Boulevard du twilight

The intrigue

The scene of opening presents the corpse of a man assassinated who floats on the belly, in a swimming pool. A narrator explains that the man was a missed scenario writer. Begin a flashback then, while the narrator, a certain Joe Gillis (William Holden), sifted debts, described its attempt to flee two agents come to find it to seize its car. During a Race-continuation on Sunset Boulevard, Gillis bursts a tire and arrives almost by chance, like a feat of ingenuity of the destiny, to sow them by parking its vehicle in a private alley. It parks it in the garage of a villa which seems abandoned, but a voice of woman calls it and a German servant, max (Erich von Stroheim), the fact of entering. The owner, an old woman, takes it for an undertaker's assistant come to deliver a coffin for his dead chimpanzee. Gillis recognizes Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), an old glory of the silent film fallen in the lapse of memory. Learning that he is scenario writer, it proposes to him to employ it to format a scenario on Salome, that it for incarnating for its return. Gillis seizes this chance to earn money.

Joe finds himself soon completely depending financially on Normalized, who offers clothing and gifts to him. Obstructed by this situation, it however does not do anything to change it. The dislike gains it when Norma reveals to him at the evening of the December 31st that she likes it. Pushing back its advances, it joined a festival organized by a friend and discusses with an ambitious young woman, Betty (Nancy Olson), which is interested by one of its projects. But when he telephones at Norma Desmond to announce his departure, he learns that Norma tried to commit suicide. He returns in catastrophe, to reassure Norma, and remains finally. Their situation thus settles while work on Salome advances, until Norma sends it to his/her friend Cecil B. DeMille (itself). Contacted by collaborators of the realizer, she thinks that DeMille is interested and goes to the studio to meet it. There, Gillis and max understand that the studio is only interested by the car of Normalized, an antique Isotta Fraschini, for a reconstitution. A detail that all overlook to spare old the star. On this occasion, Joe finds Betty. He consequently agrees to collaborate with it in a scenario. A lovesong is born between them. When Norma discovers it, it Betty joint by telephone to reveal the secrecies of the life of Joe. This last discovers the stratagem, seizes compound and makes come Betty to show him itself its framework of life. He manages to frighten Betty. Normalized shouts victory, but Joe draws aside it and packs his bags to leave it. Normalized threatens it of a revolver, it does not take it with serious but, when it leaves the house, it draws several times. Joe falls dead into the swimming pool.

The explanation is completed, just as the flashback. The morning following the crime, Normalized, surrounded detectives and journalists, seems lost in the phantasm of a return on the film sets. When the cameras of the current events settle, it offers a slow descent of staircase to them while believing to turn a scene of Salome . The voice of Gillis announces that the dream of Normalized to find the glory of the cameras was carried out in the most unexpected way. A speech of the actress follows on her happiness to make a new film, with these words for conclusion: “Very well, Mr. DeMille, I am ready for my close-up”. It approaches then the camera, the fixed and hallucinated glance, and a dissolve with the white finishes film.

Turning

The framework: phantoms of the dumb man

The Boulevard which gives its name to film is closely associated with the cinema of Hollywood since 1911, when the first studio precisely opens on Sunset Boulevard. At that time, of the employees, increasingly many, live modestly in the vicinity. During Years 1920, the take-off of the benefit and wages in the medium of the cinema, and the rise of the star system , take along the construction of luxurious villas, with the often incongruous size. The high-speed motorboats are the object of a fascination on behalf of the public of the whole world, while the magazines and the newspapers are increasingly numerous to report the details of their excessive lives.

During its youth with Warsaw, Billy Wilder is interested in the American Culture, in particular through the cinema. At the end of the Years 1940, its career having brought it to Hollywood, and having become itself reside of Los Angeles, it lives in the daily vicinity of these pretentious houses. Many old stars of the era of the dumb still live there, although the majority of them do not have any more any activity in the film production. Wilder wonders itself how they can spend time well now that their hour of glory passed, and imagines the history of a star who would have lost success and celebrity.

The scenario

Wilder and Brackett start to work on the scenario in 1948, but the result entirely does not satisfy them. In August 1948, D.M. Marshman Jr., ex-journalist for Life , whose criticism of their film the Waltz of the emperor had drawn their attention, joined them to develop the intrigue.

