careens into this castle that he abdicates his tenuous contact with the external world. He will become Estella
to Miss Havisham.
Thus, while the caricature of Desmond is not untrue, the movie cuts both ways. Gillis's ruthless selfishness chips
away at our faith in his credibility. He lets himself slide into her fantasy world with no recognition that his own choices
have brought him to this pass. It is as though the material comforts seduce him into colluding with a make-believe
world. He gives into his parasitic impulses, as he dares not confront the possibility of failure. Yet he feels quite worthless when he encounters this bizarre figure. He is pleased to charge her a lot of money to “improve” the script which
he considers terrible. He declares himself very pleased for “the way I'd handled the situation” and goes on to say “I'd
dropped the hook, and she'd snapped at it. Now my car would be safe, while I did a patch up on the script and there should
be plenty of money in it.”
But as foreshadowed by the first scene of his corpse in the swimming pool, the joke is on him. He had often
fantasized about swimming pools; it is then macabre irony to be found floating dead in one. As the narrative
progresses, we witness a slow-moving reversal of roles between Norma and himself. At first, Norma Desmond
appears as a caricature—a histrionic figure, in fancy dress, bejeweled, haughty, and operatic. Joe's urbane humor
is pitted against her delusional grip on reality, and we initially align ourselves with him. But over time, his cynicism
distances us from him, allowing Norma to be seen as both a psychological wreck and a tragic figure. Gradually, Joes
ironic voice unravels, and we detect his failure to see that the rambling mansion is not just an architectural anachronism but is also an embodiment of a very fragile psychotic structure. Moreover, straying into it is no accident and
prolonging his stay is a recognition of his inability to face the cruelty of the world outside. Joe may well have entered
this fortress “accidently”, but he too is looking for a place to hide and is easily bribed by the accouterments that
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encourage oblivion. In this respect, he enters a mutually destructive relationship, exemplifying what Bion (1962)
calls parasitic links. While Norma Desmond uses Joe to feed her delusion of grandiosity and he feeds himself on
the delusion that all is well with him; that his alienation from his world can be “parked” safely in someone or someplace. By ensconcing himself in a “retreat” from the harsh world, he surrenders to the effortlessness of a death-like
existence.
His mindset stands in contrast with that of Betty Schafer. Unlike him, she remains uncorrupted by the same
Hollywood he debunks. This comes up very sharply when Betty—the sole voice of sanity and the conscience
of Hollywood—pursues him. She stands for truth and integrity as she wants to collaborate with him in making meaningful cinema. “I just think that pictures should say a little something”, she says. Here then are two approaches to art:
For Norma Desmond movies are showcases; while for Betty, they should “mean something.” Betty is Joe's buried
conscience. She is very aware of her own failures as actor and scriptwriter, but is energetic and wants another kind
of creative collaboration and this feels hopeful. But he recognizes and repeatedly tells her he does not have it in him.
And in the end, he rejects her offer to join her.
Joe Gillis: Stop crying, will you? You're getting married. That's what you wanted.
Betty Schaefer: I don't want it now.
Joe Gillis: Why not? Don't you love Artie?
Betty Schaefer: Of course I love him. I always will. I… I'm not in love with him anymore, that's all.
Joe Gillis: What happened?
Betty Schaefer: You did.
Despite this powerful invitation by a woman who is so attractive to him, he dismisses the possibility of a return.
As Norma Desmond threatens to expose him to Betty, he offers to do it himself—he does so without a fight. He calls
Betty to Norma's house. Norma watches from the balcony, as he reveals his shameful truth to Betty. Betty is shocked
but willing. In the final scene between them, Betty (Joe's sanity) makes a last bid effort to save him:
Betty Schaefer: Now, get your things together and let's get out of here.
Joe Gillis: All my things? All my 18 suits, all my custom-made shoes, and the six dozen shirts, and the cuff links
and the platinum key chains and the cigarette cases?
Betty Schaefer: Come on, Joe.
Joe Gillis: Come on where? Back to a one-room apartment I can't pay for? Back to a story that may sell and very
possibly will not?
Betty Schaefer: If you love me, Joe.
Joe Gillis: Look, sweetie, be practical. I've got a good deal here. A long-term contract with no options. I like it that
way. Maybe it's not very admirable.
[She looks away from Joe and softly begins to cry]
Joe Gillis: Well, you and Artie can be admirable.
Betty Schaefer: [He reaches to lift her chin, but she turns the other way] I can't look at you anymore, Joe.
Joe Gillis: How about looking for the exit?
[He gently takes her arm and walks her towards the door]
Joe Gillis: This way, Betty.
Quite stricken by this loss, he soberly packs his bags for the trip to Ohio—as though he could return to some
chastened vestige of a life. Observing this, Norma picks up her gun. Mistakenly he thinks she is going to stage yet
another melodramatic suicide, except this time, she shoots him dead. Previously, his attempt to leave drove her
to slash her wrists. But seeing him leave now completes her descent into madness, and the precipitously poized
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delusional apparatus collapses. Max had forewarned Joe. In the final scene, we see her descending the stairs regally
attired, surrounded by the police and media. She makes her dramatic entrance and slowly emerges with her face
veiled, in the absolute grip of her delusion that the long awaited “cameras have arrived”.
Norma Desmond's house on Sunset Boulevard may be read as a psychic retreat (Steiner, 1993) with all its fragility
and seclusion. She has created a world that is withdrawn from the harsh onslaught, that allows a resting place, and
fends off a complete breakdown. Retreats can be of all shapes and sizes. They can be small holes and burrows that we
disappear into, deep caverns from where we may never find our way, fortresses and castles that are rigidly defended,
or even little kingdoms which stand defiant. The grandiosity of Norma Desmond stands somewhere between a
fortress and a kingdom. But the scale of her delusion requires the help of others. In its out-sized grotesquery, it seems
out of sync. For Norma, the retreat must be grand and cavernous to fuel the scale of her delusion. For Joe, a simple
garage will do. She wants the retreat to be a physical manifestation of her absent internal world, while Joe's version
provides shelter from his failed life.
To buttress her delusion, there is Max von Mayerling (Erich von Stroheim - also a great director-playing Norma's
ex-husband) who guards the fortress by wiping off all footprints of unwelcome reality that threaten to break into the
fragile scaffolding. He later reveals himself as the first of her three husbands, who returned to keep her alive. He is
perhaps the one figure in the movie who while underused and understated reins in the tragic undertow of Norma
Desmond's fragile universe. He admits he ghost -writes her fan mail. Is it an act of love to feed delusions thus knowingly? In the case of Max, it certainly seems to be. And yet even as he participates in sustaining her delusion, this is
not quite folie a deux since he is aware of the web of lies he helps create. And yet there is infinite compassion as he
watches her helplessly clinging to the delusions. He hides all knives and blades, because no amount of omnipotence
can filter out the constant stream of external thorns that pierce her skinless existence.
Max stands in sharp contrast to Joe Gillis who feeds Norma's delusions in order to exploit her. This split reveals
two paths taken on encountering omnipotent delusions. Max knows she is a sleepwalker, and he can't wake her up
rudely. His collusion comes from love. Joe Gillis's comes from self-interest; Max does it to preserve her existence. Joe
imagines he can walk away without consequences but when he hears from Max of her attempted suicide, he returns
to the mansion momentarily sobered from his usual cynicism.
Max had returned to a dissolved marriage, unable to abandon Norma. Here he encounters one kind of countertransference that the analyst experiences with a patient, who is both grandiose and deeply fragile. Metaphorically
speaking, we may provide emotional first aid (hiding blades and knives) in the consulting room. This would be kindness without much truth. Or we can become brutal with the truth like Joe who leaves her, says he does not want her
to buy him anything, that she is a relic from the past. But he presents her with what is as undigestible as it is without
kindness and risks killing her. Or as it happens, getting killed himself. One can then see these approaches as two
forms of collusion: one preservative, the other destructive.
The two paths taken by Max and Joe are like the two erroneous paths that analysts can slide into-to be too frightened of breakdown to speak the truth, and/or to use truth with cynicism and violence. Perhaps we are always open to
both these errant ways. It is in fact very hard not to collaborate or collude with the psychotic part. Bion (1957) writes
about the complexity of the relationship between the psychotic and non-psychotic parts of the personality. He envisions a constant struggle between attacks on the means of perception and a constant assault by the external world.
In turn, this assault of reality impels the psychotic part to seek collaboration, collusion, and complicity. Upon this
bedrock, folie a deux is formed. Or for that matter cults and other forms of group madness. It is this aspect of the relationship between the psychotic and non-psychotic parts of the personality that the film seems to capture intuitively.
And here is also why the corpse as narrator serves a profound role in establishing a radical anti-realism. The
crisp ironic voice that stitches the story together, also demands a suspension of disbelief and invites us to a very
whimsical truth-telling. This quasi-dream like quality lends the film a chimerical Alice-in-Wonderland texture. We
are often reminded as psychoanalysts to abjure concreteness and listen to patients as though they were dreaming,
to listen oneirically. If we watch this film in this mode, we could read it as Gillis's dream. If we go back to the point
where Gillis drives toward Sunset Boulevard, we might see him falling into a dream and having all the phantasmatic
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KAUL
KAUL
experiences that one could expect in a strange dream. He has us believe that Norma Desmond is moving about in
what should have been the “furniture of dreams” (Bion, 1956). But it is Joe Gillis who careens into Sunset Boulevard
thereby cutting off the evidence of his senses, to “park” himself (car) in a safe home (garage). All this should have been
a dream from which he, like Alice, should have awakened from. As in a dream, time has stood still. And as in Alice's
Wonderland, inanimate objects seem to take on a life of their own, Norma Desmond's cigarette holder, for example,
while the living are like “waxworks”. Could we have been lulled by him into thinking this was in fact happening, when
it was all his fantasy in a deserted house? If like Alice, he had woken up from the dream, it would not have been about
psychosis, but just a bizarre dream. The retreat on Sunset Boulevard becomes an embodiment of a bizarre world—a
dream from which neither Norma nor Joe can be awakened without catastrophe.
If the film follows Gillis's attempt to find a retreat, then Norma may be seen as a bizarre figure in his mind into
whom he projects an incendiary mix of mad phantoms. Perceiving Norma as grotesquely out of touch allows him to
feel sane. But more profoundly, there is an unconscious identification Joe feels with Norma as they have both been
discarded by Hollywood after a successful run. He heaps contempt on this ridiculous figure but it is a deflection of
his self-contempt which he has expressed to Betty: “Look, sweetie, be practical. I've got a good deal here. A long-term
contract with no options. I like it that way. Maybe it's not very admirable.”
