Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is groundbreaking work. The film comes at a time when motion pictures are trying to incorporate image, word, and motion in a single set. You see, before Sunset Boulevard, films only used motion pictures without sound. But form nowhere comes a motion picture that incorporates sound in its delivery. Notably, with the advent of the sound technology used in Sunset Boulevard, silent movies will become a thing of the past. The film then incorporates the sound’s breakthrough to the role of a face in the motion picture business. In other words, Sunset Boulevard is a film that concerns the concepts behind film making.
Therefore, having transcended the error of silent films, what do sound films have to offer us? What techniques do the creative use to captivate the audience? Notably, the face of the characters in the movie is the primary focus of the consumer. Naturally, when interacting with human beings, it is the face that introduces them to us. Just by looking at the face, we can reach conclusions about the kind of person we are dealing with in the first instance. Sometimes, by looking at the face, we can understand emotions. We can read what is written on the face or perhaps even the past events. Therefore, knowing the importance of the face, film directors have used technology to bring a clear image of the face that tells the story as they want it to be said. Therefore, the face is the hallmark of stardom and also the most critical asset. The face makes the audience associate the character with the specific creation of their imagination. In other words, the face acquires an image of its own, and thus they exist in complex separate from the individual behind the face.
Additionally, the face is placed centrally in a system focused on the creation, airing, and consumption of images. For instance, most viewers are captivated by the beauty and youth, and they like to view themselves through the being of their idolized characters even when they are not as beautiful and as youthful as their film characters. Therefore, despite the passage of time, the face must remain young in defiance of time and age flaws. The face must live up to the expectations of the world through whose lens the audience sees itself. Although the character ages in real life, there has to be a distinction between the physical experience and time and the image’s imaginary life and time.
Notably, through the film Sunset Boulevard, it is clear that the face of characters in the movies the property of the imaginary creative world of fantasy. Therefore, at the moment of stardom, the star must live up to the consumer’s expectations. The face is not the star’s object of possession, but it is instead the visual industry property. The film star is part and parcel of the commodity and cannot exist separately. The analogy of commodification works perfectly when we see how consumers idolize film stars even in real life. In essence, the production companies present their stars not as mere human beings but as intellectual property. Thus, the star’s face is the central marker of stardom, which explains why production companies are willing to go to whichever lengths to create a star.