Sunset Boulevard

How this film uses it

The film opens with Joe Gillis floating dead in a swimming pool, and he narrates his own story from there. The entire film is a dead man's account of how he got there. Since you know he dies, the suspense moves away from whether he survives. You watch to understand how it came to this.

Where to see it

The opening shot of Joe floating in the pool. The narrator is already dead before his first word.

How this film uses it

John F. Seitz's camera treats Norma Desmond's mansion as a haunted house. You see the dark rooms, the covered furniture, the dead pet monkey, the organ and the projection room for her old films. The house is her delusion in the form of a building, a place where time stopped in the 1920s.

Where to see it

Joe's first exploration of Norma's mansion. The house is shown as a museum of a star nobody needs anymore.

How this film uses it

Wilder casts real Hollywood figures (Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper, Buster Keaton) as themselves. Gloria Swanson's own career, as a silent star who made few sound films, parallels Norma Desmond's. This is a movie accusing the movies. Cinema creates these delusions, and then it abandons the people it created.

Where to see it

Norma on the DeMille set. The industry treats her gently, and with contempt underneath.

How this film uses it

Gloria Swanson plays Norma Desmond partly in the style of silent films (the eyes, the hands, the posed gestures), because Norma herself is left over from that era. The acting style is out of date on purpose. It lets you see Norma's delusion, so no dialogue has to spell it out.

Where to see it

Norma's descent down the staircase at the film's end. She acts like a silent film star in a world that has moved on to sound.