But ultimately, a bizarre container (delusional Norma) is unable to contain the violent projections, without
corroding and corrupting the contained (Joe). Norma Desmond may then be read as a hallucination of his mind, a
collection of all his unwanted parts, put together into a “bizarre object” (Bion, 1962, p. 11). This allows him to maintain a semblance of sanity. This is akin to how the psychotic part of the mind seeks support and collaboration on the
periphery of psychosis, both as an assurance against the terror of madness and as a container for itself. And just as
Gillis cannot distance himself from Norma Desmond, we viewers cannot distance themselves from Gillis. The ironic
mode punctures every attempt to distance oneself and like Flaubert said about Madame Bovary, we all end up feeling
what Joudrey claims, and also: “Joe Gillis, c'est moi.”
Eventually, the movie brings rich and dense tropes together but takes them apart. We are constantly thrown
off our seats; outraged and surprised, amused and moved. Whichever way we read the film, it invites us to interpret
as it suggests and insinuates, rather than saturates meaning, thus encouraging the act of meaning-making. It is this
riddling, Sphinx-like quality, its openness to meaning-making that lures us to drive along Sunset Boulevard.
END NOTE
1
A term used by French critics who located a strand in stylish but dark American crime films peopled with cynical heroes,
femme fatales. The pessimism has often been linked with the Great Depression.
CO N FLI CT OF I NTE RE ST STATE M E N T
I have no conflict of interest regarding this material.
R EF ERE NCE S
Akhtar, S. (1996). ‘Someday … ’ and ‘if only … ’ fantasies: Pathological optimism and inordinate nostalgia as related
forms of idealization. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 44(3), 723–753. https://doi.org/10.1177/
000306519604400304
Ames, C. (2021). Movies about movies. University of Kentucky Press.
Balter, L. (2006). Nested ideation and the problem of reality: Dreams and works of art in works of art. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 75(2), 405–445. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2167-4086.2006.tb00045
Bion, W. R. (1956). Development of schizophrenic thought. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 37, 344–346.
Bion, W. R. (1957). Differentiation of the psychotic from the non-psychotic personalities. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 38, 266–275.
Bion, W. R. (1962). Learning from experience. Seven servants. Jason Aronson.
Boulevard, S. (1950). Directed by billy wilder. Paramount Pictures.
Boym, S. (2001). The future of nostalgia. Basic Books.
Civitarese, G. (2010). The intimate room. Routledge.
Hitchcock, A. (1960). Psycho. Paramount Pictures.
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Joudrey, T. (2020). https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/aug/04/sunset-boulevard-at-70-were-all-norma-desmond-now
Marvell, A. (2007). In N. Smith (Ed.), The poems of Andrew Marvell. Longman.
Steiner, J. (1993). Psychic retreats: Pathological organisations of the personality in psychotic, neurotic, and borderline patients.
Routledge.
Steiner, J. (2018). Time and the garden of Eden illusion. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 99(6), 1274–1287. http
s://doi.org/10.1080/00207578.2018.1556072
Weiss, H. (2008). Romantic perversion: The role of envy in the creation of a timeless universe. In P. Roth & A. Lemma (Eds.),
Envy and gratitude revisited (pp. 152–167). International Psychoanalytic Association.
How to cite this article: Kaul, N. (2023). Breaching the frame: Psychoanalysis and sunset boulevard.
International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 20(1), 140–147. https://doi.org/10.1002/aps.1796
15569187, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aps.1796 by The University Of Melbourne, Wiley Online Library on [04/06/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
KAUL
Sunset Boulevard
Author(s): Morris Dickstein
Source: Grand Street , Spring, 1988, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Spring, 1988), pp. 176-184
Published by: Ben Sonnenberg
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25007116
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GRAND STREET
'SUNSET BOULEVARD'
Morris Dickstein
Until the 1970s, when a more youth-oriented Hollywood
made him seem like an archaic survivor from a golden
age, Billy Wilder was never a favorite of auteurist critics.
His melange of ferocious satirical comedies, romances and
melodramas seemed too eclectic to allow for any consistent
style or themes. Except for prestige projects like Double
Indemnity, which turned a pulpy novel into a powerful
thriller, he rarely directed a genre film. Wilder lacked the
obsessions of a Hitchcock, a Ford or a Hawks, as well as
their strong visual instincts. He seemed to belong not with
the strong directors who imposed their visions, but with
the literate screenwriters-Mankiewicz, Sturges-who had
begun directing to protect their own scripts, whose unity of
material belonged to the domain of words rather than pic
tures. ("He could conceive of a situation so much more
richly than he could realize it," said David Thomson, one
of his persistent detractors.) Finally, notwithstanding his
fabled cynicism, he seemed like the ultimate Hollywood
insider, a crowd-pleasing craftsman, sentimental for all his
surface toughness, coarse and vulgar despite his European
sophistication-in short, closer to a Mel Brooks than to an
Ernst Lubitsch.
Or so at least the indictment ran.
From this viewpoint, however much it may have been
disliked in Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard (1950) was an
insider's film, in Thomson's words, "one of Hollywood's
most confused pieces of self-adulation." Though Louis B.
Mayer cursed Wilder out-"You bastard," he said after an
early screening, "you have disgraced the industry that
made you and fed you"-Sunset Boulevard was the kind
of "quality" production that won Academy Awards, not
plaudits from Cahiers du Cinema. (Actually, thanks in part
to Hollywood's awe of the legitimate theater, the lion's
share of the awards that year went to another treatment of
the aging star, Mankiewicz's All About Eve.) In this light,
the limitations of Sunset Boulevard were confirmed by its
uncertain tone, its apparent grab bag of cinematic sources
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MORRis DICKSTEIN
and effects. The movie begins in the dark world of the film
noir, with its title printed in block letters along a curbside,
the camera tracking feverishly down a deserted street and a
caravan of police cars and motorcycles pulling up at Norma
Desmond's mansion to investigate a murder-all of which
is accompanied by Franz Waxman's thriller music and,
soon, Joe Gillis's Chandleresque voice-over detailing the
circumstances of his own death.
But what begins like Double Indemnity soon modulates
into a breezy, knowing satire of contemporary Hollywood,
full of references to actual people and places. The look and
tension of noir filmmaking seem completely forgotten.
After a perfunctory chase in which two bozos acting like
G-men try to repossess Joe Gillis's car, we must shift gears
yet again when he takes refuge in Norma Desmond's seem
ingly deserted "Sunset castle,>" which, like her, is a decay
ing remnant of the silent film days of the 1920s. Here the
most puzzling thing initially is Gloria Swanson's strident,
mannered, operatic performance, which starts as high
camp with the obsequies for a pet monkey and culminates
with a Grand Guignol mad scene worthy of Callas or
Sutherland. Under Wilder's direction, Swanson makes no
attempt to humanize Norma, to play her from the inside
for pathos or sympathy. (Predictably, David Thomson con
demns her "thunderous acting style" for being too "em
phatic and feverish.") Though Swanson, irradiated by
looking at one of her own movies, tells William Holden
that "we didn't need dialogue-we had faces," her own
face is too often a garish mask of self-absorbed posturing
and melodrama: precisely what the 1940s saw when it
glanced back at the silent-film era.
Besides Swanson's dramatics, the other famous oddity
of Sunset Boulevard is Holden's post-mortem narrative,
which seems like a send-up of the flashback technique
favored by many noir directors-including Wilder himself
in Double Indemnity-in the decade following Citizen
Kane. Like Kane, Siodmak's version of The Killers (1946)
begins with the protagonist's death, followed by a mosaic
of flashbacks exploring the circumstances that led up to it
an ingenious expansion of the few pages of Hemingway's
story. In Rudolph Mate's D.O.A. (1949), the most extreme
example of this structure before Sunset Boulevard, Ed
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GRAND STREET
mond O'Brien walks into a police station to report his own
murder-by some kind of radium poisoning-though he
still has twenty-four hours to live. As one critic acutely
remarked, in all the flashbacks that make up the movie,
these characters in effect are already dead: this gives their
"presence" an eerie and ghostly quality. They seem vulner
able and two-dimensional, all their efforts futile and pre
determined. The witty, sarcastic tone of Sunset Boule
vard-beautifully maintained by William Holden's rueful
narration-makes light of the shadow of fatality and in
evitabilitv that broods over the noir world, though Joe
Gillis is as fatefully hooked as Walter Neff in Double
Indemnity. Veering from bemused comedy to camp arti
fice, the film scarcely can sustain the self-enclosed intensity
of the noir vision.
This is the case that can be made against Wilder's film.
But I think critics who do make it are simply looking
at the wrong movie. Our view of Sunset Boulevard is
skewed by Wilder's reputation as a satirist and by its own
reputation as the best movie ever made about Hollywood.
Far from damaging the movie by hamming it up, Gloria
Swanson burns up the screen from the first moment she
appears. Next to Holden's cool, laid-back, "modern" movie
acting, which depends so much on the inflections of his
voice, her performance is so visual, so gestural, that it re
vives the spirit of silent film singlehandedly. There's some
thing lifeless about the scenes without her or Stroheim,
especially the few between Holden and the kids his own
age: the "normal"' world to which he is presumably trying
to escape. Sunset Boulevard is less a one-of-a-kind film
than an ingenious adaptation of the genre conventions of
noir to its Hollywood subject. Though Wilder, unlike many
of his fellow emigres, never seemed much like a German
director, here he reaches back throughl noir to its primary
source, the expressionism of horror and Gothic, to convey
his sense of the two Hollywoods, both equally out of touch
with anything real: one immured narcissistically in its past
glories, the other trapped in the tawdry superficiality of
the present.
Wilder uses Gothic elements to give his picture of Holly
wood a mythic dimension beyond the reach of satire. When
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MORRIS DICKSTEIN
Joe lands in Norma's driveway he is like a child who h
stumbled into the Old Dark House, except that his life
the daylight world has effectively reached a dead end:
can't pay his rent, can't keep his car (his "legs"), can't se
his scripts, can't even put new heels on his shoes. He is first
taken for the undertaker who will see to the burial of t
pet chimp; instead he becomes the "stray dog" who
take the animal's place. After being admitted by Cerber
(Stroheim), the guardian of the gates, he encounters Nor
first as a disembodied voice from the balcony above, the
as a mysterious pair of eyes peering through a bamb
screen. Despite the initial misunderstanding, her fir
words to him have an aura of fatality that he will neve
shake off: "You there, why are you so late? Why have y
kept me waiting so long?"-as if, like Sleeping Beauty, s
has been waiting for someone just like him to bring he
back to life.
