Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard is a story set in the 1950s of the Hollywood and the film industry. During this time there was a transition from silent movies to motion pictures were there were monumental advances in which sound or audio was coming in with the movies. In Sunset Boulevard, we follow the life of Joe Gilles, a struggling screenwriter in Hollywood who fails in an attempt to sell a script of his to Paramount Pictures. Following this event, Joe tries to run away from two men who want to take his car and repossess it back because of Mr. Gilles's debt. He drives his car into a garage of a mansion, which looks like abandoned house. There he meets silent film star Norma Desmond. Long story short, Joe is thrown in the cynical world of Norma Desmond and her desire to be a star, in which he ends up with three bullets in his chest. .
The fascinating aspect of Sunset Boulevard is the film noir narrative that is presented. A film noir is basically a term in cinema that is used primarily to describe "stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations." The narrative of film noirs is generally described as mind perplexing - regularly confusing – and as often involving the utilization of flashback and first-individual voice-over portrayal. As should be obvious from this film, there is a storyteller takes the audience into flashbacks of recent months to uncover the motivation behind why the he (Joe Gilles) is floating dead in the middle of a swimming pool. He is telling his own story and describes how he dies. Apart from that, he also tells this story of entrapment, greed, and deceit while dead. He is the one who leads the audiences to reveal the truth of the incident.
Another feature that contributes to the film noir characteristic of Sunset Boulevard are the visuals. In many feature films, some more than most, the visuals play an integral role to defining the film.