Not to reveal with the Paramount too much of details on the history, and to avoid undergoing the severe Censure Code Hays, the three authors reveal the scenario with the dropper, almost page after page. Wilder goes as far as making accept the production which they adapt a history - which does not exist - that it entitles has Edge Beans off ( a bean box), that so that the studios leave them enough freedom to work as they hear it. They do not escape vigilance however from the office from censure from Joseph I. Breen which requires that certain counterparts be rewritten, as the sentence of Gillis: “I' m up that creek and I need has job” ( “I am in the soup and I need a job” ), replaced by a wiser English expression: “I' m over has barrel. I need has job. ” Seul a third of the script is completed when turning starts at the beginning of May 1949, and Wilder is not yet sure of the turning which it wishes to give at the end of film.

Script contains many references to Hollywood and the world of the scenario writers, with very cynical comments on behalf of the character of Joe Gillis. It summarizes its career of scenario writer as follows: “the last thing that I wrote spoke about Okies at the time of the Dust Bowl. You could not guess it since, when that was carried to the screen, all the history was played on a destroyer. ” In another scene, when Betty says to him: “I always intended to say that you had talent” , it answers: “It was last year. This year I try to earn my living” .

Certain counterparts of Gloria Swanson are memorable as much, for example when Gillis recognizes it ( “I am large! In fact the films became small! ” ), or the conclusion ( “Very well, Mr. DeMille, I am ready for my close-up. ” This type of exchange can sometimes continue, Norma taking the counterparts of Gillis literally, and there answering with largest serious. For example, when they speak about the indigestible scenario on which Norma worked, Gillis observes: “people will adore in Pomona” , what Norma answers with balance: “people will adore” everywhere.

In a test on film, film critic Richard Corliss described Boulevard of the Twilight like “perfect Hollywood film of horror”, noticing that almost each detail of script is “morbid”. It in particular points out that the history is told by a dead man that Norma Desmond confuses at the beginning with an undertaker's assistant, while the essence of film proceeds in “an old dark house which opens only with thealive ones”. It compares the character of max, played by Von Stroheim, with the Fantôme of the Opera , and Normalized Desmond with Dracula, by noting that while it allures Joe Gillis, the camera is withdrawn discreetly with “the attitude traditionally adopted by the realizers for the jugular seductions” of the vampire. It also announces that the texts of the narrator contain too many “free sarcastic remarks”, but congratulates all the same the scenario writers to have entrusted this part to Joe Gillis, consequently credible in the role of a scenario writer equipped with a certain talent.

Distribution

William Holden: Joe Gillis
Gloria Swanson: Normalized Desmond
Erich von Stroheim: Max von Mayerling
Nancy Olson: Betty Schaefer
Fred Clark: Sheldrake
Lloyd Gough : Morino
Jack Webb: Artie Green
Franklyn Farnum : the contractor of the undertaking
In their own roles: Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper, Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, H.B. Warner, Ray Evans, Jay Livingston

Wilder, since 1948, called upon Greta Garbo - disappeared from the screens since the Woman with the two faces in 1941 - for the character of Normalized Desmond, in the hope which it carries out for him her return to the screen. It is however not shown interested. The role is proposed with other great figures of the American silent film of which Mae West, which, at 55 years is stated too young person to play the character. “In one moment of madness”, as Wilder will admit it, Charles Brackett requests Mary Pickford. It is interested, though on its guards; it is finally isolated when it expresses dissensions on the account. Pola Negri is also approximate, and “pricks an anger with the only suggestion that it could play a part of Has-been ”. In 1975, Wilder describes in these terms the reaction of Swanson: “There was at it much Normalized, you know. ”. Montgomery Clift is initially approximate to play the character of Joe Gillis, but it is withdrawn, probably by fear of doubtful comparisons on its personal situation - it left then with Libby Holman, sixteen years its elder. Fred MacMurray is then had a presentiment of but declines the role. He is finally proposed with William Holden. Actor noticed at his beginnings in Golden delicious Servant boy (1939) and Our Town (1940), disappeared from the screens during his military service during the war, it agrees to play Gillis, after a modest return at the end of the Années 1940.

