Description
Book SynopsisBilly Wilder's
Sunset Boulevard was a critical and commercial success on its release in 1950 and remains a classic of film noir and one of the best-known Hollywood films about Hollywood. Both its opening, with William Holden as the screenwriter Joe Gillis floating facedown in ageing star Norma Desmond's (Gloria Swanson) pool, and lines such as 'I
am big, it's the pictures that got small' are some of the most memorable in Classical Hollywood cinema. Steven Cohan's study of the film draws on original archival research to shed new light on the film's production history, and the contribution to the film's success and meanings of director Wilder, stars Holden and Swanson but also supporting actors Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson (who plays Betty Schaefer), Cecil B. DeMille, and Hedda Hopper, as well as costumier Edith Head, and composer Franz Waxman. Cohan considers the film both as a 'backstudio' picture (a movie about Hollywood) and as a film noir, and in the context of McCarthyism, blacklisting and the Hollywood Ten. Cohan explores how the film was marketed, its reception and afterlife, tracing how the film is at once a product of its own particular historical moment as the movie industry was transitioning out of the studio era, yet one that still speaks powerfully to contemporary audiences, and speculates on the reasons for its enduring appeal.
Trade ReviewSteven Cohan has produced a
well-researched guide to the film’s production and its various visual quotations. Replete with a wealth of stills,
it serves the purpose of an expert companion, leading the casual viewer through the richness of Wilder’s bittersweet paean to the film industry. -- Lillian Crawford * Times Literary Supplement *
Steven Cohan has given us a useful, blow-by-blow account of the making of the greatest Hollywood film about Hollywood, plus intelligent critical analysis of the many arts and crafts involved in the production of a classic. -- James Naremore, University of Indiana, USA
Cohan offers a highly animated, wonderfully rich, and thoroughly engaging reappraisal of Billy Wilder’s landmark film, combining a meticulous reconstruction of its production history, a probing formal and contextual analysis of the picture, and an equally convincing account of its enduring legacy. -- Noah Isenberg, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: "
Sunset Boulevard:Ready for its close-up" 1. "It's a Hollywood Story" 2. "It Happened in Hollywood!" 3. "It's a Great Motion Picture!" Conclusion; "Is Hollywood the City of Dreams...or Heartbreak?" Notes Credits
