Sunset Boulevard Revisited :: Essays Papers

Sunset Boulevard Revisited When the film Sunset Boulevard premiered in Hollywood in 1950, the picture caused a riot in the household after the feature finished. Director Billy chaotic commented, Ive never seen so many prominent people at once the ledger was out that this was a stunner, you see. After the picture ended there were rough reactions, from excitement to pure horror(May 570). Wilder did whatever he could to grip the patch of Sunset Boulevard a secret outside of the walls of dominant Studios because of its controversial subject matter. Today, Sunset Boulevard is hailed as one of the better films in motion picture history, so what was so controversial slightly it that made Hollywood so scared? The answer is that the film dealt with the justness about Hollywood and its stars. It scared people because it portrayed the life of a faded movie star in a realistic way, qualification members of Hollywood evaluate their careers and life after stardom. However , it was not only the while that terrified Hollywood, but also Wilders casting of Gloria Swanson and Erich Von Stroheim in two of the leading roles. Both had been film stars of the silent era spine in the roaring twenties, but had fallen on hard multiplication after their careers had fizzled. Therefore, the stunner that Wilder talks about is not the plot of Sunset Boulevard, but the terrifying realism demonstrated by the pseuds lives molding the characters they play in the film. The protagonist of the film is Norma Desmond, a washed-up actress who has delusions about reclaiming her fame again. At the end of the film, her sanity snaps when she loses her lover, Joe Gillis, and realizes that she will never retort to the stardom that she once knew in her youth. On casting the role of Norma, Wilder knew that recruitment an actress from the early years of cinema would be ideal for the story he wanted to tell, rather than hiring a popular actress from the current Hollywood roster. Wilder discussed Mae West and Mary Pickford for the role, but finally decided on Gloria Swanson. Gloria Swanson had been actually famous in the twenties, acting for such names as surface-to-air missile Wood and Cecil B.