In Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, he realistically exposes the corruptive, devastating influences of the new Hollywood and the studio system by showing the decline of old Hollywood legends many years after the coming of sound. Sunset Boulevard is a classic black and white comedy/drama, and perhaps the most acclaimed, but darkest film-noir story about "behind the scenes" Hollywood. Wilder's Lighting techniques are one of the principal elements used to convey the character of his stars in the film. Using three scenes and three different characters from Sunset Boulevard as my examples, I will discuss how Wilder uses lighting to convey character. .
The mood of the film is immediately established by the narrator, a dead man floating in a swimming pool. The narrator's voice sounds amused, he promises to tell us, in a unique flashback structure, the real story of young screenwriter Joe Gillis and how he ended up face down (with his eyes open) in the villa's pool. The lighting in this opening scene is almost all natural. The sun lights up the pool area so that the body can be shown floating in the middle of the screen. In this scene, the three point lighting scheme is not in use. There is no need for it. There is nothing to exaggerate; this is more of a framing shot. What does look apparent though is that Billy Wilder is using a frontal light to help produce a body halo around Joe Gillis" body in this pool. The natural light helps to illuminate the dark suited body because of the strong contrast in color. Now how character works its way into this is what makes this scene very interesting. The "dead" Joe Gillis is narrating to the audience in a very untouched voice, like it makes no difference if he is dead or alive. This fact help set a standard for his attitude throughout the film. That is why all the light around him in the scene means nothing because he is just a shadow in the whole view of things.