SUNSET BOULEVARD

Allusions

Wilder utilises the dialogue of Joe to alludes to other literary works to flesh out and develop the reclusive nature of Norma. Joe muses that the “unhappy look” of her house reminds him of “Miss Havisham” from Great Expectations. This allusion to Dicken’s character highlights how detached Norma is from reality through her attempts to live in the past.

This comparison also suggests that her behaviour is as delusional as refusing to remove a wedding dress. The fate of Ms Havisham’s character is that her wedding dress catches fire, foreshadowing Norma’s descent into madness.

Symbolism: Norma’s house

The chiaroscuro mansion is lit and modelled like a decaying castle echoing Gothic literature, where Norma is both a monster and victim, like a Frankenstein figure who refuses to die.

Mise en scene of props in opening shot

The cigarette butts, dirty, and dead leaves highlight the seedy underbelly and corrupt, dirty side of Hollywood

Circular structure

Wilder begins and ends the film witht he same low angle shot of Joe dead in the pool, highlighting the inescapable loop of Hollywood exploitation, making it a fatalistic inevitability.

Low angle shot of Joe dead in the pool

Shows the police and paparazzi arriving at the same, highlighting Hollywood’s exploitative obsession with a tabloid and a chance to make money.

"I'm not just selling a script, I'm selling me"

Norma has commodified herself in Hollywood as something to be bought and sold.

“Don’t you know the finest things were written on an empty stomach?” - Lloyd - Joe's agent

- The capitalists in Hollywood value Joe for his output serving the Hollywood establishment, but not enough for him to be financially content, making Joe a victim of exploitation

“There was a time when this business had the eyes of the whole world. But that wasn’t good enough for them. Oh, no! They had to have the ears of the world too. So they opened their big mouths and out came talk, talk, talk.”

This does not just refer for the transition from silent films but also Billy Wilder's critical view of American economic exploitation. America made it's economic presence imposed throughout the world ("Eyes of the whole world"), America modelled itself to others as the leader of the free world ("The ears of the world") until the "talk talk talk" of the American dream proved to cause nuisance for those who were exploited to make it possible.

“I’m rich. I’m richer than all this new Hollywood trash. I’ve got a million dollars … I own three blocks downtown. I’ve got oil in Bakersfield, pumping, pumping, pumping. What’s it for but to buy us anything we want.”

Norma responds to irrelevance with capital, not creativity. Wilder is showing how in America, economic power becomes the final measure of worth when cultural relevance fades, until Norma is coopted into the same industrial forces that destroyed her career, leading to psychological collapse

Max played by Erich Von Stroheim

Max is played by Erich Von Stroheim, an iconoclastic and highly innovative avant-garde director who clashed with studios over workers rights, and is relegated to a commodity of unwavering servitude to Norma ("Madame is the greatest star of them all"), which is used by Wilder to highlight how the Hollywood industry disregards artistry for profit.

Norma Desmond Folliies

quell Joe’s boredom, Norma amusingly and skillfully transforms herself into Charlie Chaplin’s “Little Tramp" a character who was used by Chaplin to ridicule exploitative industry practices in the film "Modern Times"

DeMille orders, "Hog-Eye, turn that light back where it belongs,"

redirecting attention from Norma during her delusional studio visit. Male executives like DeMille hold power to decide stardom, exemplifying misogynistic gatekeeping that exploits and erases women past their prime. This reinforces Hollywood's predatory nature, where relevance is fleeting and controlled by a few.

"I'm not just selling a script, I'm selling me"

Norma has commodified herself in Hollywood as something to be bought and sold

"an army of beauty experts invaded her house" "merciless series of treatments"

Billy Wilder presents a negative connotation to Norma’s beauty treatments, criticising Hollywood’s exploitative infatuation with youth.

NEW YEARS EVE PARTY JOE

Joe is no longer compatible with his fellow workers during the New Year's Eve party due to his materialistic excess - the costuming of his mink coat divides him and highlights how he has been coopted into Norma's lifestyle.

