Joe Gillis: The Narrator

Film Review # 16361

Film > Analysis, Criticism, Etc.
Film > History of

The role of the narrator, the dead Joe Gillis, in the 1950 movie "Sunset Boulevard".

1,505 words () | 5 sources | MLA | 2002

Published on: Jan 25, 2003

Paper Summary:

This essay is on the 1950 movie "Sunset Boulevard". It especially focuses on the role that the dead Joe Gillis - narrator of the story - tells. Without Joe as Sunset Boulevard's narrator ,the film would have never had such a dark and devouring after taste. The essay explains in what ways Joe Gilles tells the story and the effects Joe has on the story - what would have been different if Joe hadn't told the story.

From the Paper:

"Many believe that Sunset Boulevard, directed by Billy Wilder, is one of the most interesting films about forgotten silent movie stars and Hollywood illusions. It concentrates on several aspects of Hollywood illusions; but instead of keeping them alive, this film bursts the bubbles and gives a blunt, unromantic and realistic story about a forgotten "yesteryear" silent movie queen, and her trapped human "pet monkey". One of the things that is used to establish the form of irony and realism necessary to burst the glittering bubbles is the "dead-pan voice over" by the murdered Joe Gillis. ".