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A Sunset Blvd. reconsideration from the vantage point of Billy Wilder's autumnal years, a Hollywood-Babylon fugue centered on the vision of cinema as the ageless beauty with withered hands. Not Joe Gillis at 60 but an "independent producer," William Holden at the grand funeral "like some goddamn premiere," in the coffin rests the eponymous husky-voiced diva (Marthe Keller). It's not the same anymore, "the kids with beards have taken over," the industry veteran travels to a Greek island with screenplay in hand and finds the Muse as a fragile pile of shades and sunhats and gloves. Caretakers and quakes in her view, love letters from Hemingway for sale, the prospect of a comeback in Anna Karenina that only helps throw the unstable actress under a train. "Sugar and spice" for stardom, "and underneath that, cement and stainless steel," thus the disfigured Countess (Hildegard Knef) with her veil lifted. A unique structure of flashbacks makes for a tale in which everything has already taken place and the characters can only remember, cruelly and dolorously. Meet-cute in the sound stage pond, horror at the cosmetic clinic, lavish mausoleums with no mirrors. Wilder takes note of Vertigo, offers a compendium of favorite themes of impersonation and illusionism, laments Mallarmé's "époque qui survit à la beauté." An unfinished romance with Michael York, an unfilmable story that can't possibly compete with life. The auteur meets his reflection not just in the battered studio survivor but also in the imperious witch, fossils struggling to defend the medium only to find themselves entrapped in bitter amber. A grave Valse triste sandwiched between raucous burlesques (Russell's Valentino and Rush's The Stunt Man), with Henry Fonda himself among its phantoms handing out Oscars, "just another knickknack that will need dusting." With José Ferrer, Frances Sternhagen, Mario Adorf, Stephen Collins, Hans Jaray, and Gottfried John.
--- Fernando F. Croce |