Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard is the blackly funny, often pitifully sad portrayal of a has-been silent star, alive as if against the knowledge of the outside world, in her misshapen manor, screening her old films, imagining unstoppably, relentlessly, of a return, that she is under the illusion will vindicate her fans, who all feel robbed of her. But it's also a disfigured love story, which while it keeps it from becoming simply a waxworks or a freak show, causes it to drag a little tiny bit.<br /><br />Gloria Swanson gives an unforgettable performance as the silent star Norma Desmond, with her covetous, melodramatic fingers, her theatrical gestures, her high-flying delusions of grandeur. William Holden considerately plays the role of the writer half her age, who lets himself be kept by her. But the performance that gives Swanson matching reverberation, relishing the film's Gothic grandiosity, is by Erich von Stroheim, as Norma's mysterious, devoted butler.<br /><br />The movie engraves itself on the doorstep of the world in which it is set, extracting so candidly from life in pictures that we can smell, lick, penetrate the special minutiae, the unequivocal parallels between the story and the actual actors themselves. What makes it so pitch perfect is how Wilder skates on thin ice flanked by black comedy and tragedy. Swanson's Norma Desmond slithers within millimeters of lampooning herself, taking huge chances with over-the-top sneers, affected lunges, theatrical posturings, and world-record- breaking narcissism, dangling Norma at the brink of psychosis for the vast majority of the movie, then creeping over. Norma obviously is not a wrinkly mummy. She is younger than stars such as Jane Fonda and Frances McDormand. She has aged only in her mind's eye, having grown obsessed obsessed obsessed with her moment of eminence in the past.<br /><br />What is most fun about Sunset Boulevard is how genuine Wilder had the wonderful nerve to be. He uses real names and shows real people, sometimes extensively. Sunset Boulevard gets to the bottom of the false impressions between audience and insider, and does not allow Norma Desmond to. The plot provides Holden with many reasons to agree to Norma's proposal of a job as her personal, hush-hush script doctor. He's bust, the rent is overdue, he is a fugitive from repo men, and he would hate to return to his job as a columnist in Ohio (It's always got to be Ohio! Why? What did we ever do to anybody?). He is as well not wholeheartedly reluctant to prostitute himself. Holden pitches faint fragility and internal struggle into his character. He goes through the forms of saying he doesn't want Norma's gifts, but he takes them, claims to be surprised on New Year's Eve when she throws a party just for the two of them, but surely he has known from the first that she wants not only a writer, but a young man to reassure her that she is still attractive. What is brilliantly satirical about all this is that in Hollywood, a screenwriter is so oppressed and low on the food chain that he will do anything to keep working. And what is furthermore brilliantly satirical is that Norma's life is not so bad. She's really her own worst enemy, which is what makes her story so pitiful.<br /><br />There is sure enough the young blonde studio writer with the highly predictable name of Betty, who is engaged to Jack Webb, but as Holden begins sneaking out of the house to work together on a script with her, she falls for him. He'd do her in a heartbeat, but he backs off, to a certain extent because he doesn't want her to find out the truth, but what's more because he shamefully likes the way of life with Norma. Wilder creates an exceedingly absorbing effect here, because when he escapes to see his old pal Jack Webb, and tension grows between him and Betty, Norma's world sure has gotten stuffy by that time and we feel a great deal of solace from her twisted realm.<br /><br />Of all the great directors of Hollywood's old days---Wyler, Stevens, Lang, Hitchcock---Billy Wilder was the biggest breath of fresh air. He knew how to blast a fun-loving sense of humor at you even in the face of knowingly pathetic subjects and characters. And he could go straight to the other extreme in the same film, outright disturbing you more than you ever thought a film from the old days ever could. Double Indemnity, Ace in the Hole, Some Like It Hot, The Seven Year Itch, The Apartment, The Lost Weekend, Stalag 17, Witness for the Prosecution, Sabrina and Sunset Boulevard all have a great comforting quality at the same time they are helmed by the silent man behind the camera who you never think about, the sublime master of mood swings, not to mention he consistently shows his strong sense of the importance of a memorable closing line, closing shot.