The name of this film is called "Sunset Boulevard" and it was made in 1950. It was directed by Billy Wilder. This was a black and white film starring William Holden and Gloria Swanson. This film is about violence and guns. The story of "Sunset Boulevard" is told on film by shot and editing. And uses diagetic and non-diagetic sound.
The main thing that grabs the audiences attention at the beginning of the film is the music, which we hear as we can see the Paramount Studios production logo.In the opening shot we see a close up of a kerb with the street name "Sunset Boulevard", the camera stays here for a while. The camera then pans across the road surface and the credits appear, music is playing as well. The music begins with dramatic brass instruments, and also strings.
The music builds tension, tempo increase and then builds up to a climax. The music is not calm. We expect this film to be dramatic. The credits finish, the music fades out and a voiceover "Yes this is Sunset Boulevard, Los Angles, California. It's about five o'clock in the morning that's the Homeside squad.
Complete with detectives and news paper men" The camera then pans and follows the police cars, the camera pans to give an impression of speed and urgency. The voiceover tells us what is going on and also keeps us informed. They then disappear into the distance. The sirens fade out. The next shot is of the police cars turning into a road of a large house.
The homiside squad then get out of their cars and walk to the back of the large house. The camera also pans as they move. They show this shot at a high angle like a birds eye view. The voiceover then says, "a murder has been reported, from one of those houses in the 10,000 block.You'll read about it in the late editions, im sure" the next shot is taken from a higher angle view and we see the detectives and newspaper men taking photos, of the dead body in the swimming pool faced down.
The next shot is taken underwater. We see the police badges glinting from underneath the water. The camera then dissolves. This indicates that we are going back in time to show how this murder happened.
While this is going on the voiceover is saying "you'll hear about it on the radio, you'll see it on the television, because an old time star is involved, one of the biggest. Before you hear it all distorted and blown out of proportion.Before those Hollywood columnist get there hands on it, maybe I'd like to hear the facts, the whole truth. The body of a young man was found floating in a pool, of a mansion with two shots in his back and one in his stomach. Nobody important really.
Just a movie writer with a couple of b pictures to his name. The poor dope, he always wanted a pool, in the end he got himself one. But the price turned out to be a little to high. " After the camera has dissolved, we are at a new location. We are looking at a long road with a crossroad up ahead.
It is a higher angle shot. The camera then pans across and enters the room.We see a man with an old typewriter tapping away on it. While this is going on the voiceover says, "let's go back about a few months and find where it all started. I was living in an apartment in Franklin, things were tough at the moment.
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I hadn't worked in a studio for a long time, so I sat there grinding out original stories" we can see that the man goes to the door the camera pans and follows him through to the door. We see two men and it seems like to us that they have come for something, but the voiceover keeps us informed. "To a week I seemed to have lost my touch, maybe they weren't original enough, maybe they were too original?All I know is that they didn't sell" After the two men go, the camera cuts and the man picks up a pair of trousers. Then it stops and focuses on the keys beside his foot. We can obviously see that he has a financial problem.
Gellis's character is very calm and collected. He has a very dry sense of humour. We begin to realise that he owes money to these two men. The camera then cuts to the next shot and shows him driving off in his car. We realise that this is the car he owes money for because he parks it behind a store. We begin to care for what happens to him later on, and we also wonder how he got himself into this sticky mess.