- Joe's demeanour changes, speaking in a more formal tone to Betty compared to before, representing how he has been changed through Norma's lifestyle

- "Who wants true, who wants moving" - Joe rejects Betty's script idea, preferring superficiality instead, reflecting his infatuation with materialistic delusion

Joe’s desperation to be in Hollywood

His plea to the employee on the phone, exaggerating to loan sharks that he it will feel like "having [his] legs cut off" if he "lose[s] his car", strikes viewers as an indication of his deep yearning to remain in Hollywood at all costs.

Paramount scene

"it's her car they want" Norma herself is not valued by Hollywood, just her status and assets

Critique of broader Hollywood cruelty “You’ve made a rope of words and strangled this business, but there is a microphone to catch the last gurgles”

Through Norma’s line, Wilder critiques how Hollywood embraces technological novelty while disregarding the people who built it, making it a self aware commentary on the brutality of fame/disposability of stars. It encapsulates Wilder’s indictment of the industry’s callousness

Norma’s delusion and detachment from reality - zodiac

“When were you born, I mean what sign of the zodiac?… I like Saggitarius you can trust them,

Using astrology as a basis for trust exposes her fragile grip on reality and her slide into magical, irrational thinking. Rather than judging Joe through real-world behaviour, she turns to mysticism, consistent with the mythic self image she constructs. It foreshadowsa the fantasy world she will lock herself into completely by the film’s end.

Critique of transactional relationships in Hollywood - Joe’s hook

“I dropped the hook and she snapped at it” "- Joe “I made your bed this afternoon” - Max

Both lines expose how relationships in the film are steeped in mutual exploitation. Joe thinks he is gaming the system, but Wilder suggests that no one truly “wins” in a world built on illusion, vanity, and dependency. The quotes emphasise the tragic irony that Joe’s attempt to “hook” Norma ultimately leads him into a life he never intended, culminating in his fatal return to a pool he “always wanted”

Organ dream - comments on Hollywood as exploitative spectacle

“That night i had a mixed up dream. In it was an organ-grinder. I couldn’t see his face, but the organ was all draped in black and a chimp was dancing for pennies”

The organ-grinder chimp imagery also reflects Wilder’s broader satire of Hollywood, an industry where people dance for the approval (and pennies) of others, and where value is measured by performance. The faceless grinder suggests an impersonal system controlling performers, linking Joe’s plight to the wider machinery of the studio era.

“You don’t just yell at a sleep walker, he may fall and break his neck, she was still sleepwalking”

By comparing norma to a “sleepwalker” he must not “yell at”, Joe rationalises his decision to maintain her illusions, even though they stem from delusion. This is his moral turning point, instead of resisting the environment, he becomes complicit in sustaining it.

Joe’s metaphor casts Norma as a sleepwalker, someone moving blindly through a fantasy world where she still believes she is a star. This image captures her psychological state perfectly, she is oblivious to reality, suspended in a dreamlike state.

The sleepwalker metaphor extends beyond Norma, reflecting Hollywood’s habit of letting former stars drift in psychological limbo. Noone “wakes them”, noone prepares them for irrelevance. The imagery criticises an industry that elevated people and abandons them to navigate the drop alone.

“that room of hers all satin and ruffles, the perfect setting for a silent movie queen” - Joe

As he’s moved into the husband’s bedroom, revisiting Norma’s bedroom reveals to him how artificial the entire space is. He sees that he is being drawn into a constructed world, but a fantasy environment.

"Where have you been keeping yourself? I’ve got the most wonderful news story for you” - Betty “I havent been keeping myself at all. Not lately”

Layered with irony and quiet self disgust - It is the first moment he acknowledges that he is financially and emotionally dependant on Norma. His phrasing of “keeping myself” turns what should be a neutral question into a darkly comic confession that he has surrendered independence and self-respect.

Betty arrives full of entthusiasm and genuine creative energy, and an innocent excitement about working with Joe, In contrast, Joe’s reply is cynical and evasive. This tonal dissonance exposes how incompatible their worlds have become. Betty represents possibility, Joe represents compromise. Her “wondeful news” seems in stark contrast to Joe’s entrapment. Wilder uses their collision in this scene to sharpen the moral divide between them.

