Billy Wilder
Viale del Tramonto

 "Miss Desmond, once you were a great movie star!" 
"I am still big, it's the pictures that got small!" 

With this line, one could sum up one of Billy Wilder's most beautiful films from 1950, capable of penetrating the soul of real Hollywood, capturing the desperation that hides behind the entertainment industry.

The film starts with a floating corpse found in a pool of a mansion on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, which begins to recount its life and the cause of its death. Joe, played by William Holden, is a film writer who, one day, escaping from debtors, finds refuge in this decrepit mansion of Norma Desmond, played by Gloria Swanson, a silent film diva withdrawn in her splendid isolation.
Norma lives on memories, surrounded by photographs of her past, and in solitude with a butler (Erich von Stroheim) who was a director forgotten by all and is meanwhile contemplating a glorious comeback. Thus, she shows Joe the movie she wrote and hosts him in this mansion, eventually falling madly in love with him and showering him with lavish gifts.
On New Year's Eve, the two have an argument as Joe rejects the love of the old diva and runs away to a friend where he meets a girl named Betty, but in the meantime, he discovers that Norma has attempted suicide, so Joe returns to her, promising to stay by her side.
Joe is with Norma during the day and goes out to see Betty at night to write a new movie with her. Once Norma discovers everything, she threatens Joe with a gun and calls the girl to inform her that Joe is a kept man, and when Joe packs to leave Hollywood and return to his hometown, Norma follows him outside and shoots him. The film goes back to the beginning with the arrival of reporters for the murder, and Norma descending the staircase, completely detached from reality, like the diva she was and believes to be.

The beauty of the film is that Wilder is adept at mixing reality and fiction: the roles the actors play are genuinely similar to their lives.

Gloria Swanson was indeed one of the top silent film divas who retired from the scene (the photos in the villa are from the actress's personal collection), Erich von Stroheim was indeed a great silent film director who fell from grace (and notably, he directed Swanson in some films, one of which is screened during the film). There is also Buster Keaton, portraying a fallen silent film actor, as he indeed was, and Cecil B. De Mille playing himself while directing Samson and Delilah.

Adding elements of horror and black comedy to this film noir are technical devices like spreading dust on the camera to give that antique feel, or shooting the corpse in the pool from below using a mirror placed on the bottom to distort the images.

As usual, Wilder manages to show the duplicity of American society and particularly Hollywood with its deceptive appearances through the contamination of melodrama with an expressionist eye, where, for example, the lavish and decadent set designs filled with occasionally unsettling objects contrast with the despair of the people inhabiting them.