We leam eventually that despite the grand scenes she
loves to play, Norma is one of the living dead, like the
"Waxworks" from silent-film days with whom she plays
those funereal games of bridge. Joe himself describes her
as a sleepwalker whom it would be dangerous to awaken
exactly what he later tries to do. She is surrounded by re
flections of her own image, embalmed in her own illusion
that she is still a great star. In this she is abetted, of course,
by her loyal retainer, Stroheim, whose willing emascula
tion foreshadows Joe's own humiliating bondage and de
pendency. Norma sucks vitality from Joe as she drinks in a
half-demented energy from the fans she imagines awaiting
her "return." She is more than the femme fatale of '40s
movies whose sexual allure is bound up with treachery and
entrapment-who, seen from the outside, is a projection of
male anxiety, a deep-seated fear of women's sexual needs.
She is the figure who lies behind film noir: the fatal woman
of Gothic, la belle dame sans merci. Sunset Boulevard
makes no sense unless we see that Norma is being por
trayed as a vampire: this is what Swanson's garish, his
trionic performance finally comes to.
When we realize this, the other Gothic details fall into
place: the dead monkey, the rats nibbling around in the
empty pool, the vaguely haunted house that entombs an
other era, the giddily expressionist close-ups of Stroheim's
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GRAND STREET
white-gloved fingers playing the wheezing organ. Pauline
Kael once drew attention to the expressionist elements in
Citizen Kane-including cinematographer Gregg Tolands
debt to the camera work of Karl Freund, and Welles's own
outsized acting, which substitutes virtuosity for intimacy
and showiness for inwardness. Numerous elements from
Kane reappear in Sunset Boulevard. The brooding castle in
both films signifies emotional isolation, loss of touch with
reality, and the failure of money to buy love. The May
December romance of Kane and Susan Alexander is dis
tantly echoed in Norma's purchase of Joe and her failure
to hold him.
Above all, both films use deep-focus imagery to convey
power relationships involving love, money and personal
vanity. When, deep in the frame, Joe walks in while Norma
is calling her rival, Betty, or when Joe sends Betty away
and the camera moves up slightly to show Norma peering
down at the scene from above, as she did when Joe first
arrived, these shots, effective as they are, are almost em
barrassingly reminiscent of Toland and Welles. If Citizen
Kane is the best German film ever made in America, Sunset
Boulevard is one of the best Wellesian films ever made in
Hollywood. In his next film, Ace in the Hole (1951), Wilder
would focus even more savagely on the other part of the
Kane world of unscrupulous yellow journalism and media
manipulation.
espite Wilder's intense dislike of formula and genre
films, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard and Ace
in the Hole make up a trilogy that marks his significant
contribution to film noir. What Neal Sinyard and Adrian
Turner say of Fred MacMurray's role in the first of these
films could easily be applied to the other two: "Neff is the
first of Wilder's morally weak heroes who, through motives
which drift between greed, ambition, vanity and sexual en
slavement, finds himself in a situation which he becomes
powerless to control but which he has to see through to its
tragic conclusion." Each of these men begins by calling the
shots; each is caught in a triangular web he tried to con
trol; each is finally killed by a woman he thought he could
use and dominate. Wilder's seeming pastiche of noir turns
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MORRIS DICKSTEIN
out to be his creative attempt to work within its terms, to
take them to extremes.
A commercial and critical failure when it first appeared,
Ace in the Hole was Wilder's most strident and cynical
film. Like Bogart in Nicholas Ray's remarkable In a Lonely
Place, Kirk Douglas plays a part which reveals the de
mented underside of the hard-boiled noir hero. Utterly
unscrupulous until almost the last moment, Douglas is the
precise mirror image of the Capraesque man of the people
who, fortified by his own innocence and idealism, faces
down cynicism, corruption and his own doubts and fears.
Apparently strong, Douglas is undone by his moral weak
ness, his knowing ability to manipulate gullible people. He
even has a change of heart at the end, like Capra's hard
ened cynics. As Jean Arthur says to Thomas Mitchell in
Mr. Smith: "I wonder if it isn't a curse to go through life
wised up like us."
Though he calls himself a heel more than once, and he
finally disillusions and repels his bright-eyed young girl
friend out of sheer self-loathing, William Holden plays the
cynic as victim rather than villain. Like MacMurray, he
falls into the hands of a predatory woman who uses him
more than he uses her. The turning point for Joe Gillis
comes on New Year's Eve after he has made his strongest
bid to escape. Norma cuts her wrists with his own razor
and, out of a mixture of guilt and sympathy, he returns to
berate or comfort her.
Lying in bed with her arms outstretched she plays her
greatest scene, and at the stroke of midnight, as the strains
of "Auld Lang Syne" waft into the room, she reaches up
and pulls him towards her with nails that look like talons
and a mouth that, as the image slowly fades, looks as if it
could as easily sink teeth into his neck as kiss him on the
lips. With this dissolve, in the best Hollywood fashion,
their affair truly begins. It's hard not to read this as a classic
male fantasy, a fear of regression and entrapment which is
film noir's Gothic inheritance.
I n Idols of Perversity, a kind of feminist update of Mario
Praz's book The Romantic Agony, Bram Dijkstra points
out that by the turn of the century the male vampire,
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GRAND STREET
attracted by the provocative or vulnerable woman, had
begun to give way to the female vampire who sucked the
male essence, drained off the vital bodily fluids. "Female
vampires were now everywhere," he says. "By 1900 the
vampire had come to represent woman as the personifica
tion of everything negative that linked sex, ownership, and
money." One of the most vampirish of these fin de siecle
myths, of course, plays a key role in Sunset Boulevard, the
story of Salome, which is the subject of the interminable
script which Norma is preparing for her return. "She de
mands his head on a golden tray, kissing his cold, dead
lips," she says, summarizing her script yet also foreshadow
ing her own story, as she will descend the stairs to the
demented strains of Franz Waxman's Straussian Salome
music.
Gillis edits this story ("that silly hodgepodge of melo
dramatic plots") and plays his appointed role in the real
life version. Nolma sends the final script over to DeMille,
who had directed her (and Swanson) in her greatest suc
cesses, and DeMille at that moment just happens to be
shooting Samson and Delilah, another clear parallel to
Norma's sapping of Joe's strength. Yet Norma is also Miss
Havisham, the Gothic recluse whose house was a shrine to
the frozen past yet who played her part in young Pip's
coming-of-age. Such is the thick texture of allusions that
enrich Wilder's script.
The Gothic and literary elements of Sunset Boulevard all
point to the themes of imprisonment, sexual bondage and
feminine hysteria and madness. Norma's house (like Nor
ma herself) "seemed to have been stricken with a kind of
creeping paralysis" which left it "out of beat with the rest
of the world," just as Joe is out of beat with his easygoing
contemporaries and with the new Hollywood. Yet Wilder's
tissue of references to real people and their film careers,
from Stroheim, Swanson and DeMille to Alan Ladd and
Betty Hutton, gives this self-enclosure another dimension,
referring not simply to silent-film days and Norma's mad
ness but also to the narcissistic illusions of the star system
and the whole film world. Unlike artists who observe life,
assimilate and transform it, Norma lives not to see but to
be seen. Joe becomes her audience even more than her
lover, and she constantly performs for him-routines that
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MORRIS DICKSTEIN
were old before he was born. No wonder the film has been
seen as the allegory of an aging Hollywood trying to cap
ture the attention of a younger generation. From the be
ginning Joe, working on her script, has found that "it wasn't
so simple getting some coherence into those wild hallucina
tions of hers." At the end, when he tells her the truth and
tries to walk out, he is closing her down, destroying the
one thing that makes life bearable for her. As Sinyard and
Turner comment, "Norma kills him because be threatens
the only thing which is precious to her-illusion."
Yet there is an undeniable grandeur in Norma's illusions,
as staged by Stroheim, that cannot be matched by Joe's
more up-to-date realism. When Norma/Salome sheds her
veil as she dances with Joe at her New Year's party for two,
Stroheim picks it up with a look of dogged devotion and
kinky romanticism. When Stroheim at the projector shows
us a scene from his own unfinished Queen Kelly, a film
which nearly destroyed both his and Swanson's career,
Wilder adds an intertitle which reads, "Cast out this
wicked dream which has seized my heart." But the images
we see of Swanson's face, surrounded by lighted tapers,
make up a reverie of dreamlike beauty. When Joe drives a
stake through Norma's heart, he destroys himself as well.
Joe's bland young sweetheart, Betty, who may be mod
eled on the depressirngly healthy character with the
same name in Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts, finds
that she cannot lure him away from Norma and back
to his earlier, uncorrupted self, as she has been trying to
do since they first met. Betty's uncomplicated normality,
like Joe's cynical realism, is no match for Norma's baroque
self-dramatization. Having fixed her nose but lost all desire
to become a star, Betty is content to remain safely behind
the camera. But Norma understands that ego, illusion and
performance are essential to art, even her kind of bad art.
Norma and Joe are made for each other, feeding upon
each other as performer and audience, actress and writer,
grande dame and cheap gigolo. Both are prisoners in a
castle without locks, both are in the "sunset" of their ca
reers. Yet Joe is already compromised before they meet
Betty had been the first to tell him so, the first woman to
betray him-while Norma, in the half-mad recesses of her
suffocating narcissism, preserves a kind of hysterical in
[183]
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GRAND STREET
tegrity. Joe wonders, "How could she breathe in that house
so crowded with Norma Desmonds, more Norma Des
monds, and still more Norma Desmonds?" Yet she effort
lessly takes the spotlight on DeMille's set, until he coldly
moves it away from her, and in her final scene she is a star
again, just as Stroheim is able to direct her again, nourish
ing her illusions as devotedly as ever. As writers from
Shakespeare to Henry James have suggested, there is not
so wide a gap between madness and art.
It was brilliant of Wilder to grasp that Hollywood itself
was a scene of Gothic isolation and solipsistic emotion, and
to show the grandeur that could emerge from the para
sitical relations between actors and writers, performers and
directors, stars and star-gazers-cannibals all. As in most
noir films, with their dark motives and circular structures,
we find ourselves in a corrupt world from which no exit is
possible. Yet Wilder pays tribute to what can emerge from
this hothouse world, just as he does honor to the film
formulas he lightly parodies. Now that he himself, like
Norma, is treated as a relic of Hollywood's past, his barbed
tribute stings and sings with even more authority.
[184]
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Twilight of the Idols: Performance, Melodramatic Villainy, and Sunset Boulevard
Author(s): AARON TAYLOR
Source: Journal of Film and Video , SUMMER 2007, Vol. 59, No. 2 (SUMMER 2007), pp.
