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30 Rock, Studio 60 on Sunset Strip and Sunset Blvd...
I love talking about movies, but I've never been able to organize movie-night get-togethers. So this is the next best thing: On Tuesdays I'm going to spotlight a DVD and suggest some virtual-discussion starters.
Two of the most anticipated shows of the Fall TV season, 30 Rock and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, are behind-the-scene shows about the inner workings of television. The mixed reviews accorded both got me thinking about behind-the-scenes movies about movie making, which have a similarly inconsistent track record. And that got me thinking about Sunset Blvd. (1950), an acid-tipped elegy for casualties of the boulevard of broken dreams. Not to mention a font of lines that have kept generations of drag queens in material, including "I am big. It's the pictures that got small" and "All right, Mr. DeMille. I'm ready for my close up."
Conventional wisdom is that the only people who care about the machinery behind popular entertainment are the people who make it, and there's some truth to that. But movies and TV shows are shared dreams, and for every person who doesn't want the illusion spoiled, there's another aching to see the man behind the curtain. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett's Sunset Blvd. revolves around the much parodied figure of silent-movie superstar Norma Desmond, played by real-life silent star Gloria Swanson. Forgotten by the industry that once worshipped at her box office returns, Norma lives in a suspended world of shadows and memories, cocooned
In a decaying Italianate mansion (once owned by oil billionaire J. Paul Getty and subsequently demolished to make way for a Getty office building) with her butler (Erich von Stroheim) — once both her director and her husband — and her dreams of a glorious comeback.
Narrated by a dead man — desperate b-movie screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden), whom we meet floating face-down in a swimming pool — and laced with bitter allusions to Hollywood's ruthless consumption of its young, Sunset Blvd. is blackly funny and quietly devastating: The business may be shallow and venal, but the power of movies to create worlds vivid, and satisfying than real life is what gets us hooked on them.
Things to consider:
Are today's stars like the stars of the past, or has that larger-than-life quality been eroded by scandal journalism the bad behavior of younger stars? Swanson, for example, was as wild in her day as Lindsay Lohan. But Swanson's indiscretions weren't not splashed all over the pages of tabloid magazines and newspapers.
Have the movies gotten small?
Goldie Hawn's Elise Elliot declares in The First Wives Club (1996) that there are three ages of women in Hollywood: "Babe, district attorney and Driving Miss Daisy." Norma Desmond is partly a victim of the sound era — many popular stars couldn't make the transition to talking pictures — and partly a victim of an industry in which women's roles grow scarcer as they get older.
Sunset Blvd. is shot through with Hollywood in jokes (and not funny ha-ha jokes, either); here are some:
Erich von Stroheim was one of the greatest directors of the silent era; he directed Swanson in the notorious and unfinished Queen Kelly — the movie Norma shows Joe in her private screening room.
Cecil B. DeMille, who plays himself, was one of the most popular directors and directed Swanson in several films. His scenes were done on the set of Samson and Delilah (1949), which was shot on the backlot at Paramount, the studio that made Swanson a star.
Hearst newspaper columnist Hedda Hopper, in her heyday the terror of Hollywood (she led the campaign against Orson Welles' Citizen Kane on behalf of her employer), plays herself.
The friends who gather at Norma's house to play cards, whom Joe Gillis unkindly dubs "the waxworks" are Anna Q. Nilsson, who made more than 150 films before 1928; H.B. Warner, whose silent career peaked with the role of Jesus Christ in DeMille's King of Kings; and comedian Buster Keaton.
Previous DVD blogs:
In Cold Blood
Brick
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Oct 16, 2006 4:59 PM
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Sunset Blvd. is one of my all-time faves (although I could have lived without the musical. Oy). Here are two other tidbits I've heard over the years. Tell me if they're true:
Queen Kelly is the last film "officially" directed by Erich von Stroheim. I read that he and Swanson went at it so badly, that she threatened to end his career. And that's exactly what she did... at least his directing career.
I also heard that Billy Wilder's first choice for Norma was Mae West. Now I *adore* West but that would have been campier than Sextet!
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Oct 16, 2006 5:26 PM
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One of my favorite moments in Sunset is when Swanson does her dead-on imitation of Chaplin. One of my favorite movies about the movies is Bogart's In A Lonely Place.
Have the movies gotten small?
I guess to some degree each generation feels the same kind of intense fascination or reverance for their particular stars. At a certain point I think it drops away. I've met a couple of movie stars but I can hardly see even my favorites of today's stars (Don Cheadle, Ed Harris, Ed Norton, Reese Witherspoon) inspiring the kind of awe I felt meeting Henry Fonda. As much as I love and admire Jack Nicholson I was pretty comfortable talking with him.It isn't that I've lost the ability to be awestruck. Put me in a room with Sophia Loren or Richard Widmark or Sydney Poitier and watch me turn into a blithering idiot. But I probably stopped feeling that way with the group of actors who came to prominence as I was approaching adulthood-DeNiro, Dreyfuss etc.
