lcrews

Billy Wilder had a long and much-honored career as a director. He made some of the best light comedies of his or any other era, but his best and most essential films pushed the boundaries of Hollywood at the time. From The Long Weekend's devastating look at the reality of alcoholism, to the frank discussion of changing societal norms in The Apartment, to making Holmes and Watson homosexual lovers in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Wilder was always breaking new ground in what could be shown on the big screen.

Sunset Blvd. may be his crowning achievement in boundary pushing, just because it is one of the most savage attacks on the mythos of Hollywood ever created. He spares no expense to bite the hands that feeds him, digging way deep beyond the glamor and into the reality of stars, former stars, and wannabes. The casting is dead-on, with Gloria Swanson and Ericj von Stroheim in particular--they had both been eaten up by the Hollywood system some time before 1950.

Sunset Blvd's self-reflexive deconstruction of Hollywood myth would be enough by itself, but it's actually just one layer of many in a truly great film. It's also a fairly gripping detective story, downright funny in moments, and absolutely horrific in others--Swanson's famous "I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. Demille" in particular can still send shivers down your spine. Besides being one of the all-time great directors, Wilder was a hell of a writer who collaborated with some of the best screenwriters in the business; his long partnership with I.A.L. Diamond is legendary, but this is the last of 13 collaborations with Charles Brackett, who brought just the right amount of pathos and tragedy to the script, no doubt aided by his experience working behind the camera in Hollywood for years.

If you are a film buff or a student of Golden Age Hollywood, you will likely add Sunset Blvd. to your list of all-time greatest movies, but you don't have to be a film student to enjoy it either. It's dramatic, funny, chilling, and really just a joy to watch unfold. Many great films of the late 1940s and early 1950s are still enjoyable to this day, but even the best of them can seem somewhat dated today. Not so with Sunset Blvd., which is as potent and stunning as it was in 1950. One of the all-time best films, Sunset Blvd. is highly recommended viewing.

All of the reviews here about how much ZP lacks plot, the acting is wooden, the orgy scene makes no sense, etc., all miss the main point.

Let's be honest. This is a movie made in the heady times of late 1960s and early 1970s Los Angeles. It is a movie meant to be watched while your are H-I-G-H out of your mind on some psychedelic substance.

Find some kind bud and smoke up, or get a mild hit of acid. Seriously, these straight and sober reviews of ZP miss the point. You can't get anything out of this movie in a straight frame of mind.

Until you've watched this movie on the big screen (which I am lucky to have done three times in the 1990s when ZP was quite rare) tripping out, you have no idea what this movie is all about.

If you insist on watching it not intoxicated, you can at least appreciate the ending when the crap blows up to the soundtrack of Pink Floyd's wonderful re-working of "Careful With That Axe, Eugene," "Come in Number 51, Your Time Is Up."

Hopper's second directorial effort was doomed to cult status from the start. But, starting with the post-modern film school generation of the 1990s, it has started to get its just due. This is a challenging film to a viewer of any sort, but is a fascinating piece of art nonetheless.

The only thing I have to add is a reaction to some other commenters. Anyone suggesting that this film should have been edited into chronological order, or not have jump cuts, or the "Scene Missing" title cards is clearly missing the point. One of the major themes of the film is the artifice of Hollywood film-making, and having those illusions disrupted is key to the film's impact. Granted, theses are tricks lifted from the French New Wave, but they are put to great use here.