13-31
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the University Film & Video
Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20688556
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Twilight of the Idols: Performance, Melodramatic Villainy,
and Sunset Boulevard
AARON TAYLOR
there is a particular variety of filmic
a public self (one of counterfeited sociality)?a
evil that demands a correlative degree of
duality that is antithetical to the hero(ine)'s sin
imaginative simulation from a viewer: this is gular altruism. Plots frequently turn on an act
the villain of the melodramatic tradition. Any of mendacity perpetrated against an innocent
melodramatic villain worth the upturn of his whose virtue is predicated upon an utter lack
moustache will be adept in the arts of trickery,of guile, which renders the hero(ine) vulnerable
disguise, and deception. In other words, he to the threat of corruption. Performance is more
than a weapon in the melodramatic tradition; it
will be an actor. Indeed, in Victorian stage
melodrama, the villain's willingness to adopt is the very mark of Cain.
a false persona sets him apart from the virtu
The coding of villainy as inherently histri
ous characters, who shun deceptive behavior.onic extends beyond the silent melodramas of
Historically, these deceptive cads were re
the early twentieth century, which ostensibly
viled because they privileged their sense of aappear more indebted to Victorian theatrical
unique, private subjectivity above the social conventions than their successors beyond
order. "Melodrama is an anti-intellectual genre
the late teens. This conflation of performance
and deception largely accounts for the secret
which eschews subject-centered, psychological
modes of identity. In melodrama, the villain isfrisson that often characterizes one's encoun
a threat because he is individualistic, valuingters with all filmic villainy influenced by stage
self before society" (john 49). By contrast, themelodrama's Manichean polarities. In per
imperiled heroine and her stalwart protector forming immorality, a screen actor offers sets
are little more than callow paragons of virtue, of signs that are interpreted and pleasurably
without recourse to the villain's protean gifts reconstructed as villainous by a viewer. These
acts of decipherment can be doubly captivat
of duplicity. To put it another way, wickedness
in nineteenth-century English melodrama is
ing in films indebted to melodrama's lineage,
delineated by the mobility between a private whereby villainy itself is conceptualized as a
self (one of undisclosed personal desires) andkind of performance. Films inspired by melo
dramatic traditions posit villainy as a theatrical
aaron taylor is currently a limited-term assis venture?a wantonly aesthetic enterprise that is
tant professor in the Department of Communicaan affront to bourgeois propriety.
tions, Popular Culture, and Film at Brock Univer The insidiousness of the villain's ostenta
sity. He has written on superheroic bodies for thetious schemes is a constant source of vexation
Journal of Popular Culture, on the marketing of
for virtuous characters, yet it is often an un
Winnie-the-Pooh for Rethinking Disney (Wesleyan,
mistakable source of pleasure for audiences.
2005 ), and on the films of Bruce McDonald for the
forthcoming Canadian Movie Gods (U of Alberta).Just as a film's heavy adroitly deceives his or
He is developing a book on empathetic engage her na?ve victim, so too does she or he seem
ment with filmic characters.
to 'trick' the bemused spectators out of their
JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 59?2 / SUMMER 200J 13
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usual or learned moral responses to immoral
Hollywood's moral reformists despaired of the
situations. A villain will be doubly practiced
stars?that their trails of glory blanketed all
at the art of deception, and this adeptness is
good, common moral sense. Journalist Eileen
integral to the character-type's entertainment
Percy's complaint concerning the charisma of
value. Delight in villainy is not always an act
the gangster in 1931 (played by electric heavies
of overt moral disassociation?the familiar
such as James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson,
expulsion of breath hissing through the teeth;
and Paul Muni) is a typical example: "Our gun
it is often a matter of illicit excitement. Taking
men are presented to us in such a manner that
pleasure from a melodramatic representation
we find ourselves pulling for them in spite of
of evil is often a complex form of aesthetically
ourselves, due to the subtle persuasions of
oriented appreciation. Our fascination with
the drama" (qtd. in Maltby 131). The fear that
these types of wrongdoers is often located in
these "subtle persuasions" make unwilling
our relation to them as performers and in their
monsters of men were not limited to the 1930s;
aptitude for coaxing responses marked by a
Orrin E. Klapp wrote in 1962 that "to cast a
corresponding and commensurate degree of
popular favorite as a criminal might be itself
almost a crime against the public" (156); even
performativity.
Gloria Swanson's reflexive performance in
Sunset Boulevard (1950) as washed-up film star
as recently as 1993, in Hollywood vs. America,
the conservative film reviewer Michael Medved
Norma Desmond provides us with a particularly
decried the "attractiveness" of violence.
sophisticated model of the histrionic represen
Historically, the villain is a close relative of
tation of wickedness. I argue that the recep
the actor. To put it more accurately, performers
tion of Swanson's signs of villainy entails an
imaginative performance on a viewer's part in
have long been marked as inherently deceit
ful and immoral: Plato declared that actors'
which she or he may become the appreciative
penchant for falsification disqualified them
recipient of a villainous transmission. A mildly
for his Republic; in France, actors were excom
perverse consanguinity, one's enjoyment of
municated from the Middle Ages until the early
ostentatiously histrionic villainy is an aggregate
eighteenth century; Puritan reformists sought
of intertwining pleasures, including: (1) admira
to close theaters and publicly censure perform
ers in Elizabethan England; actors in India
tion for an actor's technical prowess; (2) delight
in a film's mobilized formal antipathy between
"theatrical" and "illusionist" performance
styles; and most important (3) the satisfaction
belonged to the lowest castes until the early
twentieth century. While Jonas Barish reminds
derived from entering into a virtual performa
us that biases against acting are specific to
their respective sociohistoric emanations, all
tive contract as an admirer of the art of villainy.1
of the examples cited here share an underlying
affiliation between theatricality and falsity. This
-It's the Pictures That Got Small":
"antitheatrical prejudice" is partly metaphysi
Melodramatic Performance
cal?informed by a lingering Platonic suspicion
As the authors of the Production Code worried,
"the enthusiasm for and interest in the film
duplication of forms?but mostly ethical. For
antitheatrical moralists, imitation and exhibi
actors and actresses, developed beyond any
tionism are betrayals of an authentic self, "a
that an actor only aspires to an "inauthentic"
thing of the sort in history, makes the audience
radical defalsificatfon of our inner experience"
sympathetic toward the characters they portray
(Barish 25e).2 After unperformable sincerity in
and the stories in which they figure. Hence they
public relations becomes enshrined as a social
are more ready to confuse the actor and the
ideal in the early eighteenth century, equations
character, and they are most receptive of the
are increasingly made between acting and bad
emotions and ideals portrayed and presented
faith, if not outright hypocrisy.
by their favorite stars" (qtd. in Doherty 350).
Such antitheatricalism, "with its demand
14 JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 59?2 / SUMMER 2007
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for a sincerity that cannot be performed and
its celebration of an unplayable own self," was
This semiotic approach to performance?in
which physical movement is codified to achieve
even internalized by the theater itself (Wikan
concise, unambiguous expressivity?was often
der 198). The association of acting with hypoc
articulated in prescriptive terms. Thus, while
risy accounts for the anxiousness at the heart
of Victorian melodrama. "Reverent Victorians
draw on a repertoire of poses and movements
crafting a villainous role, a performer could
shunned theatricality as the ultimate, deceitful
illustrated in any number of acting manu
mobility. It connotes not only lies, but a fluid
als inspired by Fran?ois Delsarte's postural
ity of character that decomposes the uniform
exercises. From the late 1880s into the early
integrity of the self (Auerbach 4). Itself a forum
twentieth century, proponents of the Delsartian
for conventional gestures made spectacular by
system (Steele MacKaye, founder of the Lyceum
virtuosic performances, melodrama's blatant
Theatre School, being the most active American
artificiality was rendered palatable by contain
advocate) promoted a standardized perfor
ing the histrionic within a system of Manichean
mative lexicon that could encapsulate and
moralism. Again, the "deceitful mobility" en
telegraph emotion via instantly recognizable,
iconic mannerisms. Roberta Pearson dubs this
acted within popular sensational English melo
drama was the villain's unique province, set in
reflexive system the "histrionic code" (20). Sig
opposition to the transparent sincerity of the
nificantly, the system favors the virtuoso per
hero(ine). Indeed, the very capacity for duplic
former, for whom the declamatory foreground
ity undermines the holism of Victorian sincerity.
ing of technical skills is always paramount. To
Thus, as a superficial form of homiletic allegory,
perform is to "make points," to ostentatiously
the dramatic thrust of late-nineteenth-century
display protrusive emotion, to present rather
melodrama is to expose the villain as a de
than represent.
ceiver, an imposter, a mounteback, a swindler,
a wearer of masks.
nied by a strong cachet of recurrent textual
Melodramatic villains, then, are accompa
The melodramatic realization of a villain
indicators. These indicators have changed very
ous role is a theatrical style that externalizes
little in their systemic implementation through
immorality, rendering it recognizable, know
out the decades and are typically marked by
able, and essentially tolerable for audiences.
Peter Brooks has argued that classical stage
melodrama is not so much concerned that the
obtrusive. Recognizing a character as villainous
their excess?that is, they are often extremely
often requires a number of indirect informants
hero win the day and the heroine prove her
that visibly exemplify iniquity. Within a Pearl
innocence, but rather that the forces of good
Wh ite serial?The Perils of Pauline (1914), say?
and evil be easily recognizable (42). In the in
a deformity, a black costume, a tendency to
terest of "moral legibility,'' melodrama provides
sneer, and an upturned moustache all indicate
us with a series of performance cues through
which the moral universe of the narrative is
moral flagrancy. In keeping with melodrama's
appropriation of phrenology in the use of
articulated. Similarly, Richard Dyer concisely
typage, we have the idea of "criminar physi
defines melodramatic performance as "the use
ognomy, based on corporeal abnormality (a
of gestures principally in terms of their intense
hump, a scar, a disfigurement) or excess (physi
and immediate expressive, affective significa
cal size, singularity of expression, emphasis on
tion," and he points out that these cues are not
a particular gesture).
merely emotional articulations, but more im
A prototypical early example can be found
portantly, are interpreted as "moral categories"
in the person of "Battling Burrows" (Donald
(137). Thus, the stage villain employs a stock
Crisp), the brutish heavy in Broken Blossoms
series of gestures and postures to clearly indi
(1919) (see fig. 1). Depicted here advancing
cate his or her moral identity?physiognomic
signals that cue our evaluations.
towards Burrows's brutalized daughter, Lucy
(Lillian Gish), Crisp mugs outrageously for Billy
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Bitzens camera, which in turn registers every
While giving a definitive account of enacted
abhorrent feature in horrific detail. Indeed, it
recoils from the flattened bulldog nose, the
villainy is impossible?too many permutations
of the histrionic code are available to an actor
cancerous mole, the upper lip drawn back like
some generalizations can be made.