Aging might be a factor. It seems somewhat unnatural to feel hero-worship for someone significantly younger than oneself. The over-exposure of today's stars through not only print media and the awful phenomenon of infotainment TV also helps to demystify them. It also perpetuates the ancient practice of eating the god...tastiest when he's down.
The effort to find and broadcast any bit of pseudo-information leads to items like one I saw earlier today concerning the fact that Jennifer Aniston has a new dog! Geez! How did we live?
It is a good thing, I think, that contemorary stars are not allowed quite as much surreptitious misbehavior as earlier generations were. But lack of simple respect is rampant and that's not so good. People feel they have a "right" to invade the privacy of public figures to the point of trying to crash weddings funerals and other events which are simply none of their business.
The sale of a ticket or CD entitles the buyer to attend that show or listen to that CD. The money artists make and the support they receive from fans obligates them to behave in a respectfully courteous manner-under the right circumstances indulging the fan's desire for an autograph or photo. And they should be a little patient with and understanding of the awkwardness a fan sometimes displays when meeting an idol.
Sales of product don't obligate stars to expose their families to the same pressing attention they have to endure. Or to completely surrender their privacy and personal space.
Sometimes it seems that more than ever people think they have a to harrass stars. Maybe they have gotten smaller. I don't know. My nine year old niece seems as crazy about Raven Symone as I was about the Beatles. Will she still be thrilled by her forty years on as I still am by them? I hope to be around to tell you.
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Oct 17, 2006 4:21 AM
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Queen Kelly, which was bankrolled by Joe Kennedy, with whom Swanson was having a torrid affair, was a debacle. Part of the problem was that Swanson, who wanted to work with von Stroheim because she was looking for respect and he had a reputation as an artiste, didn't like being pushed around — she was a star, after all — and von Stroheim was, shall we say, autocratic by nature. They clashed like crazy. And part of the problem was that Queen Kelly, which was based on a morbid, perverse von Stroheim story called "The Swamp," was full of his usual pervy touches, from flogging to bloomer-sniffing to hiring prostitutes to play court ladies. A unique vision, to be sure, but not one that was going to class Swanson up in the world's eyes. Swanson flipped out and did indeed have the director fired, and the film was never finished. By the time of Sunset Blvd. they had reconciled, I suspect because by then life had taken them both down a few pegs.
Queen Kelly did effectively end von Stroheim's directing career. He subsequently directed a small picture in 1933 called Hello Sister! (aka Walking Down Broadway ); new scenes were added by another director and the film recut without von Stroheim's input. It was released with no director's credit at all.
Von Stroheim started his career as an actor, playing all manner of vile Teutonic beasts (his nickname was "The Man You Love to Hate"), and that's what he went back to. There have always been rumors that he exercised a director's influence over some of the films in which he appeared; I'm sure he tried and in some cases he probably succeeded. But that's not quite the same thing as being the director of Greed (1924) or The Wedding March (1928).
I've also heard that Mae West was under consideration for the lead in Sunset Blvd., though I don't know that she was Wilder's first choice. Casting West makes perfect sense in that she too was a star whose time had passed. But her bawdy, good-time gal presence would have produced a very different result; less haunting, I suspect.
The issue of whether movies have gotten small because movie stars have been diminsihed is one I think about sometimes. I think the influx of TV actors into movies has a lot to do with demystifying them; even if you don't know everything about a TV performer's personal life, the fact that you see them weekly in your living room makes them seem more approachable and less remote than actors you know from a big screen in a darkened theater.
That said, the quality of the moviegoing experience has been enormously degraded by multiplexes, the precipitous decline in theater manners and endemic careless projection. It's hard to lose yourself in a movie when the registration is off and you're surrounded by squalling babies and people chattering and eating.
And most actors today court celebrity wherever they can find it — when they complain about being rushed by paparazzi when they go out to dinner at the hottest restaurant in town, you have to question their sincerity and/or their intelligence. They're also forced to work within an environment in which being famous for being famous — need I say "Paris Hilton" — is a good as being famous for something. Some actors, like Johnny Depp, have what it takes to bow out of the media circus while continuing to work, but he's the exception rather than the rule.
The essence of stardom, I think, is that people can project their imaginations onto an image that's both glittering and distant. The more you know about an actor's children and divorces and battles with bipolar disease and fear of antique furniture, the more they become ordinary people who make a hell of a lot of money. And I think that in turn makes their public feel more entitled to know even more about them: If stars are just like you and me except that they get $15 million for three months of movie work a year, then they can damned well earn it by making themselves available.
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Oct 17, 2006 11:46 AM
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That said, the quality of the moviegoing experience has been enormously degraded by multiplexes, the precipitous decline in theater manners and endemic careless projection. It's hard to lose yourself in a movie when the registration is off and you're surrounded by squalling babies and people chattering and eating.
You are SO right. Not long ago I rented a classic "Toga Opera" (might have been The Robe-I forget)and the DVD began with a shot of a brightly lit garishly lush theatre curtain. Then an overture began to swell. After a bit the screen darkened and the music began to fade and then the credits began. It was just like the old days when you knew you had to hurry in from the popcorn stand to get back to your seat and the audience noise would dissolve into whispers and finally silence as you were transported into the world of the film. Remember how you'd be watching the movie and sometimes glance around and seeing the theatre walls, were almost surprised to find you were in a building and not a direct observer of what was onscreen?
