Sunset Boulevard

Dir. Billy Wilder
1950
n/a


Industry in America is unforgiving. Hollywood is no exception. Perhaps the most relevant observation about our capitalist (which has become something of a dirty word in the last half century) society is how progress is something of a double edged sword. On the one hand progress is necessary in order to compete in the world markets. On the other, progress that falls into the realm of radicalism tends to be quickly quashed. Take for instance Hollywood in the 1920s. Already, big business was becoming intrinsically intertwined with the movie making process and affecting output. Charlie Chaplin, the first seminal American comedy director, made films all throughout the 20s and into the 30s that waged strong criticisms against societal elites. Though he was critically acclaimed and hugely popular Chaplin was eventually ostracized and very nearly excommunicated by the U.S. Government in a coup to censor his strongly satiric voice. Buster Keaton suffered a similar fate, not at the hands of a culturally totalitarian government, but rather equally brutal Hollywood producers who forced him into artistic subordination when America's attention turned toward the new era of sound films. All this is to emphasize the heartless depravity of progress. There is one Hollywood picture that better illuminates the intolerable cruelty of the thin line of progress than any other. Billy Wilder's dramatic masterpiece Sunset Boulevard is the acme of self-reflexive cinema. Not just about Hollywood but about our culture as a whole, it reminds the viewer of the internal suffering of the stubborn and the anxiety of the hopeful. The film, like Wilder's whole career, is emblematic of just how difficult it can be to do “good work” when restricted by the confines of a loving but controlling body.

Joe Gillis (William Holden), the film's protagonist, is a smooth talking script writer down on his luck. He often speaks of the ambition all young people, actors and writers alike, arrive with in Hollywood, which in turn slowly dissolves into cynicism and hopelessness. Gillis is terribly observant, wry and confident even in the face of destitution. He and later-romantic interest Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olsen), an eager and earnest reader with grand aspirations, represent the film's modern half; the young Hollywood pioneers working to change the system from the inside out to suit their own needs. It is not until Gillis meets defunct silent film star Norma Desmond (played in a self-realized, semi-autobiographical style by Gloria Swanson) and her scrupulous butler/ex-husband/former director Max (played, again semi-autobiographically by tragic mastermind director Erich von Stoheim) that he begins to sense the danger in becoming to closely involved with Hollywood. Norma and Max represent the long forgotten age of silent film stars in the 20s; an age that passed, almost without notice, with the coming of sound in 1928. By the 30s these once great stars had been dismissed from the studios whose legacy had once relied upon their namesakes. Norma raves about the temporary era of sound that will, in her opinion, no doubt fall in on itself and out of the ashes silent pictures will enjoy their reincarnation. She offers Gillis a job editing her “masterpiece”, a narcissistic and indulgent historical epic which she demands be directed by Cecil B. DeMille and of course star her. From here a shocking and grotesque tale of fate and temptation unfolds, on the scale of true Greek tragedy. Norma's pathologies eventually drown any connection between her and the real world and Joe meets his own tragic, aqueous end.

Sunset Boulevard is littered with filmic references. With Erich von Stroheim as “the man you can't help but feel empathy toward”, and appearances by Cecil B. DeMille and Buster Keaton, among others, playing themselves, Wilder no doubt means to show his appreciation for the film's that defined early Hollywood. But this film is far more than a nod to the masters. It is itself a model of cinematic greatness. The film represents the meeting point and reconciliation between the now remote silent era and the blossoming sound era. By 1950 nearly the same amount of time (roughly 20 years) had passed since the inception of sound as had passed between Griffith's narrative expansion at the end of the century's first decade and the demise of silent films. One could even suggest that Wilder represents, especially at this point in his career the Charlie Chaplin of sound. Not so much because he was a great comedic director (although few films are funnier than Some Like It Hot), but because Wilder used subversive intelligence to manipulate the medium and speak his human message to millions.

If Norma Desmond represents the silent era's depressing self-importance, stuck in perpetual state of “sleep walking” having exited the dream of stardom, and Joe Gillis represents the self-aware but no less depressing reality of the modern sound film then one can only conclude that although both meant well they will never be able to coexist. This might seem obvious to those of who have grown up amongst not only sound but color and television and Blu-Ray etc. etc., but there was a time when it was believed by many of Hollywood's biggest production companies that there would be a market for sound and silent films. Few directors have paid their respects to those early pioneers more eloquently than Wilder did in Sunset Boulevard. On top of everything else, the entire film takes place within a highly taught and engaging narrative. It is gorgeous to observe with all those disenchanting but somehow still plenty glamorous behind-the-scenes shots of Hollywood back lots. However, Sunset Boulevard is not a happy film. It is a raw and powerful statement about the harsh and bland aspects of Hollywood. It shows the daily tribulation of just attempting to make a living. It demonstrates the anonymity that has only further increased as more and more talent streams to Hollywood each year in hope's of becoming the next Who Ever. It paints a picture of near universal melancholy and moral incertitude. Yet, somehow it always makes me want to pack my bags and head west...