Essentially, the melodramatically villainous
a freakish orangutan, the monstrous eyebrows
performance is based on the correlation of two
that threaten to overtake a prehistoric fore
sets of binaries: the actor's unchecked and
head, the eyes themselves that see naught
but red. To call Burrows a lout would be akin to
checked histrionic displays and the character's
describing Atilla the Hun as a ruffian; he is a
public and private roles. In enacting oily perfidy,
troglodytic obscenity, and Crisp intends him to
the actor moves with an extravagant briskness,
register as the very emblem of degenerate pig
all dynamic extension and deliquescent flour
gery. In short, melodramatic villainy frequently
ishes. The aim is a predatory bedazzlement, a
registers corporeally as a literal grotesque. This
cobra slithering through high society. There is
is the anthropomorphic externalization of ir
redeemable evil as a frozen mask. At its most
an emphasis on angularity and outward sup
hysteric, melodramatic villainy will manifest
miliar arm snaking around a victim's shoulders,
plication: the conspiratorial crouch, the too-fa
itself as monstrosity: Musidora as the feral Irma
the impudent forward thrust of the thorax?all
Vep; Lon Chaney as the skeletal Phantom of
familiar unchecked histrionic poses that signal
the Opera; Conrad Veidt as the somnambulistic
Cesare. These illuminative faces are the very
the villain's deceptive public persona.
quintessence of silent-era horror. In Sunset
Boulevard, Norma Desmond expresses her
often disconcertingly abrupt?the outward sig
contempt for the talkies, which she believes
shift usually occurs when his or her iniquity has
A shift in register to the unchecked code is
nal of the villain's menacing private self. Such a
have destroyed this unique form of pantomimic
expressivity. "We didn't need words," she de
clares. "We had faces.9*
been publicly exposed, or, more significantly,
when he or she makes his or her schemes
known to the audience through conspiratorial
The performative corollary of this grotesquery
soliloquies and asides. The menace of personal
is often a piquant alternation between checked
and unchecked displays of the histrionic code.
desire is articulated in weighted and laconic
actions. There is a deliberate heaviness to the
The difference between these displays is a
villain's posturing here?a compacted inward
matter of inflection and degree. As stylistic in
ness that contrasts with the fluidity of his or her
dicators, Pearson attributes speed, repetition,
emphatic movement, and the full extension of
outward public insinuations. We might notice
the darkly purposeful lowering of chin and eye
limbs to unchecked histrionic display, while
brows, the impulsive rubbing together of hands
languidness, delicacy, and gestural compact
ness are markers of the checked code (27).
in gleeful anticipation, the slight raising of
shoulders as the cobra unfurls its hood, or the
I Figure i: A melodramatic grotesque.
JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 59.2 / SUMMER 2 7
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supine gait. Again, the intended effect is singu
ing a pantomimic style of purely externalized
lar: we behold the coiling of some poisonous
expressivity. The seductive Woman from the
reptile, unadulterated evil in an act of boastful
City (Margaret Livingston) is the personifica
self-nomination.
The moral purpose of these physical cues,
then, is to assist in the nomination of a char
acter. To be a villain is largely to look and act
tion of vice, drawing the hapless Man (George
O'Brien) into debauchery and attempted mur
der. When alone, her movements are drowsy
undulations, exemplifying her moral torpor. We
like one?what Michael Booth describes as an
observe her lazily lighting a cigarette from a
"instant character (Booth 14-15). Moreover,
candle, a delicious, casual gesture that, accord
ing to superstition, condemns a sailor to a wa
part of the pleasure we derive from engaging
with melodramatic villains can be located in
tery grave (see fig. 2a). Or, hiding from an angry
the moral clarity they provide. They allow us
mob, she entwines herself in the branches of a
to put a face on evil. Transgressors in the real
tree like a panther thwarted of its prey. By con
world could look like anyone at all. Michael
trast, the public exertion of her wiles is an un
Rooker*s largely inexpressive psychopath in
bridled display of sexual energy. In the muck of
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)?a film
the swamp?the site of their trysts?the Woman
disconcertingly free of attitudinal cues?is a
whirls like a dynamo in a frenzied parody of
notable example. Because of his "ordinariness"
a flapper, finally coiling about the Man with
and lack of physiognomic signals of deviancy,
succubine dexterity (fig. 2b). Such histrionic
Henry seems to be a much more inscrutable,
display is infectious. As he steels himself to
and thus, frighteningly "realistic" character.
murder his devoted wife Oanet Gaynor), the
Interestingly, these standard melodramatic
usually demure Man adopts a mannered, lum
signals have outlived the dramatic style that
bering stance and his face is transformed into a
prompted them. They are to be found especially
in the screen actor's reliance on pantomimic
mask of hate. Again, at its most perverse, illicit
gesticulations. Indeed, it is the very muteness
registers as theatrical grotesquery.
private desire in the melodramatic tradition
of early cinema that makes it so conducive to
So, although various technological, cultural,
melodrama's expressive articulation of unam
biguous moral categories. Even as late a film as
and aesthetic developments have prompted
less mannered acting styles and have altered
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) contains
near-archetypal examples, the actors resurrect
the dramatic framework to which these styles
are essential, the villain can still be identi
Figure 2a: "Checked"
menace.
JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 59.2 / SUMMER 2007
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17
3
f?ed
through
exercise
histrionic
in
wh
g
and
in
his theatrics
Mutual
films
Thus,
melodramatic
relationship
typage,
wi
c
histrionic
vill
ish
eyes
often
glowering
Gloria
Swans
eyebrows
at
the
Tra
stage
debauched
an
theatrical
villains
are
also
modulated
version
of
the
commitment
outmoded)
examples
include pe
th
table
register
Von
Lowell
in
by rationality
George
Siegm
an
Norma
remai
m
in
Hearts
of
Stroh
Way
from
Sherman's
caddish
onic
indicator
nominating
h
Down
East
(1920).
She
isto
almost
unchecked
check
of
her
eyes
blaz
also
lent
themselves
brows;
her
h
seductive
diabolism.
S
its
most
play
untrammeled
inf
tendency
to
proclamation
in
Fousf
(1926)
Mephisto
animus
fueling
jestically;
Erich
von
near
bared
teeth. h
particularly
melodramatic
Wives
(1922).
scoundrels,
in
Foolish
Residual
long
melodramatic
but
admire
after
th
v
the
histrionics,
silent
era,
to
f
as
an
actor.
S
Mitchum's
pantomimic
o
ness
would
Reverend
Powell n
i
monic
The
Hollywood
sta
of
the
Hunter
similar
evident
whenmonu
the
R
Night
cially
depravity
stepchildren and
(recall
their
f
with
Powell Jane?
in
pursuit,
(1962).
hi
something
tempts
ing,
to
from
So
the
a
nightm
perfor
major
compon
woo
wealthy
w
melodramatica
revivalist
zeal.
Billy
W
contemporaneous
hypothetical
with
L
Norma
(or
wi
of
melodramatic
perform
ever,
Sunset
Boulevard
is
ness
is
simila
l8
?2
JOURNAL
7
BY
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THE
O
BOAR
favorable, can be described as an appreciative
In order to appreciate Hollywood's frequent
spectator. At its most basic, hedonic emotion
actantial pairing of an understated protagonist
experienced in response to histrionic villainy
against an exhibitionist antagonist, we can
is not necessarily sympathetically motivated,
refer again to the dramatization of behavioral
but is instead a sign of approbation directed
ideals in Victorian theater, where "transpar
toward the performer, as evidenced by the
ency" and "sincerity" were enshrined as the
critical accolades bestowed on performers
goals of public deportment. But as melodra
given to crafting explicitly "theatrical" miscre
ma's popularity began to wane, it was replaced
ants: Glenn Close as the Marquise de Merteuil
by a performance style that associated the en
(Dangerous Liaisons [1988]) or Cruella De Vil
tire histrionic code itself with an unacceptable
(101 Dalmatians [1996]); John Malkovich as
"artificiality." Thus, the pantomimic expressiv
Mitch Leary (In the Line of Fire [1993]) or Cyrus
ity of melodrama was antithetical to the emerg
"the Virus" Grissom (Con Air [1997]); Alan Rick
ing "verisimilar code" of the early twentieth
man as the Sheriff of Nottingham (Robin Hood:
century (Pearson 20). This was a form of natu
Prince of Thieves [1991]) or Severus Snape
ralist acting whereby the actor sought to mi
(Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
[2001]). Yet how might one's approval for the
metically recreate "actual behavior" via obser
vationally based techniques such as "byplay"
actor be reconciled with melodrama's insis
(character established through subtle physical
tence that villainy be equated with hypocrisy,
details) and "affective memory" (the dramatic
bad faith, deception, and, by extension, with
recollection of emotion personally experienced
acting itself?
by the actor). The style was popularized by
"The Valentinos" vs. "Some Nobodies":
producers such as David Belasco and Andr? An
toine, and such distinguished actor-managers
successful "realist" performances mounted by
Theatricality and lllusionism
as Henry Irving and William Gillette. Rather than
Although Swanson's performance is geared
create emblems of an "occulted," desacralized
toward coaxing a relatively straightforward
morality by relying on prescriptively codified
nomination of her as the film's villain, this
declamations of iconic emotional states, the
performance style functions diegetically in a
actor now aspired toward psychological cred
highly complex way. Specifically, the film in
ibility and mimetic representation.
vites us to morally evaluate not only Norma's
actions but also her means of expressing these
actions?it prompts an evaluation of melo
Although, by the turn of the century, private
desire was no longer superficially equated with
antisociality, sincerity remained a privileged
dramatic behavior itself. Within the narrative,
cultural value. Thus, the classical Hollywood
Norma's villainy lies in her commitment to per
hero(ine) is typified by adherence to a relatively
formance above rationality, and in being thus
simple, clearly articulated personal ethic.
committed, she places her desires above moral
Faithfulness to this ethic underlies all psycho
duties. Sunset Boulevard is therefore in keep
logically motivated illusionist styles, where the
ing with melodrama's internalizaron and dra
matic mobilization of the antitheatrical bias,
actor strives to embody a fully realized char
acter rather than an abstract moral category.
but it also reflexively comments on this preju
Thus we might speak of the Stanislavskian
dice. The film vividly illustrates how taking
"supertask"?the unconscious complexes that
"perverse" pleasure in melodramatic villainy is
the actor creatively attributes to a character's
also a byproduct of a constructed formal an
actions. Or one could reference the Hollywood
tipathy between "theatrical" and "illusionist"
principle of the "character arc"?a bowdlerized
performance styles. One is consciously aligned
version of Aristotelian anagnorisis whereby
with the indulgence of "acting out" over the
the protagonist gradually acquires a new form
thanklessness of comportment.
of "self-knowledge." It is not that pantomimic
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In Sunset Boulevard, villainy is explicitly
expressivity disappears; rather, histrionic
gesticulation is subsumed within verisimilar
and intrinsically linked to theatrics. Norma
imperatives.
dramatizes each moment, turning everyday
interactions into star turns. Because she flits
The point here, of course, is that performa
tive gestures are no longer figurative; instead
incessantly from role to role (from belle dame
they are emblematic of a character's occulted
sans merci, to bored decadent to scorned
personal ethic or "inner truth."4 Even more per
tinent for our purposes is the gradual dispar
lover), she seems to lack a grounding sense of
self. A husk without a center, her emotions are
agement of melodrama's histrionic style as con
merely grandiose, empty signs played out in
notative of bourgeois deportment?an aesthetic
an inhumanly Delsartian fashion. She cannot
shorthand for "stilted, pretentious behavior"
help but act out (that is, perform) her emo
(Naremore 53). Theatricality becomes a euphe
tions, even when alone?as when she swoons
mism for mannered excess. Contemporary real
ists such as David Mamet have articulated their
onto a bedpost and recites a jealous, tortured
soliloquy ("Why can't I ask you, joe? Why?**).
contempt for the residual signs of melodrama
Each gesture is played as if to an adoring audi
in their prohibitions on mugging and the ex
ence from her heyday as a silent deity. Even the
cesses of characterization. In his advice to ac
earthly incarnation of the deity becomes enrap
tors, Mamet claims that attempts to physically
tured by its own glory. Consider Norma's urgent
manifest a particular moral identity are point
less because "the work of the characterization
pursuit of Joe Gillis (William Holden)?her kept
has or has not been done by the author_
order to prevent him from leaving; her pursuit
You don't have to portray the hero or the villain.
