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...

Some Like It Hot

Dir. Billy Wilder
1959
n/a


Risque. Now there's a word I like. Duly indentured to the bygone and “olden days”, it is a word that no longer contains much meaning in a society and film world driven by violence, sex, and one-upmanship. There are certainly still a handful of censorship rules in place although they are largely nominal as the MPAA attempts to ensure that (most) children and adolescents are kept out of (most) overtly graphic films, except of course those films whose physical terror is manageable but whose psychological brutality is particularly scarring. Still there was a time when a conservative attitude toward what could be shown in cinemas was not so largely undermined by the industry itself. This liberalization of cinema has resulted in an inborn viewer desire for spectacle. Where a director like Alfred Hitchcock (whose anecdotal ideal of suspense ran something like: "there's two people having breakfast and there's a bomb under the table. If it explodes, that's a surprise. But if it doesn't...") held his audience in rapt attention because of their ebullient desire for resolution of tension, it is now frequently found that tension and suspense, if not played up to an absurd degree, bore rather than stimulate. It would seem the modern film going audience would prefer the bomb to explode...over and over again. This is not to say that modern cinema is void of dramatic suspense or temperance, or that otiose and otherwise banal action based films were not made prior to 1960. This is not even to imply that the quality of film has declined overall since the Golden Age of Cinema (Citizen Kane through Vertigo). What it does suggest, however, is a change in standards. Fifty years before Katy Perry's “I Kissed A Girl” single shot up the Billboard charts, Billy Wilder made the adulterous and provocative comedy Some Like It Hot. It is likely the most exciting and hysterical film of its time and, ironically, may have paved the way for the debaucherous period in which we live.

Starting out as action thriller based in Chicago during prohibition, the film rapidly switches over from rum running mobsters to two broke musicians, Joe and Jerry (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon respectively). After witnessing a particular brutal massacre the two recognize that the only way to escape persecution by the mob is to flee Chicago. Standing in their way is their lack of transportation and funds. They quickly devise a most ingenious solution: the two will cross dress in order to join a traveling girls band on their tour of Florida. It is here they meet obtuse but gorgeous Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe) and the farce to end all farces begins. With overt themes of sexuality, infidelity, alcohol abuse, and gender roles in combination with Wilder's immaculate sense of comedic timing the film plows forth with towering wit and superb drama. One only needs to dream of the infinite permutations of potential comic scenarios and it is guaranteed that Wilder not only seizes but in many instances improves upon them.

Wilder is perhaps known best not for the enchanting pace and timing of his films but rather for the progressive topical matter with which he deals. In the span of his career he has dealt with suicide (The Apartment), alcohol addiction (The Lost Weekend), pre-meditated murder (Double Indemnity), intense disillusionment (Sunset Boulevard), incarceration (Stalag 17) as well as a host of other difficult topics, including most notably: love. His screenplays are eloquent and his actors (especially Lemmon and William Holden, who are both recurring in his films) take on his roles with miraculous ease as if his characters, so original and well designed, transcend the confines of film and find something analogous with all human beings. They touch on our personal weaknesses and dormant strengths. Some Like It Hot studies the paradox of wishing to help someone while knowing you must first and foremost help yourself. While being brilliantly funny it is also touchingly romantic, balancing the two in perfect symbiosis.

While all this is going on the film still manages to be insatiably irreverent. Some Like It Hot is wonderfully satirical of the very institutions that keep it from being dull. Wilder effectively insinuates what, by the content limitations of the time, he was essentially restricted from showing. It was these very constraints, these hazards to the insipid and innocuous, that encouraged if not enforced creativity in Wilder and other directors. These same barriers simply do not exist in the 21st century. A director can bypass artistry and inventiveness in favor of having their film receive an R or NC-17 rating. If Some Like It Hot communicates any one thing with particular clarity 50 years later it's that intelligent and inspiring comedy and drama must take place on all developmental levels.

With modern resources there is certainly a time and place for action, but without counterbalance this action becomes cessation in and of itself. This laissez-faire attitude and general acceptance by the viewing public is at the bottom of modern cinema's gross dependence on a constant visual impetus. This action driven content is never going to disappear. There will always be a market for Rambo, James Bond, John McClane, and Jack Bauer. Like pop music these action heroes and their respective films exist to progress the technical side of the medium, to enhance the grandeur and visual opulence of cinema. But that cannot be all. Without a rich and thoughtful implicity to balance the corporeal weight of style, film may fall so far left of the dial that it becomes simply something to talk over at a party. There is only the hope that the function of these stimuli-laden films will evolve from mere exploitation to critical examination of values. Objectification. Now there's a word I like.