Rashomon

Dir. Akira Kurosawa
1950
n/a

In the real world nothing is ever dichotomous. Good and evil; nature and nurture; honor and cowardice; samurai and bandit, the purity of these polarities don't really exist. Some people go to great lengths to model themselves after archetypes of either pole but ultimately find frustration in their inability to transcend existence and become a moral paradigm. Eventually they discover that if they can fool themselves they can fool most everyone else as well. Image and reality begin to intermingle until the wall between the two becomes permeable, with lies and truth passing easily between. Many a filmmaker has tried to capture the natural contradiction of how people want to be seen and how they are seen but none have ever gone quite as far as Akira Kurosawa did in Rashomon. Kurosawa is known for probing the depths of the psyche but in Rashomon he takes this tendency to it's natural extreme, exhibiting not a singular point of view (Ikiru) or that of a naïve and hopeful body of people thinking as a whole (Seven Samurai) but several contradictory vantage points that challenge the notion of polarized morality.

Rashomon is a story within a story, a highly progressive dual-layered plot that spawned a form of critical theory known as the “Rashomon Effect” which hypothesizes on the subjectivity of memory and perception. The film begins with a priest (Minoru Chiaki) and a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) who relate to a cynical commoner (Kichijiro Ueda) the scene they witnessed that day in a local court. Here the first 'flashback' begins. In court it is revealed that a bandit, Tajumaru (Toshiro Mifune) has robbed and murdered a man (Masayuki Mori) and raped his wife (Machiko Kyo). This is the basic story. What follows is the re-telling of the story from four different positions: Tajumaru, the man, his wife, and the woodcutter who, it is later revealed, was hiding out of sight, watching, while the scene unfolded. In each telling and re-telling the complexity of the characters builds and grows. Tajumaru admits to the killing and the raping, in order to keep up appearances as a fearless, Machiavellian bandit. Curiously though he sketches the wife not as a defenseless woman but as a fierce warrior, the likes of which he has never seen before. He claims to have fallen deeply in love with her and sworn himself to her, only to have her run off while he is murdering her husband. The wife's story is next. She shows no signs of the fierceness in Tajumaru's version of the events, and she writhes on the ground as she proclaims her weakness. She reveals that after Tajumaru raped her he ran off leaving both her and her husband alive. She begs her husband to kill her but he only stares at her coldly. In a state of deepening madness she plunges her dagger into his chest. The next variant is the most terrifying. The deceased husband communicates to the judges his story through a medium. The scene is haunting and disturbing as the medium shudders and convulses to the agony of the dead husband. He claims that his wife, after willingly giving herself to Tajumaru, demands that Tajumaru kill her husband so that she might be free from his oppressive lifelessness. Tajumaru refuses, on the grounds of her being a woman. He gives the husband a choice: “Do you want me to kill her or let her go?” The husband does not answer. The woman frees herself and Tajumaru gives chase, leaving the husband by himself. He, in an effort to convey his dignity, tells the judges that he killed himself so as not to be further shamed in this life.

The final interpretation is given not in the court, but back at the weather-worn temple Rashomon by the woodcutter to the priest and the commoner. His account is the most utterly devastating of them all. He illustrates the depravity of all three, with the bandit Tajumaru begging the woman to marry him, the husband refusing to re-accept his wife after she has been with another man, and the woman manipulating both of them by appealing to their macho vanity and purist pride, respectively. The visual retelling of his version does not retain any of the glory or exaggeration of the three before it, but confirms the profound lack of certainty in the entire tragedy. The philosophical camera pans back to reveal skepticism on the part of the commoner and the consummate depression the priest has fallen into. In a pivotal moment the commoner says to the priest and the woodcutter, after hearing all four versions of the story “In the end you cannot understand the things men do”. It is in this moment and especially in the revealing scene that follows it (in which a baby is found) when the woodcutter is revealed to be a thief, and the priest has his faith in humanity restored, that Kurosawa's intent becomes clear, like the sky in his perfectly designed closing shot.

Simply put: it is not about trying to be a certain way but being the way you are. The novelist Graham Greene once wrote “God save us from the innocent, at least the guilty know what they are about”. We are all guilty. At one time or another we have all been gutless liars. Whether it is to save face, to cover our weaknesses, or to try to impress someone, the motive is never as clear as the result. In Rashomon Kurosawa asks us to be the judge in this criminal morality case. It is our job to ascertain who, if anyone, is telling the truth. But truth, like the dichotomies above, is just another impossible standard of measurement; an essential part of the paradox of guilt and innocence. Pure guilt and pure innocence don't exist. These are relative understandings of unattainably huge ideals. Rashomon is a deeply investigative and revealing film about moral relativism and the manifold complexities of the human spirit.