That's been done for you by the script" (114). In
is cut short when she becomes transfixed by
her reflection in a mirror. She executes a brief
this light, Richard Widmark's performance as
series of poses in the glass before she storms
the giggling, psychopathic Tommy Udo in Kiss
boy and the film's narrator?down a hallway in
into his bedroom to play out one final scene.
of Death (1947) would be an example of a "dis
honest" or "untruthful" performance because
Such unnatural devotion to emotional affecta
it "overstates" the character's villainy, which is
of personal morality: star ethics, if you will.
already evident in his actions (such as pushing
an old woman bound to her wheelchair down a
point, as her self-aggrandizement turns mono
flight of stairs).
maniacal. In fact, she will eventually murder Joe
Thus, in fashioning a melodramatic villain,
tion necessitates an equally unnatural system
"No one ever leaves a star," she hisses at one
for exiting the scene prematurely and for blas
the modern screen actor implicitly actuates the
antitheatrical bias. The villain's wickedness is
phemously casting aside an idol.5
compounded by his or her penchant for exces
textual shaping of a viewer's inwardly directed
sive display, especially when set against a com
moral response: behavioral cues prompt an
paratively taciturn hero(ine). Consider the an
evaluation of character that adheres to the film's
So performance may be considered as the
tagonistic performance styles of Norma Shearer
internal conventions.6 But performance may
and Joan Crawford in The Women (1939), Ed
also be outwardly directed, at an object that
mund O'Brien and James Cagney in White Heat
lies beyond the text. Although we are invited
(1949), Sterling Hayden and Mercedes McCam
to negatively evaluate Norma's performances,
bridge in Johnny Guitar (1954), Michael Keaton
the film is not as straightforward regarding
and Jack Nicholson in Batman (1989), and
these performances as it seems. For a viewer
Ethan Hawke and Denzel Washington in Train
may also regard Norma as a victim, recognizing
ing Day (2001). The moral polarization of theat
that it is not only her age but her commitment
ricality versus illusionism is integral to classical
to an archaic mode of performance that keeps
Hollywood's agonistic dramatic structure.
her from reentering the kingdom of Hollywood.7
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The extrinsic object of Sunset Boulevards moral
chin), especially compared to the heavily made
critique, then, is the film industry itself.
up Swanson.
Even his illusionist performance style is
The film brilliantly employs Swanson's per
formance style as an element in its critique
of an industrial art that does not revere its
eclipsed?his cynical sensibilities are over
whelmed?by Norma's fustian proclivities. Her
past. While some have argued that casting an
"all too visible player" as a familiar character
predilection for melodrama actually bleeds
into the scenes between Joe and his potential
"seems unduly to circumscribe the character
amour, Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olsen). Consider
despite the brilliance of the performance," the
the "love scene" they play out with mock
seriousness in the Rainbow Room at Artie's
film depends on Gloria Swanson's extreme
visibility (Chatman 119). Norma's performa
(Jack Webb) New Year party, as well as the final
tive excessiveness is a self-imposed critical
dissolution of their relationship into theatrics:
response to a Hollywood that has lost its sense
"I can't even look at you, Joe," Betty sobs as
of grandeur: "I am big," she declares. "It's the
she shields her eyes; "Then try looking for the
pictures that got smalt." Correspondingly, the
exit," he replies, leading her towards the door.
film employs Swanson's faded star image to
Joe is both figuratively and literally a ghost
superbly ironic effect, melding biography with
dead before the film even begins?and as if to
fiction to critique the fickle institution of Hol
make up for his lack of presence, his narration
lywood?a machine that churns out stars, only
is nearly incessant, filling the film with "talk,
eventually to discard them.8 Consider another
moment of self-adulation, when Norma pays
talk, talk!" Such a "stranglehold of words"
homage to her own image by gazing spellbound
at her onscreen incarnation, which blazes
cinema, for which Joe (as a screenwriter) is
with youthful light from the darkness of her
parlor-cum-cinema. The film she forces joe to
watch with her features a sequence from Queen
justifies Norma's complaint about the modern
a synecdoche. He continually disparages his
art, and his lack of devotion marks him as a
nowhere man, as dollar-driven as the studios
for which he hopelessly labors. His "flat and
Kelly?a shelved vehicle forSwanson from 1929
trite" dreams cannot match the grandeur of his
(partially directed by Erich von Stroheim, no
mistress's schemes for reclaimed glory, and
less)?and her silent radiance stands in sharp
he ends up as just another "nobody" screen
writer, facedown in a swimming pool. Despite
contrast to the decay of her present condition.9
Swanson and the performance style she em
bodies are relics of a discarded era.
the tenacity of her fierce imagination, Norma?
like Swanson?is ground up in the machinery
To that end, we can see how Norma's per
of a greater dream factory. Unsurprisingly,
formance is ethically motivated?that it is a
reaction to the values of the modern cinema
Norma Desmond was Swanson's final major
embodied by joe. Compare Swanson's hy
perpresence with William Holden's simple
Hollywood role.
So performance is an element that can be
used to evaluate a subject within the text, but
presence, which is characterized by a kind
it can also be morally directed at an external
of transparency and disappears within her
object. Swanson's performance in Sunset Bou
shadow. Popular and critical acclaim for Holden
had ebbed since his breakthrough in Golden
the film couples this performance style with
levard has a conspicuous moral valence, and
Boy (1939). Although he had appeared in more
Swanson's highly visible star image as a means
than twenty leading roles by 1950, his star ap
of ethically critiquing the capriciousness of
peal was still relatively amorphous. Moreover,
contemporary idolaters. Appreciation for the
his features are fairty indistinct (consider his
theatrical villain, then, is not just a measure of
contemporaries: Brando's Romanesque profile,
our respect for an actor's technical skill; it is
Mitchum's reptilian slow-burn, Douglas's heroic
also a matter of recognizing and resisting an
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enduring antitheatrical bias, embodied by the
the theater and assume the role of appreciative
grandiloquence of the villain's histrionics.
spectators of the character's immoral art.
"Just Us and Those Wonderful People
Out There in the Dark": Spectatorship
as Complicity
tive?a metaphorical conceit that prettifies
affective displays that seem drastically inap
There is a third dimension to one's allegiance
our moral responses to fictions differ in degree
with a melodramatic villain, however; it can
and intensity from their real-world analogues.11
Such assumed amorality is not just figura
posite to the dramatized situation at hand. A
popular position in aesthetic philosophy is that
be discussed in terms of the pleasure he or
In fact, they are occasionally characterized by
she evokes due to his or her sheer, excessive
a conspicuous degree of theatricality, or moral
theatricality.10 In spite of both the internal and
external ethics of the melodramatic villain's
simulation. Simulating a moral position allows
performance, his or her theatrical nature tends
duction of inappropriate reactive states (mock
for 1) the mobility of our allegiance, 2) the re
to circumvent the genuineness of moral en
rather than actual outrage) and thus, 3) plea
gagement. In fact, the pleasure one takes in a
sure in the villain free of perversity's stigma.
villain's melodramatic performance tends to
Typically, it is the melodramatic tradition of
override the moral reservations we might have
about his or her actions and our willingness to
villainy that encourages an appropriately theat
rical moral response from viewers. But are we
condemn them. It is not simply that Swanson's
being "seduced" into taking on such a "role"?
high visibility as a former star disrupts an au
Contemporary assumptions that certain films
thentic moral engagement with the film. Murray
engage in sophisticated moral deception stem
Smith claims that "when a star plays a role,
our awareness of the fictional status of the
from the residual Victorian affiliation between
character she plays may be heightened, and
this may license our imaginative play with mor
ally undesirable acts to an even greater extent"
("Gangsters" 227). Such may be the case, but
occasionally it is the star's performance style
itself that promotes this "imaginative play."