The old legend Erich von Stroheim, which directed besides Gloria Swanson in its film Queen Quelly (1929), is recruited to play the part of the faithful max, servant devoted and protective of Normalized.

Lastly, for the role of Betty Schaefer, Wilder wishes a new figure, whose healthy and ordinary image can contrast with Normalized obsessive and blazing made up by Gloria Swanson. The realizer chooses Nancy Olson, had a presentiment of not very front by DeMille to play the part of Dalila (finally allotted to Hedy Lamarr), in Samson and Dalila (1949).

Craftsmen of a success

The photography of John F. Seitz

The photography of Boulevard of the twilight , typical of the Black film, dark and, naturally, in Black and white, is the work of John F. Seitz. Wilder which worked several times with him, rests on its professionalism, leaving him the free field. Thus Seitz tells to have required of Wilder what it wished for the scene of the burial of the chimpanzee. Wilder answered: “you know, just your catch of usual sight for the burials of monkeys”.

For certain indoor scenes, Seitz sprinkles the objective of dust to suggest a “mildewed” environment. A process which it already used on the turning of Assurance on death (1944). As for the discovery of the body of Joe Gillis, Wilder wants to show its corpse of in lower part, since the bottom of the swimming pool, but to return the effect is difficult. The camera is initially placed inside a box especially designed, and plunged under water, in vain; the result appears disappointing. Other attempts are made. The catch of sight is finally carried out while placing a mirror at the bottom of the swimming pool, and by filming the reflection of Holden from surface, with in background the deformed image of the policemen around the swimming pool.

According to the historian of the cinema Tom Stempel, “that it is in Assurance on death or in Boulevard of the twilight , Seitz makes a success of something which always impressed me. Both are black films, and it benefits owing to the fact that both are held in the sunniest place which is: Los Angeles… It reconciles the light and the darkness in same film without the mixture not appearing… It reconciles the realistic lighting of Joe Gillis in catches of sight external with Gothic environment of the villa of Normalized Desmond. Once again without that not being noticed. ”

Costumes and decorations

Edith Head is creative costumes. Wilder, Head and Swanson agree to consider that Norma Desmond more or less remained in phase with the evolution of the mode, and Head conceives for the character of the costumes very similar to the lines of Dior or Chanel in the middle of the years 1940. Some additions are operated to personalize clothing and to reflect the taste of Normalized Desmond. Swanson tells in its biography that its costumes were only “one nothing obsolete, one nothing exotic”. Head describes later this work like “most difficult of career”, and explains its approach with this comment: “Since Normalized Desmond was an actress who had lost herself in her own imagination, I tried to give the impression which she always interpreted a role”. The costumière also reveals to be herself rested on the opinion of Swanson which “created a past that it knew, and me not”, in the same manner that he addresses himself in the life to Swanson, a small detail suggested by DeMille itself.

The friends of Normalized, who come to play Bridge with it, indicated like the “wax figures” by Gillis, are contemporaries of Swanson: Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson and H.B. Warner, in their own roles (as indicated in the credits of end). Hedda Hopper also plays its own part while reporting on the telephone the fate of Normalized Desmond, in the last moments of film, but none was if nut. ”, while the Boxoffice Review announced: “the film goes envoûter the spectators”. James Agee, in Sight and Sound , speaks in praise of film and known as that Wilder and Brackett are “perfectly qualified to do this cold, precise, skilful work and narquois” . Good Housekeeping describes Swanson as “large a lady extends her magic to a new decade”.

