Day 17: Sunset Boulevard

I haven't been marking any spoilers on this blog because I think to do so would just be silly. The whole point is to analyze things in order to learn, and I'm really more concerned about understanding what a story has to say than hiding the ending. Nobody has commented or anything, but if you're the kind of person who doesn't like to know the ending to any story and you also happen to be reading this blog, too darn bad.

Sunset Boulevard

Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D.M. Marshman Jr, 1949

Armature: Substance is more important than style. Or, a poor life of value is better than an empty rich life.

7 Steps:
1. Once upon a time, Joe Gillis was a poor screenwriter who was desperately trying to get a job by producing a lot of crappy scripts.
2. And every day Gillis tried to get a break or borrow money from people to avoid the repo men.
3. Until one day, Gillis escapes the repo men by hiding out in the old mansion of Norma Desmond, an actress who clings to her days as a big star, and is forced to stay there.
4. And because of this Norma falls in love with him, and Gillis stays with her because he pities her and doesn't want to crush her false reality.
5. Because of this Gillis starts meeting up with Betty Schaefer, another writer, and the two meet up in secret to work on a potentially really good screenplay. Betty also falls in love with him.
6. Until finally Gillis tries to leave Norma's mansion to go live a more meaningful life, but is shot and killed before he can escape.
7. And ever since that day Norma has continued to believe she is a big star, though cameras only look at her because she is a murderer.

This movie is pretty good. Everything exists for a reason, all the fat is trimmed, things happen that support the armature. Things happen within the boundaries. The conflict is exaggerated to make a point. It's all solid.

But I gotta admit, I'm not moved by this story. Perhaps it's because I've never been exposed to the Hollywood world in a career sort of way, or perhaps it's because I already value the armature and so didn't feel like I learned anything from it. I can tell that it's saying something important. But at the end of the script, I didn't feel anything.

I'm not sure what else to say here. If anyone wants to read more on what's cool about this story, Brian McDonald can explain better than me. For now, I'll shelf this screenplay as one that I don't completely understand and will try to re-read later.