Norma Desmond is obsessed with fame, and it’s this theme that smacks me good and hard every of the two times I’ve seen this movie. For specific shots which visually reinforce this metaphor, I refer you to my thoroughly B+ first year film paper. She wants him to write a movie script that will make her famous again, and in pursuit of this goal she ensnares Joe like a spider whose web intersects the path of a hapless fly. ![]() ![]() We spend the bulk of the movie watching Norma through Joe’s eyes. Some backstory (but seriously, go see it) - writer Joe Gillis, on the lam from a colossal fine of $300, hides out in the crumbling mansion of former silent movie superstar Norma Desmond. Sunset brings a bit more to the “why” than “because loose women spell trouble”, and does so with a theme that, if anything, hits harder today than it did back then. It’s specifically a classic noir film, which is to say its most unambiguous message is “don’t stick your dick in crazy.” The noir genre commonly played fast and loose with the “why” logic behind this message, mostly because it was the Hays Code-era of Hollywood if your leading man didn’t suffer an untimely death after having sex outside of marriage, your movie didn’t get made at all. At the very least, you deserve to understand the reference when another movie does *that* shot of a dead body in a pool. Sunset is a timeless classic, a must-watch.
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