“The Stars are Ageless, Aren't They?”—An Exploration of Fantasy in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard

In the film Sunset Boulevard (1950), directed by Billy Wilder, the viewer is introduced to a changing Hollywood and the casualties that ensue from it. The film depicts the story of Joe Gillis, a struggling script writer, and his fateful encounter with an aging Hollywood star, Norma Desmond. Joe quickly finds himself enveloped in Norma's world, swathed in velvet curtains, armed with gold cigarette cases, and sated with champagne and caviar. Yet he fails to realize that he is entering a dangerous world that ultimately “submerges” him in Hollywood's dark underbelly. Norma, for her part, has created a world that is at once a slice in time, a freezeframe of her former stardom, and a desperate attempt to deny the changing world of film. Her fantasies shade into delusions, allowing her to overlook hints, and to use information to support her fixed ideas. With the assistance of Max Von Mayerling, her faithful retainer, as well as the recruitment of Joe Gillis, Norma creates or recreates the world that Hollywood had offered her, thus fostering the illusion that movies create for us all. Further, it is through Norma, that viewers encounter their own fantasies about Hollywood, and come to realize the toxic narcissism and emptiness that exists within its fictional universe.

The film is constructed in flashback; from the beginning the viewer is privy to the ending, but without the context for Joe's unfortunate demise. We are introduced to Joe Gillis, a young film writer in Hollywood, drawn to the promises and potentials of cinema from a news desk in Dayton, Ohio. He finds himself in a pinch financially, owing money on his rent and without a script that will sell, in danger of losing his beloved car, his only possession that he truly values. He states early on to his agent when asking for a loan, “if I lose my car, it's like having my legs cut off,” which later seems ironic since the quest to keep his car lands him in another sort of trap (Wilder, 1950, p. 9:55). While out driving