Rather A Hollywood Story!
Exploring the melodramatic traits in Sunset Boulevard

“All right Mr. Demille, I am ready for my close up.” Norma Desmond acts out the words as she moves down the stairs, hypnotized by the gorging lights, camera sets and a room full of audience, towards the view. Parallel cuts of a broken Max, her butler and the tearful gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, the organ playing the finishing score in the background as the larger than life image of Norma Desmond dramatically dissolves into white. A scene so aptly melodramatic as the silent era empress slowly descends into reality of cameras, sets and popularity once again for some kind of finality as Max, her faithful butler prepares her onslaught , reminding the scene definition once again for her (as the presence of room full of audience in her deserted mansion for twenty years has quite overwhelmed her). The 1950 Billy Wilder film, “Sunset Boulevard” starring William Holden as Joe Gillis and Gloria Swanson as the silent film actress Norma Desmond is a classic amalgam of Gothic Melodrama and Film Noir. The film starts off with jolt, initially a track shot of the sunset boulevard road as the police rush towards the crime scene followed by the fishing out of a bullet ridden body from the swimming pool. The pilot scene leads the audience as to expect a murder mystery Film Noir number but ultimately emerges as a melodramatic form. The over expressive, tragicomic Norma Desmond against a mere composed, realistic Joe Gillis fills up the mis-en-scene for one of the Hollywood Insight stories. For a recap, Joe Gillis is a small time B grade American film screenwriter with a couple of creditors and unpaid rent hanging around his neck, flees the police and discovers the gigantic deserted mansion on his way. He thinks of playing a possible hunch by hiding his own car in the car-shed , only to be discovered by Max. He is then lead to the room of an ageing Norma Desmond who was at that moment lamenting the loss of her childlike Chimp. On the account of a possible intruder, he decides to leave the place only to realize who she was. The jittery exchange of dialogues between Norma and Joe as he identifies the star of the past era saying , “ You used to be big” to which she retaliates , “I am big, it’s the pictures that got small” settles for an insight into the inner psyche of a forgotten star. The narrative takes a rather expected turn when she hires Jo to trim her extensive script for her possible comeback, err “return”. Sunset Boulevard then paves the way for a very first unconventional love relation as the fifty something Norma start developing a passion for a man nearly half her age. It can also be seen as a total inversion of the dominant-recessive pair, as Norma Desmond is depicted here as the authoritative and Joe the submissive as he gradually starts giving in to her whims and demands. The projection of this binary seems like a perfect ingredient for a melodramatic form, as she decides to pet him, and make it “worth his while”. When Norma narrates to him about the script based on ‘Salome’ , in which she tends to play the lead, the story is quite a shade closer to our meta-narrative in which the woman, facing a rejection from the high priest decides to kill him. Throughout the film, the outthrust of Norma Desmond’s character foil the narrative bends. The very gesture of how she walks, the falcon like fingernails, swooping hand gesture, bulging eyes, constant mugging , the heightened expressions, the almost comic way of delivering dialogues(as if in some medieval theatre) the constantly raised eyebrows and an urging gait : all melodramatic mannerisms. Compared to which the Noir look and feel of Joe’s character is quite realistic / very less dramatic. As Joe, through his from-the-grave-narration drawing a portrait of Norma’s character saying, “She sat coiled up like a watch spring , her cigarette clamped in a curious holder” Later he remarks as though “She was trying to clutch on to me like her cigarette holder” when she becomes increasingly possessive about him. The contradiction between the two characters is wonderfully shown as she first recruits him based on his date of birth and zodiac saying “Sagittarius. They can be trusted” (with the precious brainchild of hers-the script). And later when Joe fires at her saying, “I hope you realize Norma that script don’t sell on astrologers charts”. The narrative embarks on symbolism throughout the script. Atleast a few signs which are hard to miss. Like when Joe reads through the script of “Salome”, he comments on it as “the tripe I have been reading, the silly hodgepodge of melodramatic plots” so as to suggest that the script born out of an inspiration from the silent era lacks the dynamics of today’s films. But to a certain extent, I think “melodrama” almost comes to a rescue for this narrative since the projection of the binary otherwise would have been difficult; the sharp contrast between the two main characters based on the deliverance of their dialogues, the screen presence is brought about the mere difference in the act. The relief comes through character Max, who is his Madame’s faithful butler/ex husband and also Betty Schaifer who perfectly enacts the vibrant ambitious youth of the Hollywood industry. Citing Nowell Smith from Melodrama: Genre, Style and Sensibility where he argues:
“At points of high drama the melodrama that usually aims to convey a strong sense of realism for example (by using rhetoric conventions of Classical Hollywood Cinema) literally exceeds the limits of what can be considered realistic; it goes over the top” Nowell Smith is suggesting that there is an excess of conflict or contradiction. Quite parallel to the narrative of 1946 King Vidor film, ‘Duel in the Sun’ where again there is this continuous projection of the binary : Good vs Evil , legitimate Vs Immoral, Sunset Boulevard picks up from there but the characters of Norma and Joe are a far outcry from that of Lute and Jesse, since we cannot pinpoint the exact evil/ good in each of the characters of Norma and Joe. According to my point of view, that character of Norma Desmond would almost be comical if she weren’t this tragic. So the projection of the almost binary is a little blur. A very important observation can be the constant self –referential nature of the film; referential per se to the scandalous underbelly of the Big Hollywood Glamour as most of the actors play characters based on their real life.
“ Sunset Boulevard cuts to the bone of the fickle system of the Hollywood fame and the ephemeral nature of the Hollywood glamor” ---------- Whitney seibold. In a rhetoric, Melodrama punctuates and dramatize a narrative. It exists as a form of expression of Morality. It creates the space for Resacrilisation as the narrative becomes the p.o.v of the victim/ underdog as in this case both Joe Gillis and Norma Desmond.

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Submitted by Shaoli Pramanik.