We recall that the antitheatrical bias is partly
predicated upon the conflation of acting and
villainy and bad faith. Recall that in stage melo
drama, wickedness was located in the ability
to assume an insincere public persona in order
to fulfill private, antisocial desires. The apex of
such dramas occur at the moment of the char
acter's public self-nomination, when he or she
unmasks and declares, in the homiletic inter
ests of moral clarification, unrepentant villainy.
deceit. Our residual cultural suspicion of actors
These climaxes feature in classical Hollywood's
more explicitly melodramatic moments as well.
contains traces of Victorian injunctions against
Thus we have climatic confessions of deception
artifice in social interaction, but that suspi
enacted with wicked relish by performers such
cion has more to do with the actor's apparent
as Kay Francis in In Name Only (1939), Joan
transcendence of a plebeian morality during a
Bennett in Scarlet Street (1945), and Ann Blyth
performance. More crucially, actors are suspect
in Mildred Pierce (1945). Both actor and charac
because they seem to "trick" us out of our
ter luxuriate in their coterminous performances,
learned moral responses (recall Eileen Percy's
their capacity for unscrupulous pretence.
earlier complaints against the Hollywood
Norma is another unapologetic performer,
gangster, or, if you prefer, Plato's rancor for
but the interesting difference here is that she
drama's capacity to elicit "irrational" emotion).
does not aim to deceive others; rather, her
At the very least, they are a source of anxiety
entire life is a monument to self-deception.
because they seem to invite us to treat these
responses as mere "dramatics." In the case of
Every action is dedicated to the scrupulous
maintenance of a crucial fabrication: that her
melodramatic villainy, we are often required to
celebrity is undiminished, that she is still a star.
abandon our usual moral prohibitions outside
Finding her delusions of grandeur pitiable, two
22 JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 59?2 / SUMMER 2007
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of her former directors?Cecil B. DeMille (play
that is at odds with moral critique. Our pleasure
ing himself) and Max von Mayerling (Erich von
is not only in Swanson's acting, but also in her
Stroheim)?dedicate themselves to its preser
vation: DeMille lavishes attention on her when
character's ability to turn every moment into a
she visits his set at Paramount, and Mayerling
uity of Norma's performance demands that we
scene to be played. More important, the ubiq
continues to ghostwrite daily fan mail. So far,
recognize and approve the dramatic potential
so understandable.
of her actions. Playing along with Norma's
The problem, however, is that her pathetic
fantasy means that we admire her performance
narcissism balloons into voracious megalo
mania. That is, Norma demands that others
rather than critique her behavior. We appreci
ate the murder she commits as a scenario well
respond to her as a majestic performer rather
than as a subject. In this regard, joe's murder is
played by a brilliant performer, rather than con
demn it as the vindictive action of an emotion
just another scene in Norma's self-constructed
ally unstable woman. Our conscious admiration
tragedy: she is an actor rather than a killer. For
for Swanson's performance as an actor, and our
his part, Joe's final effort to disenchant her is
conscious resistance to the antitheatrical preju
not an exhibition of tough love but an act of mal
dice it embodies, are two important elements
ice driven by exasperated disgust. Therefore, her
informing our allegiance with the character
incessant performativity represents a barrier to
she plays. But it is our attendance to Norma's
the formulation of genuine sympathy: she would
theatricality as a character that is the most
be a piteous creature and the film could be an
crucial component of our engagement, since it
uncompromising study of an aging, discarded
requires the simulation of an amoral identity.
celebrity were it not for its subject's inability to
cease playing for some unseen camera.
One might still try to argue that this compul
Carrying on the tradition of audience-bait
ing initiated by Vice?the stock figure of evil
in medieval Christian mystery cycles?the
sion toward performance is integral to the film's
melodramatic villain continually seeks out the
pathos?that Norma's retreat into delirium
in the final sequence (in which she believes
ation of homiletic drama's construction of the
herself to be on a Paramount soundstage as
villain as b?te noire but also as prima donna;
she descends her staircase to meet the police
who have come to arrest her) is quite pitiable.
a creature who craves the intimacy of the foot
But although her compulsion to perform is
of the spotlight. Villainy seeks to declare itself
neurotic, it is also in keeping with the conven
tions of the mode of theatrics that she favors.
egories clear, but also to establish a collusive
audience's approval. Melodrama is a continu
lights as often as she does the eventual glory
in melodrama not simply to make moral cat
Because her villainy is explicitly and reflexively
intimacy with the audience. Sympathetic al
melodramatic, she must perform, and, again,
legiance is the hero's domain; the villain would
she privileges this proclivity toward perfor
rather put on a show, performing his or her
mance above an adherence to moral duty. In
schemes for us as much as herself. Because of
doing so, she sacrifices the sympathy available
to her from both characters and audience and
our endorsement, her implicit desire to enter
her close proximity?her apparent yearning for
instead demands a performance from her view
ers to match her continual histrionics.
tain?the villain becomes a source of pleasure
So while melodramatic performance can
nies her rival, the hero, does not hamper our
have both inwardly and outwardly directed
engagement with her; we do not have to care
about her welfare. Indeed, "it is hard to feel
moral valences, the third property, attribut
for us. The emotional baggage that accompa
able to the villain, tends to override the first
two: this is his or her aesthetic dimension. The
anything for characters who are on such easy
sheer, excessive theatricality of the villain's
undergoing anything but a play" (States 30).
immorality can evoke a pleasurable response
Sunset Boulevard makes this tendency explicit,
terms with us because they do not seem to be
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with Norma invariably declaiming her yearnings
as if on a studio soundstage.
Again, one of the reasons for the continued
one hand, Swanson's movements encapsulate
Norma's obsessions and we are tempted to
morally interpret her performance. On the
other, Swanson's performance speaks to our
popularity of melodrama as a dramatic form
is the relative ease with which one can recog
role as mock viewers, and invites us to respond
nize and nominate its actants?an ease that
with aesthetic approval rather than moral dis
is largely absent from a real-world context of
approval. Norma's performative tendencies
contradictory values and ambiguous actions.
(especially when she is alone) are akin to the
villain's acknowledgement of the camera in cer
But pleasure is also taken in the knowledge
that this obvious villainy is being performed for
our benefit, so we must become mock viewers
who appreciate the performance.12 The exter
nal signs of a character's villainy are therefore
tain works: both strategies deny our innocence
as viewers.13 Their enacted villainy transforms
us from moral critics to amoral enthusiasts.
Framed in medium close-up to take advan
reappraised: they are no longer evaluated
tage of her intense gestural expressivity, Norma
negatively as a codified immorality; instead,
rages at Joe's suggestion that the "Salom?"
they are recognized as invitations to share the
project would be a "comeback" (see fig. 3a).
Slamming her sunglasses onto a desk, she
energy of a dramatic scenario. By entertain
ing us, the villain asks us to disengage from
our moral grievances and imagine becoming a
exclaims, "I hate that word," through typically
subject who appreciates her actions as a kind
she corrects him with a grand proclamation:
"It's return!** Even within these two brief move
clenched teeth. Looking back up in defiance,
of fiendish art. As a measure of our thanks for
her implicit desire to please, we sacrifice our
inclination to condemn and simulate the role of
ments there is evidence of her twin defining
enthusiastic accomplices.
Take, for example, a sequence in which
a gesture of violence?the aggressive denial of
her diminished celebrity?while the snap of her
Norma fantasizes about her return to the cin
head signifies a retreat into delusion.
ema. In a tour de force of histrionic pantomime,
attributes: slamming down the sunglasses is
She qualifies her statement with magnificent
she enacts an abbreviated version of her pet
egoism: "A return to the millions of people
project, "Salom?,** the epic star vehicle she
who have never forgiven me for deserting the
recruits Joe to help her write. Because Swan
screen." Her eyes widen and her chin is driven
son's performance is informed by the codified
forward, while her hands wave up around her
face in what will be a familiar melodramatic
gesticulations of the unchecked histrionic code,
we are able to break down each of her move
gesture and then extend outwards as she de
ments into separate expressive signals. On the
crescendos (fig. 3b). She plays the line to an
I Figure 3a: "I hate that word! It's return!"
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^^^ flfl I Rgure 3b: "A return to the millions..
invisible audience, while her eyes fix on that
She next makes the pretence of trying on the
precious negative space beyond her imagined
role for our benefit. MA princess in love with a
footlights. Calming herself, she looks downward
holy man," she narrates, adopting an imperi
and begins to imagine her next performance.
ously haughty posture (fig. 3e). Her eyes close
"Salom?" she breathes. "What a woman!"
again, her chin lifts, and her hands drop. But
Her eyes are closed in contemplation and imag
this royal pose contains an underlying derisive
ness?the suggestion that the relationship
ined (not actual) respect (fig. 3c). Both hands
rise up as if to caress the woman in question
is a mere trifle, beneath a princess. Norma's
and her head tilts back slightly, simulating ec
version of the biblical story (which has more
stasy. But Norma's art is really only to play per
in common with Oscar Wilde's play than with
petual variations on her favorite theme. This is a
Scripture) is interesting. If we consider this ver
facile attempt at imagining being someone else
sion as an allegory of the relationship between
herselfand Joe, her attitude here takes on a
and is put on merely for show; she can imagine
and looks downward and right (fig. 3d). "What
troubling resonance and foreshadows disas
trous tensions to come.
As "she dances the Dance of the Seven
being no one but herself. Her monstrous ego
rips through the fa?ade as she opens her eyes
a part," she rasps, and her wrists turn subtly
Veils," her hands again butterfly up around
while her fingers clench into talons to grasp her
her face and her eyes are excited by the per
phantom vehicle to celebrity.
formative possibilities (fig. 3O. They become
I Figure 3C: "Salom??what a woman!"
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Figure 3d: "What a part!"
Figure 3e: "A princess in love with a holy man."
Figure 3f: "The Dance of the Seven Veils.'
enraptured as she executes a brief, sultry twist.
Baptist "rejects her... " (fig. 3g), a murderous
By impersonating the temptress, she is mo
incredulity she will enact a second time, when
mentarily seduced by her own performance and
Joe rejects her. The princess will avenge her
her compulsion to perform. But then she en
outraged sensibilities, "so she demands his
head on a golden tray." Norma mimes laying
the saint's head on a platter and gazes down
acts the outrage of the princess?eyes bulging,
hands clutching toward her breast?when the
26 JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 59?2 / SUMMER 2007
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on it with triumphant satisfaction (fig. 3h). No
for he is not the intended recipient of her art;
one ever leaves a star.
as always, both Swanson and Norma have
The final moment of horror arrives and
been playing to us and for us.14 Indeed, this
Norma completes her narrational summary
sequence is remarkable for the way it enables
with Salom? "kissing his cold, dead lips." She
seizes the "head" and brings it toward her
Swanson to make expressive reference to a
group of fictional personalities: her own star
face, teeth bared as if to rend the flesh from the
persona, the character Norma Desmond, the
Baptist's face, eyes ablaze one last time (fig.
biblical figure of Salom?, and Norma's own
31). But as this instant of violence reaches the
version of this figure. It is a deliciously arrogant
completion of its arc (in which Salom?-Norma's
display of agglomerated egoism.
true savage nature emerges), her hands soften,
her head arches back, and she closes her eyes
in bliss (fig. 3j). Enacting revenge is sweet rap
By enacting their immorality in an intimately
theatrical fashion, melodramatic villains in
terrupt and reroute the currents of our usual
ture, and she is carried away by the delusion of
evaluative assessments of dramatic situations.
triumph, of a satisfying performance played to
While it is tempting to evaluate Norma's per
formance in the sequence above at a moral
an adoring crowd.
Although Joe shatters the illusion with one of
his smarmy jibes ("They'll love it in Pomona"),
level, its very nature as performance directed
at a potentially appreciative spectator short
Norma is unruffled. His lack of appreciation for
circuits the attempt. Just as the film's mo
the scene she has played is inconsequential,
ments of genuine pathos are at odds with its
Figure 3h: "She demands his head on a golden
tray..
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27
Figure 31: "Kissing his cold, dead lips.1
Figure 3j: A satisfying performance.
grotesque elements (the dead monkey, the
vermin-infested pool, the "wheezing" pipe
adherence to intersubjective ethical principles.
