Sunset Boulevard: A Grandeur Lost On Television, but Full And Ample On Widescreen
Written: Jan 08 '03
Product Rating:
Pros: Everything lost on television gets a full and ample treatment widescreen.
Cons: Chances to see it on widescreen don't come along much. So take advantage.
The Bottom Line: A screen gem gets a very clean proper wide screen treatment. Swanson's performance shines through the ages, but watch Von Stroheim's heartbreaking work also.
Television sets are, usually, perfectly okay mediums for showing films intended and shot for the big screen. Nearly every film loses a bit of an image here or a subtletey in the soundtrack there because of size and acoustic limitations (and I'm not talking just about speakers and subwoofers, but about carpetting, wall texture). A little something gets lost because, lets face it, most of our abodes can't fit a movie theater.
Select films such as Matrix, Star Wars, E.T. of course lose a little of their cumulative grandeur when crammed into the electronic sardine can. And its usually the f/x trimmings that take the worst hit. And for those you go buy those subwoofers and wave speakers.
But some films will never completely translate where no amount of acoustic detailing or digital precision or meticulous letterboxing can capture for even the biggest television and render it into decent facsimile of the wider spacious experience of cinema.
In the case of Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, the very smallness of television works against the art of the film particularly with the brave choices of acting styles. On video (albeit old), Swanson's shrillness bucks furiously against the physically closed confines of a 27"er, and would do the same for a 50" tv. Nothing less than the size of the movie screen with a most proper movie theater suffices to fit what she's doing. I recently indulged in the pleasure of watching Sunset Boulevard the best way, at the beautiful historic Normal Theater in Normal Illinois. Proper aspect ratios, a clean print. I own the film on video to indulge myself in one of the greatest scripts ever written.
The story concerns a young, but down-and-out disrespected film writer Joe Gillis (William Holden)who, while on the run from creditors who want to repo his car, chances upon the driveway of an estate owned by silent screen legend Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson)who yearns for a comeback (oops, wrong word there. Sorry Norma). She herself is toiling on a script of her own, a larger-than-life Cleopatra-ish tale, naturally and she solicits Joe's help as a sort of script doctor.
The rich and exotic trappings lull him into complacency even as he bears witness to Norma's emotional and mental disintegration. Billy Wilder, who could ought-irony Kevin Smith, cast Swanson who truly was a silent film legend. And to out irony all of that, most anyone who knows Swanson knows her as Norma Desmond.
For those watching on video, the beauty of Swanson's choice to over-play by stage acting, with heavily deployed use of expansive gestures and highly modulated speech patterns may not translate. A stage actor must play to the 97-year-old in row 118. Movie, television actors with boom mikes and soundstages are more concerned with movement and try to moderate expression. Makes sense if you think about it -- how many memorable car chases have you seen on Broadway? Swanson's broad styling choice allows intimate quiter moments with her character to also shine in relief, dancing for Joe, her pantomime Charlie Chaplin, the card game with old friends.
William Holden, an actor of no inestimable gift himself, stands out in restraint, and Sunset Boulevard's film noir trappings allow Joe a guarded and eagle-eyed wariness, self-awareness, and restraint that simultaneously underscore and stand out from far showier performances. As Joe, he makes it very easy to understand why the people around Norma want to feed into her grand illusion of a comeback. He is seduced, however, by the very least and weakest of Norma's charms. His failure to see the same magnetism and larger than life talent others see in Norma feeds his contempt for her and his shallow seduction by her wealth leaves him even more bitter.
But not for long. He is the latest arrival and the first to leave. Erich Von Stroheim as Max Von Myerling has been around far longer and his own secret reasons for so carefully manipulating the grand illusions necessary for maintaining Norma's brittle emotional state. If Norma is the larger-than-life narcissist who will do anything to prevent any part of her dream from fading -- or leaving the premises, Myerling has so sublimated his own personality and ego in service of his star he too loses, if not his moral center, at least his sense of moral priority even as it appears that star will be leaving him and the mansion forever. And he does it with a quiet and infallible dignity in a performance as indelible as Swanson's (you may laugh at this. As I was editing, I found I accidentally called her Norma).
Television, where the performances on first viewing seemed slightly alien from one another since Swanson's broad and expansive performance escapes the confines of television, leaving Stroheim and Holden with less of a lynchpin to revolve around. On viewing properly, you'll truly understand what Desmond meant when she said "The stars didn't get bigger. The pictures got smaller."
I wonder what she would have thought of letterboxing.
Billy Wilder's masterpiece SUNSET BOULEVARD a corrosive black comedy that remains the most memorable assault on the emptiness and vanity of the movie ...More at Family Video
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