Sunset Boulevard Film Noir Essay

Sunset Boulevard is a classic film noir with all the noir likings and tropes present. I will focus on three characteristics of film noir and how they manifest in this film and our post-1970 film. Most noirs found themselves to greatly take place at night or maybe a back alley or dimly lit rooms or maybe the PI’s office or a bar. The lighting in these films is the most noticeable as they greatly utilized low-key lighting. Low-key lighting is a lighting technique used to create a chiaroscuro effect. Chiaroscuro is a technique that uses strong tonal contrasts to create three-dimensional objects. As opposed to traditional three-point lighting, low-key lighting usually just uses a fill light and a reflector. The point of low-key lighting is to accentuate

the contours of the subject by creating shadows in areas while the reflector illuminates the shadows to control the stark contrasts. In proper low-key lighting, your blacks are black and whites are white. Sunset Boulevard uses this technique masterfully in every instance it can. It is mostly seen in Norma’s large mansion or in Betty’s (Nancy Olson) dimly lit office as she and Gillis hack away at their screenplay. Low-key lighting expresses a sense of uneasiness. It is also a reflection of the film’s grim tone and creates a dark atmosphere. The lighting immediately tells us the tone of the film and what we, the audience, are getting into. Low-key lighting also obscures the action. As in those times, Hollywood was burdened by the Hayes Code that heavily censored films. Using low-key lighting, directors could creatively implement violence into their films. Low-key lighting also deglamorized the actor, unless you were Lana Turner. She always got a soft filter. By deglamorizing the actor, you made the composition and mise-en-scene more important.

This all greatly changes when we move on into neo-noir territory.

These are contemporary crime films, so that means they’re filmed in color. Neo-noir films such as L.A. Confidential utilize the California sun. These noir films are now bathed in Southern Californian light. The lighting in these films are akin closely to the pulp novels that they all originate from, cause in the books, most PI’s were from L.A., and lots of the story took place during the day in the Californian sun. This type of natural lighting created a new look for noir films. It ushered them into their own form. The setting sun backdrops and orange hues gave us an understanding of our location: Los Angeles. It shattered the idea of La La Land, the promised land for all those that dream and made us realize a real, urban sprawl with a grim underbelly. The lighting of neo-noir films was a stark contrast in that sense. It was almost ironic in a sense because how could somewhere so sunny and lively be so shady? Low-key lighting was completely eradicated though. If you did eradicate low-key lighting from a noir film, something would be greatly missed, like a chain with a missing link. Low-key lighting became more appropriate, at night, in dark rooms, when it needed to reflect the darkness and moodiness of the scene. Light would cut through Venetian blinds and illuminate the character’s eyes. Their mouths tell you nothing, but their eyes say everything, that’s the idea at

least.

The second characteristic of classic noir is character. In classic, traditional noir’s, our heroes may have been people that walked the fine line of moral ambiguity, but their will was good. We as the audience built the relationship with the protagonist. These characters were good and true and we wanted them to prevail. It wasn’t their fault that they got pulled into this great big convoluted mess, it was always at the fault of a femme fatale or mistaken identity or maybe they felt like getting smart and got smart with the wrong person. Noir protagonists were real people that were far from perfect, but that is why we rooted for them because we could step into their shoes. In Sunset Boulevard, Joe Gillis was a down on his luck screenwriter that was murdered in vain by a crazed, faded movie star. Sure, Gillis wasn’t perfect, but he tried to set things right and was killed for it.
The idea of true and good character in neo-noirs became a bit sketchy. In neo-noirs, reversals were being made and maybe our protagonist wasn’t such a good guy, maybe we didn’t really like him that much, but we still followed his descent and cared. In L.A. Confidential, each of the three police officers has their own morals and principles. The shadiest of the trio would have to be the character Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey). Vincennes is a celebrity cop that works in conjunction with a tabloid magazine and sets up bogus busts on Hollywood types that are down in the dumps for notoriety. The great thing about the neo-noir anti-hero, you could go through the whole movie and the character could be completely vile, but they would always do something pure and good that would make them wholesome and redeem them. Jack Vincennes redeems himself when he mistakenly gets a young actor killed as he tried to set him up for another bogus bust. Vincennes realizes how crummy he is and vows to solve his murder. Vincennes teams up with another officer of the trio, Ed Exley (Guy Pearce). They both agree to help each other with their cases. Exley tells Vincennes the story about his father’s death and gives the killer a fake name of Rolo Tomassi as the real killer was never caught. Later on, Vincennes meets up with the police chief, Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) about the murder of the young actor. We then learn that Smith had something to do with it and to the greater mystery overall. Smith shoots Vincennes. As Vincennes dies, he tricks Smith with a lead and gives him a name: Rolo Tomassi. Vincennes knows Smith will ask Exley about it and that trick will help Exley nab Smith. At his death, Vincennes redeems himself. So unlike classic, traditional noirs where the protagonist is usually good from the start and we watch their fall, neo-noirs greatly implement the theme of redemption into the characters.
Lastly, the final characteristic of the films is violence.

Now, you can make the argument that what isn’t shown to you is better than showing it as your mind creates whatever terror it can conjure, but violence in noir films have always been blunt and frequent. As mentioned before, Hollywood was burdened by the Hayes Code from the mid-30s to the late 1960s so filmmakers had to get creative with how violence was depicted on screen. Surely, if filmmakers had our modern rating system then, those classic noir films probably would have been as violent as the ones we have now. Classic noirs, being some of the most violent films of the time, masked lots of it in low-key lighting or the violence happened or continued off-screen. If violence did happen on screen, it wasn’t explicit as blood was something that couldn’t have been used to that extent. The most violent scene in Sunset Boulevard is the very end when we witness Norma Desmond gun down Joe Gillis in cold blood. The scene is mostly shot in wide angles which does mask some the impact and of course, no blood was used in the scene. L.A. Confidential is completely free with the modern day rating system and was able to depict explicit violence that is truly more in line with the pulp magazines and novels

detailed.

The very essence of noir is continually true in each new iteration of the unsung hero walking the mean streets. From classic tropes, themes, and styles, noir is consistent with the types of stories they deliver. Noir does evolve though and does expand and reach other genres like Blade Runner (1982). Noir is my favorite genre and it is fascinating looking back at how it once was and how it’s changed and developed, but also how it’s still very much the same. I greatly look forward to how the noir genre continues to take new shapes and forms.