A critique of Hollywood’s gendered power structures "I’ve given up writing altogether” - Joe “It’s not your career - it’s mine, I want to write”

Betty’s insistence that the career matters to her sets her up as Joe’s moral and artistic opposite. Where Joe is drifting, passive and increasingly dependent, Betty is hopeful, energetic and chasing the craft. She represents the path Joe abandoned: writing for love, not survival. Her passion exposes Joe’s self-contempt and the extent of his moral erosion

Her line also highlights how much harder Betty must fight to claim space in a male-dominated industry. Joe’s resignation reinforces Hollywood’s crushing of talent; Betty’s refusal to be diminished functions as the film’s counter-narrative. She insists on authorship rather than being another struggling actress waiting to be discovered.

Symbolism of the film set - Samson and Delilah

Delilah wins Samson’s trust through seduction and illusion, much like Hollywood seduces and abandons it’s stars. Wilder uses the biblical story to suggest that Hollywood itself is Delilah, destroying those who put their faith in it. Norma is both a victim and perpetrator of this cycle. This reinforces the broader critique: Hollywood destroys what it creates.

Hollywood’s machinery and the cost of fame “A dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit”

Demille’s comment reflects his insider knowledge of how aggressively Hollywood manufactures and manipulates celebrity. “Press agents working overtime” suggests an industry constantly churning out narratives, exaggerations, myths, and illusions about stars. This relentless construction of persona, he argues, can deform someone’s inner life, sense of truth, self-worth, and reality.

“I don’t want to be left alone” - Norma

Her fear of being “left alone” is not just personal; it symbolises the broader critique of Hollywood. Once the centre of attention, Norma has been abandoned by the very system that shaped her identity. Being alone means facing the truth she spent years once avoiding.

“May i say you smell real special” - Joe “It must be my new shampoo” - Betty “That’s no shampoo, it’s more like a pile of freshly laundered handkerchiefs. Like a brand new auto-mobile. How old are you anyway” - Joe

Describing her as “freshly laundered” and “brand new” framed Betty as pure, unblemished and untainted by Hollywood corruption.

In Hollywood, especially in Sunset Boulevardm youth and freshness are commodities.

Joe’s sensory description of Betty aligns her with everything the industry values but discards quickly once it’s no longer “new”'. This makes it more than a quirky comment, it ties her directly to the film;s critique of Hollywood’s obsession with youth.

“We’re not helping her any, feeding her lies and more lies… what happens when she finds out” - Joe “She never will. That is my job”.

Max’s respnse crystallises his function within Norma’s world, he is the protector of illuision, someone who sees it as his sacred duty to shield her from the brutal truth. His calm certainty - “that is my job” - shows that this is not a temporary task but a lifelong commitment. Max understands that Norma can not emotionally survive reality, thus he becomes the final baqrrier between her and the world that has rejected her.

By “doing his job”, Max preserves the only version of reality Norma can bear. His promise in this scene becomes the structural spine of the film’s conclusion. He has kept her shielded. He has controlled the narrative. He has maintained her stardom - at least in her mind - to the very end.

Hollywood logic of irreversible fame. “Noone leaves a star, that’s what makes one a star”

Norma equates fame with permanence, “That makes one a star” suggests that being adores is an inherent state, not something ephemeral. The idea of being abandoned contradicts the promise Hollywood built around her. This belief reflects the film’s critique of the industry’s toxic star-making machine, Hollywood teaches stars that they are immortal, irreplacable, and untouchable. Norma has internalised that narrative completely.

“This is my life, there’s nothing else” - Norma

Norma's line is ultimately an indictment of the system that created her. Hollywood made her a “star”, fed her delusions and then abandoned her so shw could not survive without the fantasy. The industry robbed her of any life outside the spotlight. Her final delusion is the logical result of decades of being treated as a myth rather than as a person.