They're also forced to work within an environment in which being famous for being famous — need I say "Paris Hilton" — is a good as being famous for something
Yes yes yes. Being on The Bachelor equals being on Access Hollywood equals Paris Hilton equals John Mark Karr equals Anna Nicole Smith equals movie star. It doesn't matter anymore what you're famous for, whether you've done anything important or earned fame through hard work.
And I think that in turn makes their public feel more entitled to know even more about them: If stars are just like you and me except that they get $15 million for three months of movie work a year, then they can damned well earn it by making themselves available.
Absoulutely. And while the egalitarian in me appreciates this to a degree I genuinely mourn the sense of wonder that's been lost.
I think the influx of TV actors into movies has a lot to do with demystifying them
And we've lost that special breed of actor who seemed to be able to do both film and movies and still maintain a certain aura of specialness. There weren't many but I would say that the king of them was James Garner. In fact there may not even be another one.
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Oct 18, 2006 2:19 AM
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I think the influx of TV actors into movies has a lot to do with demystifying them; even if you don't know everything about a TV performer's personal life, the fact that you see them weekly in your living room makes them seem more approachable and less remote than actors you know from a big screen in a darkened theater.
That said, the quality of the moviegoing experience has been enormously degraded
by multiplexes, the precipitous decline in theater manners and endemic careless projection. It's hard to lose yourself in a movie when the registration is off and you're surrounded by squalling babies and people chattering and eating.
I agree with you on both points. While there are modern day TV to Movie Star exceptions, George Clooney is the only "superstar" I can readily recall who was on a VERY popular TV show (Tom Hanks's TV work was much less identifiable). It helps that Clooney also possesses that Star System mystique that other modern actors just don't have anymore.
In general, I think that part of the reason "celebrity" and the idea of "Movie Stars" are different today is a result of simple evolution. In the Studio Era, stars were literally created. Actors were given names (Joan Crawford was named in a magazine contest), persona's, romantic liaisons, etc. And no matter how much more interesting the actors real life might be, it was the persona that was the product. Celebrity news and gossip was a commodity then, it was just a co-operative between the studios and the media. With the erosion of the studio system, the media's relationship with the persona also changed (as did public expectations). We now want to know as much as about the "real" person behind the image as possible, and that undoubtedly leads to a diminished importance.
It doesn't help that the individuals who get the most publicity are usually those with less talent, thus continuing to draw the focus away from the idea of a "star" who is both glamorous and proficient at his craft. No matter how accessible or unaccessible she may be, it is easier to be more starstruck by Jane Fonda than Jennifer Lopez, because Fonda has a talent that truly resonates with the audience, despite whatever personal ire she may have roused up in individuals 30 years ago. I met Jane Fonda when I was 6 years old, knowing nothing more about her than that she was Ted Turner's wife (Ted was a close friend of my grandfather), but I saw her affect on those around me and knew she was someone really famous/special.
Plus, as the whole movie-going experience deteriorates (for the reasons you cited), it becomes harder and harder to look at the figures on the screen as iconic. The single best movie theater experience I have ever had happened in 1999 at Atlanta's Fox Theater (which is one of the few old-style theaters still in existence, though it is mostly a showcase for stage productions) in honor of Hitchcock's 100th Birthday -- a double feature of Vertigo, followed by Psycho (intermission between the two films), both in 70mm. In all likelihood, I will never have as good of a movie-going experience as I did that night at 16 years old. With the awesomeness of the Big Screen experience dwindling, the figures on that screen dwindle as well.
I only wish I could watch Sunset Blvd. at a quiet cineplex (some of the huge theaters are great -- as long as the projectionists know what they are doing and the bulb level on the screen is bright enough) instead of on my HDTV.
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Oct 18, 2006 4:24 PM
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GREAT points film_girl. How could I have forgotten Clooney as one of the few genuine contemporary TV/Movie stars.
I guess the Fox chain is committed to enhancing the movie going experience. The Fox Theatre in my native Detroit has been restored to its old lavish glory. It is used as a concert venue as well as a movie theatre. On a visit to Kansas City Mo. I also saw (from the outside) some extremely beautiful old fashioned theatres. I would guess that in medium size cities in certain parts of the country one can still find the kind of venues that makes going to a movie a semi-mystical experience. One can only hope.
Alhough I have a fairly high opinion of JLO's acting skills (she was excellent in a few so-so films-Angel Eyes, Blood And Wine and The Cell-darn good in Selena and outstanding in Out Of Sight)I get your point. I do think though, that she has star potential and is one of a handful of contemporary talents who cold have made it in an era when stars had to be "bigger".
I too met Jane Fonda and you are right. She has a movie star "glow" that is undeniable. I was a few feet away from her dad once too and I can only cite shaking Muhammad Ali's hand (when he was in is early thirties)as a a more breathtaking experience. Well, that and my first sight of the Grand Canyon.
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Oct 19, 2006 2:31 AM
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