After seven weeks with the poster of the Radio operator City Music Hall, the magazine Variety announces that the film paid “approximately: 1020000 $US”, which would do of it one of greatest successes of the New Yorkean room. Variety note, whereas the film beats records in the big cities, but which it less makes envisaged well that in the remainder of the country. To ensure promotion, Gloria Swanson traverses the the United States in the train, crossing 33 cities in a few months. Publicity contributes to attract world in the rooms, but in many zones of province the film will not have success

The eleven nominations of Boulevard of the twilight are exceeded only by the fourteen nominations of Eve , which gains six statuettes, of which those of best film and the best realizer (Joseph L. Mankiewicz). Many critics provide that the Oscar of the best actress either will be decreed in Gloria Swanson, or with Bette Davis for Eve , the victory of Judy Holliday for How the spirit comes to the women from George Cukor surprises everyone. Swanson tells the reaction of the press later after Holliday had accepted its reward: “I taken slowly conscience that they awaited to ego a scene truer than natural, or better still, a scene of madness. More still, they waited until Norma Desmond is betrayed”. She acknowledges in 1982, in the pages of Playboy , her admiration for the performance of Swanson: “If it had gained, I will have shouted hurrah. She was sensational, simply fantastic”.

Boulevard of the twilight receives also several Golden Globes, in the categories Meilleur dramatic film, Meilleure actress (Swanson), Meilleur realizer (Wilder) and Meilleure film music (Waxman). Wilder and Brackett are seen rewarded for a price of the Writers Guild off America (American dramatic film best written), while the Directors Guild off America Wilder reward in the category “remarkable cinematographic work”. The National Board off Review grants to film its rewards for best film and the best actress (Swanson).

After Sunset Boulevard

Boulevard of the twilight is last collaboration between Wilder and Brackett. Their relation would have been degraded by arguments on the passage in which one sees Norma preparing his return to the screen. The film marks about the middle of the period of greatest successes of Wilder.

The career of Charles Brackett in Hollywood survives this rupture. It gains a Oscar for its scenario of Titanic (1953) and written the Niagara (1953), which reveals Marilyn Monroe in a dramatic role - the best comic performances of Marilyn, in Seven years of reflection and Some like it hot will be, they, put in scene by Billy Wilder. The career of Brackett declines thereafter.

William Holden sees himself proposing more important roles. In 1953, it also gains the Oscar of the best actor for Stalag 17 (of Wilder), and in 1956 he is the first actor of the American Box-office.

Nancy Olson appears at the sides of William Holden in several other films of the Années 1950. The reformed duet does not obtain however initial success. The notoriety of Olson culminates with Monte là-d' known (1960) and After him the flood (1961), in which it côtoie Fred MacMurray. In spite of these successes, the career of the actress stagnates.

Gloria Swanson will not benefit from its success in Boulevard of the twilight . Roles are proposed to him which leave him the impression join again with pale imitations of Normalized Desmond. Not wishing that its career locks up it in a role and obliges it to play “the parody of a parody”, it ceases almost its activity of actress.

Surveys organized by the American Film Institute showed the durable success of Boulevard of the twilight , and the high regard which grant to him the current realizers. In 1998, the film is classified twelfth of a list of “100 larger films”. In 2004, two quotations of Boulevard of the twilight appear in a survey on the “greater film counterparts”: “Very well, Mr. DeMille. I am ready for my close-up” (n°7) and “I am tall. In fact the films became small” (n°24). In 2005, the original soundtrack of Franz Waxman arrives at the 16th place of the 25 best film musics, always according to the AFI.

Roger Ebert spoke in praise of the play of Holden and Von Stroheim, and described that of Swanson as follows: “one of the greatest performances of all times”. According to him, Boulevard of the twilight “remains the best drama never carried out with the cinema, because the film sees through the illusions”. Pauline Kael, on her side, estimates that the film is “almost too astute, but in what the easy way has of better”, adding that it is frequent to intend “to call Billy Wilder the largest realizer of the world”. With died of Wilder, the obituaries were numerous to evoke in particular Boulevard of the twilight , mentioning film like one of most important of the career of the scenario writer, with Assurance on death and Some like it hot .

At the end of the Years 1990, the majority of the copies of Boulevard of the twilight are in bad condition. The film having been one of the last to be turned on a film of Nitrocellulose, the negative original is mainly destroyed. Paramount, estimating that the film deserves a complete restoration, launches an expensive project so that it is restored according to numerical technologies . The restored version is published in DVD in 2002. On this occasion, in 2003, Internet site of BBC describes it as “the work most successful on the narcissistic hell which Hollywood constitutes”.

