"I am big! It's the pictures that got small!"

Masterfully snappy dialogue like only Billy Wilder and the golden age of 40's and 50's film-noir can deliver. A comeback performance from Gloria Swanson to redefine the very notion of a comeback (I still can't get over how expressive her face is). Incisive commentary on the process of filmmaking which extends to the real lives of its cast and crew (Gloria Swanson returning to film as Norma Desmond returning to film; Erich von Stroheim, the director of Gloria Swanson's early films, as Max von Mayerling, the director of Norma Desmond's early films). Prescient awareness of the critical lack of genuinely new stories two decades before anyone would use the term "postmodern" to describe literature. A truly one of a kind film.

Top 10 Film Noir | Metacinema
List of Shame | The Rewatch List

100

A final image can be ambiguous or illuminating, ill-defined or razor-sharp, but Billy Wilder takes a moment of supreme clarity and showcases it through gradual opacity; a star slowly succumbing to an out-of-focus recreation of the glory days, one which is, in actuality, confined to a homicidal reality. Ah, showbiz.

**Part of the Best Picture Project**

What a difference several years makes after having last seen a film!

As a younger still growing lover of film, when I first watched this, I merely watched it from a superficial standpoint. I enjoyed the "behind the scenes" aspect of the film, as well as the deteriorating mental state of Swanson's Norma Desmond.

But many years later, I am able to understand who Max was played by and why it was significant, as well as the many cameos (Shit, Buster Keaton!) and references.

Then there's Wilder's direction, which comes to employ silent film technique more and more as the film goes on and Norma Desmond's mental state begins to collapse, which serves as a contrast to how much more grounded William Holden's subplot is.

This is why revisiting films is important.

It was incredible to experience this in a theater— with Gloria Swanson's face larger than life on that screen— as Norma recited her famous closing speech. She looked directly at the camera, and suddenly, I became one of "those wonderful people out there in the dark!", watching her movements with adoration and awe.

Five stars are not enough, letterboxd.

Scavenger Hunt #38
20/31
Task 12. A film about films or someone in the film industry

I can see why this movie is an all-time classic and can understand why a lot of people adore it. For me it didn't quite sit as good as you would hope. I mean I liked it but it seemed to drag a bit for me and didn't really get to the point very quickly. In saying that though that is where a lot of people like it. For me, on this day of my first watch, it is little more than a minor like from me.

i can't believe that hedda hopper's birth name was elda furry

still not a huge fan of old cinema, probably something i need to get used to, but this one lived up to the hype

tfw when your career dies out 😔

Max: "If you need help with the coffin, call me."
*insert dramatic brass music here*

I need to have every single one of her lines in my back pocket at all times.

"I'd rather be dead in California than alive in....Ohio?"