Sunset Boulevard Film Analysis

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Being a has been is not much fun, especially when they do not know that their day is already done, that the time has come when they will not see the limelight any more. Billy Wilder’s 1950 classic Hollywood film Sunset Boulevard is a noir narrated from beyond the grave by a cynical writer who we meet as a corpse floating in a madwoman’s swimming pool. Sunset Boulevard’s theme of opportunism and its consequences narrows in on the movie making world and its capability of transforming characters such as Joe Gillis whose entire sense of self worth is enveloped in the business. Joe is willing to exploit and sell out in return for financial gain, success and self worth. The film showcases a cynical attitude toward Hollywood by showing the main character …show more content…
Gillis attempts to exit cleanly, but do to his desperate financial situation he becomes willing enough to prostitute himself even though he finds Norma to say the least repulsive and pitiful. Gillis in essence becomes a gigolo accidently not intentionally. He did not begin as a gold digger; rather he was in a desperate financial situation and had come to the conclusion that he was only a B movie producer who should ditch Los Angeles and its promises of fame and fortune to head back to the Midwest. For just a sprinkle of money to save his car and the opportunity to slide back into Hollywood, Joe gives in to personal restraints about the bizarre situation and agrees to aid Norma in the reconstruction of her script. His new clothes are a symbol of economic dependence; one store clerk snidely tells Joe to choose the more expensive coat since the lady is paying for it. He realizes however that with opportunity comes consequences. In his old clothes Joe is just an ordinary washed out screenwriter, but under the roof of Norma’s mansion, Joe would become outfitted in the industry issue of sharp suits. As his clothes change he begins to fall into the comfort zone of Hollywood’s magnetic
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