At first glance, it may be difficult to see why Billy Wilder’s now classic Sunset Blvd. is considered a film Noir. After all, it lacks many of the archetypal stylistic elements one usually associates with the "genre": No shadows of Venetian blinds are seen fragmenting characters and settings; there are no neon signs with missing letters; no sexy femme fatales; no studio built, urban streets glistening with rain; and there are few shots with oblique, unsettling compositions. Although, the film starts with a murder and the story is told through a flashback narration of the events leading up to it, the film is less concerned with crime than with the psychological investigation of the protagonists’ failed ideals.
Since one cannot strictly speaking call film noir a genre (film noirs exist in every genre, with the possible exception of the musical!), Paul Schrader acknowledges that the films with this label must be classified according to both mood and visual tone. However, it must be admitted that many films emphasize one of these elements over the other: they take on the visual tone of film noir, but in terms of existential mood, they merely reaffirm the established moral order. In other words, although many of the films present us with a character who doubts the moral guidelines presented by his society, this is usually considered a psychological problem: something to be overcome. In Key Largo, for example, Bogart’s moral cynicism is shown as a symptom of his war experiences, and much of the film is devoted to trying to convince him not to give up his idealism. In the end (a happy ending), Bogart realizes he was wrong and continues his quest to become a hero.
The reason it may be hard to see Sunset Blvd. as a film noir is that its darkness is less superficial than in many less poignant films with the same label. Sunset Blvd. doesn’t need obvious visual clichés because its message is so thoroughly pessimistic, cynical, and fatalistic. In order to see this, let us examine Sunset Blvd. in terms of the categories Robert G. Porfirio discusses in his article on "existential motifs in the film noir."
"The word ‘hero’ never seems to fit the noir protagonist", says Porfirio. Nowhere is this more true than in this film, whose protagonists are losers in every sense of the word. The "non-heroic heroes" in Sunset Blvd. are even more non-heroic than in other film noirs. Whereas many film noir heroes either battle the meaninglessness and aimlessness of their existence or face it with a certain toughness, the two protagonists of Sunset Blvd., Norma Desmond, and Joe Gillis represent, respectively, a total denial of their failure and a total resignation to this fact. Camus describes the non-hero as "a man without memory." No one has more of a memory than Miss Desmond, whose memory of her past success is the only thing that keeps her alive. Porfirio then describes the non-hero as amoral and therefore granted with a "godlike immunity and independence." No film noir protagonist is less independent than Joe Gillis, whose existence from day to day depends solely on the whims of the older woman who keeps him. Without Norma, Gillis is homeless, jobless, and moneyless. Moreover, he does not fight to change this. Norma, on the other hand, may be financially independent, but her emotions are fully dependent on Gillis’ presence.
Porfirio then goes on to describe the film noir hero’s alienation and loneliness. He says that "by keeping emotional involvement to a minimum, the [hero] gains a degree of power over others but pays the price in terms of loneliness." Again, the extent of Billy Wilder’s cynicism becomes evident when we realize that in Gillis, he has created a character who indeed is uninvolved, indeed is lonely, but who has no power whatsoever. Gillis "pays the price", but gets nothing in return. His "decision" to live with Norma seems like a sacrifice, but what does he have to sacrifice? Nothing.
This leads to the existentialist’s extraordinary faith in choice. Porfirio explains that this emphasis is the only thing that keeps existentialism from being totally nihilistic. However, whereas the existentialist can choose between "being and nothingness", Gillis can choose only between different variations on nothingness. He can give up his Hollywood dreams and return to the nothingness of his home town, or he can give up his Hollywood dreams and sink into the nothingness of living with Norma. Here lies the brilliance of Wilder’s having Gillis narrate the story as an already dead man. Many film noirs underline their fatalist attitude through the device of flashback narration: the story is told in such a way as to emphasize the fact that the past is past, and nothing can be done about it. However, the fact that this narration is most often told in the first person by the protagonist means that the hero has survived his experience, awful and inevitable as it may have been. Even in Double Indemnity, where Neff tells his story in the process of dying, the story ends in the "present" as we witness a bond between the insurance salesman and his boss: even if the hero dies, this bond is not a "has been" experience--it has a certain element of eternal significance. Contrarily, Gillis tells his story of meaninglessness while in a state of non-being--of nothingness. His story tell of how he went from nothingness to a different form of nothingness, and the fact that he is able to tell this story underlines the fact that nothing has changed. Life and death are given equal standing. Of course, Norma too is beyond having any choices in life. She is not even allowed to choose death, since she is stuck in a limbo of madness. In this way, her nothingness is worse than death, for at least death is an escape. But since what Norma needs to escape is her escapism, her life is marked by an inevitable circle of despair.
We can further examine how Sunset Blvd. goes beyond other film noirs in its cynicism when we look at Porfirio’s analysis of "sanctuary, ritual and order." He says that "the only sanctuary left for the hero is his Spartan office or apartment room, and he goes there for spiritual renewal." At the beginning of the film, Gillis loses even this minimal means of groundedness. He never has an office, and he must content himself with doing his writing in his small apartment. However, very soon after accepting the job of rewriting Norma’s script, Max further uproots Gillis by taking all his things out of his apartment and moving them above the garage of Norma’s decaying mansion. This isn’t the end of it though: not even this tiny room lasts long in providing Gillis with "the quiet and solitude" necessary to order his life. Outside circumstances once again intervene, in the form of rain, and he is forced to move into a house where he cannot even shut his door without a beam of light entering through a hole usually reserved for a lock.
Finally, Porfirio says that the film noir hero still has some "restorative rituals" that help maintain his honor. The best example of this a chance at facing death. The protagonist, having nothing to cling to, can at least find comfort in the knowledge of his meaningless existence, and this knowledge is exemplified in a heroic stance in the face of death. "A good deal of what dignity [the hero] possesses," says Porfirio, "is derived from the way [he] reacts to the threat of death." However, Gillis is cheated out of even this: He is totally unaware of his imminent death, and he is shot in the back.
© March 18, 1996, Tao Ruspoli