The topic: Hollywood with the cinema

Hollywood produced number of talking films about Hollywood since the Années 1920, but the majority of them were light and funny achievements, like the Workers of the hat (1949). Others, like What Price Hollywood (1932) or a star was born (1937) evoke the dark face of Hollywood without showing it explicitly. Boulevard of the twilight is regarded as first film to adopt such a cynical point of view. It is followed Ensorcelés (1952), of Chantons under the rain (1952) and from the remake of a star was born (1954). If none of these films goes also far in self-criticism, all underline the facility and the cruelty with which Hollywood can get rid of a high-speed motorboat once its last hour.

Boulevard of the twilight is also followed other films exploiting the figure of the old actress clinging hopelessly to her glorious past, like Bette Davis in the Star (1952) and Which did arrive at Baby Jane? , Joan Crawford in the Madonna gipsy (1953), Geraldine Page in Soft birds of youth (1961), Susan Hayward in the Valley of the headstocks and Faye Dunaway in very expensive Mom . The bond between a growing old woman and a gigolo is also exploited within the Hollywood framework for the film synopsis like the Face of the pleasure , with Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty. The descent of Katharine Hepburn in the abysses of the madness, in Suddenly last summer (1959), was compared with the final scene of Normalized Desmond. the Day of the plague (1975) and the last nabob (1976) show Hollywood with a certain bitterness and, like Boulevard of the twilight , make use of the true slides.

Among the most recent films to directly evoke Boulevard of the twilight , or to imitate certain scenes or certain dialogs of film, one can quote the tele cleaner lava (1991), The Player (1992), Neither gods nor demons (1998), Mulholland Drive (film) (2001). The coming out date was initially envisaged in 2006, but the project was delayed until in 2008 (see Sunset Boulevard (film, 2008) ).

Sunset Boulevard and the black film

Without being a police Film, Boulevard of the twilight however became one of the films most representative of the Black film - running sails about it in the years 1940-1950 with Hollywood. The film is besides the third black film of Billy Wilder, after Assurance on death (1944) and the Poison (1945), and not very front the Pit with the dreams , last realization of Wilder which will answer the characteristics of the black style. Because Boulevard of the twilight shows neither investigation, nor detective, but the subject is well the murder of a man. And it is the narrative point of view adopted by Wilder which makes Boulevard of the twilight a genuine black film, which underlines Gilles Colpart in his work on the realizer:

The comment off with the first nobody, typical of the black film (cf Assurance on death), and environment thus created, not less typical of the kind, encircle Gillis like a modern character of tragedy, a loser, irremediably introduced into a nightmare of which it does not control anything, mû by a force that the poetic Réalisme and the black film with the Frenchwoman would have called “Destiny”.

And it is well the topic of the fate which characterizes before all the black style, according to the definition adopted by Patrick Brion in his analysis of reference:

Films of atmosphere, they illustrate a tragic morals: whatever the direction that you will take, the destiny will finish by you catching up with.

Other characteristics more anchor this membership to the black movement. Aesthetically initially, the photography of John F. Seitz, already present on Insurance on death . But also thématiquement. The dominant figure of the femme fatale, Normalized Desmond. Love opposed between Joe Gillis and Betty Schaefer. And the trio which settles gradually enters Norma, Joe and Betty, conflict trio of which the resolution contains the death of Joe and the madness of Normalized. Typical trio of black film and already present in Insurance on death (Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson).

The slides of Hollywood are also filmed according to the black style: behind the decorations hide sacrificed destinies, those of the anonymous scenario writers but also of largest the stars, the phantoms of Erich von Stroheim, of Buster Keaton. More largely, urban environment wild and realistic is not forgotten (Joe Gillis continued by two agents come to seize its vehicle, which brings it at Norma Desmond and starts the gears of the destiny), even enriched by the Gothic elements from the large forgotten villa.

Lastly, the moral ambiguity of the characters (to be started with that of Joe Gillis), the omnipresence of the lie, the secrecies (those of Normalized, those of Gillis, those of max), the loss of the reference marks felt as soon as Joe Gillis crosses the gate of Normalized Desmond, and the final madness finish making Boulevard of the twilight one of the largest masterpieces of black film.

See too

Random links: