Sunset Boulevard

A classic for the must to be seen list. Gloria Swanson is magnificent.

**One of the great films of Hollywood's golden age.** This movie is really special. Not only does it show us a lot about the world of Hollywood during its golden age, but it also reveals a lot about the actors' egos, vanities and their titanic struggles to preserve their careers and stay in the limelight. Brilliantly directed by Billy Wilder, it is considered by many to be one of the great movie classics, combining entertainment, artistic value and cultural relevance. In 1951, it won three Oscars (Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction in a Black and White Film, Best Comic Film Soundtrack) and could perfectly have won one more, for Best Actress. But awards like these are never completely fair, especially in years so fertile for good films. Starting with the iconic scene of the dead man in the pool, the film intrigues us, and curiosity grips us, as the film shows how it all happened, introducing us to an average screenwriter who struggles to write a successful script that can leverage his career. He owes money, is in serious trouble and takes advantage of the opportunity to earn some easy money at the expense of a retired silent film actress, who decides to hire him to revise and type a script, written by herself and designed to mark her return. The script is mediocre, and he knows that the film will never happen, but he is coerced into silence, becoming the privileged eyewitness of the former star's gradual loss of lucidity. Of course, things get complicated as he loses his individual freedom and becomes more dependent on the whims and desires of his mistress. Despite the fiction, the film is based a lot on several loose true facts: one of them, the most obvious, is the fall of several actors in the course of the transition from silent to talking films. There were great actors who looked magnificent on screen and had great physical and facial expression, but who didn't survive this transition due to things as prosaic as a poor English fluency or a strange accent. Others, however, simply did not know how to understand and adapt to the novelty. The collapse of their careers and personal lives led to alcoholism, drugs, mental disorders. The film is able to condense almost all of this into a single character: Norma Desmond, the epitome of the fallen star. The cast has several well-known names, three of which – William Holden, Erich Von Stroheim and, obviously, Gloria Swanson – offer us the interpretation of their lives and their work of greater value and recognition. Of course, we cannot ignore that Swanson was a great star of silent cinema and that she shone in films like “Trespasser” or “Indiscreet”, and that Holden would continue to be a highly sought actor after this, having won his Oscar for Best Actor in a film that starred two years later. But there is no doubt that this film immortalized the three of them. Technically, the film is impeccable, and the merit lies a lot in the brilliance of the dialogues, in the excellence of the conception and development of the characters, in the extraordinary way in which Wilder managed to get the best out of Swanson and lead the actress to a magnificent performance, which has so much to brilliant and difficult as well as provocative (especially from the point of view of many Hollywood shooting stars, who saw themselves in character and felt offended by it). With an excellent pace, the film does not waste time or let the atmosphere of tension and drama fall into a standstill. The mansion, owned by the Getty family, acquires character by itself as it becomes the most obvious symbol of the disturbed personality and only of its resident. The black and white cinematography is magnificent, and accentuates, in its details and shooting angles, the dramatic feel of the film. The soundtrack isn't memorable, but it's effective and functional.