At the same time, the aesthetic dimensions of
with the pleasures of performance. On the one
a melodramatic performance have the potential
to override such an evaluation. Like the Bond
hand, we might consider Norma repulsive in
villain who masterminds a scheme not simply
organ), moral critique of the villain is at odds
manner and behavior if we respond morally to
for personal gain, but also for us, as a tribute to
the attitudinal cues of the text (joe's narration,
his own genius, Norma cannot help but perform
the mise-en-sc?ne, Swanson's performance)
her own iniquity. Therefore, her repulsiveness
and adhere to the cotext of intersubjective
and reprehensibility are accordingly reevalu
principles ("murder is wrong"). On the other
ated as signs of an aesthetically admirable per
formance. Her murderous passion is admired
hand, these responses are suspended by the
aesthetic dimensions of Norma's melodramatic
performance, dimensions that are incorporated
in the same way one admires the intricacies of
the villain's well-conceived plan. Stroheim's
into a viewer's appreciative relationship with
presence in the film is an indicator of this melo
the villain. We do not always condemn the
dramatic lineage: "the Man You Love to Hate"
melodramatic villain outright because, at some
was infamous for playing warped, aristocratic
masterminds. His role as Field Marshal Rom
level, we are aware of and appreciate her will
ingness to entertain.
In sum, the moral evaluation of melodra
mel in another Wilder film, Five Graves to Cairo
matic villainy is invited by attitudinal cues and
"Desert Fox" has captured three British officers,
(1943) has relevance here. In that film, the
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but instead of confining them to prison, Rom
"descending to the level of fiction" and taking
mel (like any Saturday matinee baddie) cannot
on a diegetic role as coconspirators. Her per
resist regaling them with details from his latest
formance is a kind of metalepsis, in which the
boundaries between text and world dissolve.
"brilliant" victory over the Allied forces in Egypt.
Even the heroes attest to its genius, and follow
ing their lead, our moral critique gives way to
The playfulness of one's engagement with the
melodramatic villain is one way around the
aesthetically based appreciation. It is not that
"problem" of a pleasurable response to filmic
this appreciation requires a mere detachment
from the dramatic world?an attendance to the
representations of transgressive actions.
film's external conventions only; such engage
An apt description of the relationship
between the villainous actor and her audi
ment is a form of simulation because perverse
ence might run as follows: "it is the actor's
allegiance with the melodramatic villain re
quires us to temporarily assume a set of values
part to desire and be desired, playing out the
half-remembered and half-understood vision
drastically different from our own.
of a sacred yet blasphemous entity. It is the
Thus, and most important, in our apprecia
audience's part to consume and be consumed,
tive relationship with the character we imagi
by the acting out of its own darkest fears and
natively simulate a quastvillainous position
aspirations" (Harrop 103). Such a descrip
of our own?taking on the values of an amoral
tion seems to have been written with Sunset
subject able to appreciate wickedness as a kind
Boulevard in mind. Norma is an actor whose
of artistry?not unlike another one of Wilde's
need to be desired consumes her and whose
infamous characters, Dorian Gray. Norma's
obsession with playing Salom??a "sacred, yet
performative alacrity explains why we might
not condemn her actions outright, and why we
blasphemous" role?means the return to her
"half-remembered and half-understood vision"
might not engage in a sympathetic relationship
of stardom. In turn, the audience revels in the
with her. The moral reprehensibility of her ac
tions is diminished, and these actions, in turn,
spectacle of her neurosis?her enactment of our
own preoccupation with fame?and succumbs
take on value for their dramatic potential. In
to the raptures of her delirium. Although the
the villain's theater of cruelty, nothing could be
"sunset" of the film's title suggests a golden
more pleasing than a good murder, and each of
us are actors whose moral noises are only ever
age in decline and dissolution, there are mo
ments when Norma's performance commands
the articulations of approval.
a reverence from her onlookers that recalls the
Moral performance is one of the possible
idolatry of her glory days. Not only her visit to
methods by which a viewer might enjoy a
Cecil B. DeMille, which draws a crowd of well
pleasurable response to scenes of histrionic
wishers and the nimbus of a spotlight, but also
immorality in the cinema. Pleasure is located at
her final, majestically tragicomic descent of the
the level of a villain's performance, for although
ornate staircase are transfiguring moments.
a character's affective and expressive articu
The surrounding photographers and police are
lations have certain inwardly and outwardly
frozen like mannequins in a respectful tableau,
directed moral valences, their melodramatic
and in the subsequent shot of the "gallery" of
deployment inspires pleasurable appraisal
onlookers in the balcony, it is difficult to de
over critical evaluation. In particular, it is the
villain's performance that invites the simulation
termine whether their gazes are enraptured or
horrified. Norma undulates toward the camera
of an appreciative role in which we admire the
and "all those wonderful people out there in
artistry of a wickedness that is largely enacted
the dark," and her final close-up is powerful
for our benefit. It is not simply that the melo
enough to dissolve both the integrity of the
dramatic villain reflexively calls attention to our
screen and the integrity of our moral identity.
role as an audience; rather, perverse allegiance
with her requires that we imagine ourselves
JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 59-2 / SUMMER 2007 29
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NOTES
of dramatically constructing a death scene and thus is
1.1 am not suggesting that spectators will exhibit a
uniform response to representations of wrongdoing,
or that the character-type is inherently melodramatic.
Rather, I aim to examine a certain tendency in rep
resentations of villainy (described here as melodra
matic), and to theorize the reasons behind one type
of engagement with such a character (conceived here
as appreciative, to some degree). This representa
tional strategy and a viewer's pleasurable response
should not be construed as universal or automatic.
Indeed, in my unpublished dissertation on film vil
lainy, I consider other ways of representing this char
acter-type and other reasons why a viewer might find
a villain gratifying. Therefore, other representational
strategies and more antipathetic responses to the
villain are beyond the scope of this study.
2. A position articulated principally by Jean-Jacques
Rousseau in his 1758 antitheatrical polemic, Letterio
d'Alembert Concerning Spectacles. My thanks to the
anonymous reviewer at the Journal of Film and Video
for bringing Barish's and Matthew Wikander*s excel
lent historical studies of the prejudice against acting
to my attention.
3. So perfect are Swanson's arch theatrics that it is
difficult to believe Wilder and long-time collaborator
Charles Brackett initially offered the role of Norma
Desmond to a number of other candidates, including
Greta Garbo, Mae West, Pola Negri, and (incompre
hensibly) Mary Pickford.
a means of distancing us from her.
6. According to the conditions of the "internal
convention," characters can be moral agents in spite
of their structural status as elements of the text, and
our moral approval or condemnation of their actions
is made according to this convention, bringing our
evaluation "within" the text (Palmer 89). Characters
are thus "internally" conceived here as "authors" of
their actions and therefore do not follow the demands
of a preconceived plot, strictly speaking.
7. Obviously, Norma's gender is a major factor as
well, since Hollywood is ruthless in its disregard for
aging female stars. And Joe's animosity toward Norma
is certainly informed by an implicit, negatively mascu
linist association between women and masquerade.
Patriarchy's conflation of femininity and artificiality is
crucial to many historical manifestations of the anti
theatrical bias. However, villainy is never exclusively
a matter of gender dynamics, and the "gendering" of
screen evil is beyond the scope of this study.
8. From 1918 to the early 1930s, Swanson was one
of Paramount's major stars, but at the time of filming
Sunset Boulevard, she had not acted in a studio film
in almost twenty years.
9. The appropriation of Queen Kelly is another
subtle example of the film's vigorous reflexivity.
Von Stroheim is cast in Sunset Boulevard as one of
Norma's former directors and ex-husbands, Max von
Mayerling?now retained as a manservant by the
former ing?nue. Interestingly, the intertitle from the
4. Rebel Without a Cause (1955) offers an example. appropriated shot reads, "Cast out this wicked dream
The anguished pose adopted by Jim Stark (James
which has seized my heart": a plea from a young
Dean) after he pummels Ray Fremick's desk is super
Norma that goes unheeded by her older, embittered
ficially similar to histrionic affectations of "agony,"
self.
and its apparent theatricality is further underscored
10.1 use allegiance here in accordance with Murray
by a portentous chord struck on the soundtrack. How Smith's definition. "To become allied with a charac
ever, Dean's gestural expressivity is authenticated by
ter," he claims, "the spectator must evaluate the char
virtue of its now signalling the "inner angst" of his
acter as representing a morally desirable (or at least
character. The "psychological" overtones of Dean's
preferable) set of traits, in relation to other characters
ostensibly pantomimic expressivity are often taken
within the fiction. On the basis of this evaluation,
as signs of his affiliation with the American school of
the spectator adopts an attitude of sympathy (or, in
"Method" acting. In reality, however, Dean expressed
the case of negative evaluation, antipathy) towards
his antipathy toward the technique after a brief stint
the character, and responds emotionally in an ap
at the Actors Studio in 1951, citing Lee Strasberg's
propriate way to situations in which this character is
pseudopsychoanalytic practices as invasive and
placed" (Engaging 188).
limiting.
11. For examples of this position, see Boruah; Cur
5. Significantly, the scene of Norma's ultimate
rie; Palmer; and Walton.
transgression is dramatically flat. Dimly lit and framed
12. The phrase "mock viewer" here is analogous to
in long shot, Norma shoots Joe from the doorway,
Walker Gibson's conception of a novel's narratee as
weakly positioned in the upper right corner of the
a "mock reader": a subject whose personality may be
frame. Joe barely lurches backward, and continues
entirely different from that of the actual reader.
walking left until he is shot again from out of frame.
This time, he crumples slightly, drops his bag and
turns, only to be shot once more and thrown back
into the swimming pool. The scene's lack of stagy
qualities seems to be a refusal to provide a theatrical
murder. This refusal (aesthetically) cheats Norma out
13. For an interesting discussion on the villain's
penchant for direct address, see Rothman.
14. However, the caustic sarcasm of Joe's comment
neatly encapsulates contemporary antitheatrical sen
timents. The seemingly throwaway insult also speaks
to his dual position within the diegesis. On the one
30 JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 59-2 / SUMMER 2007
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hand, he is the onscreen surrogate for the negative
attitudinal inflections directed towards Norma. On the
Maltby, Richard. "The Spectacle of Criminality." Vio
lence and American Cinema. Ed. J. David Slocum.
other, his attempted manipulations of Norma and his
programmatic self-deception register as diluted forms
London: Routledge, 2001.117-52.
Mamet, David. True and False: Heresy and Common
of villainy as well. My thanks to Jim Leach for this
Sense for the Actor. London: Faber, 1998.
Medved, Michael. Hollywood vs. America: Popular
Culture and the War on Traditional Values. New
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