Recommended Viewing: Sunset Blvd.
Sunset Boulevard is an American film noir classic directed and co-written by Billy Wilder. It was named after the famous boulevard of the same name that runs through Los Angeles and Beverly Hills.
The film stars William Holden as Joe Gillis, a screenwriter with money problems, and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a silent film star who has faded due to increased popularity of films with spoken dialogue. The two cross paths accidentally and form a relationship. An odd and frightening relationship.
Sunset Boulevard was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won three (Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay).
In 1989 it was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the U.S. Library of Congress and was included in the first group of films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 2007 it was ranked number sixteen on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 best American films.
I highly recommend you rent Sunset Boulevard and pay close attention to the shots and how the story moves from act to act. Classic films can teach you many things about film making because they focus a lot on the story and clever camera work. None of that fancy special effects stuff here.
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