In writing about movie history, there are two paths a writer can follow. They can cover the totality of a subject—an entire life or cinematic movement—or they can carve out just a slice, such as a single moment or movie. Both present challenges. Taking the comprehensive route can mean a struggle to find the story in the sea of facts. But narrow it down, and it can be hard to find the context for the story.
David M. Lubin, in his book, “Ready For My Close-up: The Making of ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and the Dark Side of the Hollywood Dream,” strikes a magnificent balance between crafting an engaging story and providing essential context; between history and narrative propulsion.
Released seventy-five years ago, “Sunset Boulevard” is quite possibly the seminal film about the filmmaking industry. Relentlessly bleak (it is, after all, told from the point of view of a dead man), it’s a cynical fairy tale that peels back the false face of Hollywood’s dream factory to reveal how La La Land attracts dreamers in droves, only to either reject them, or even worse, take them in and use them for all they’re worth.
Lubin expertly parallels the doomed characters who populate “Boulevard” to the real-world people who brought the story to life. Billy Wilder, after all, came to the United States with a dream of making movies in his head and not a cent in his pockets. On the run from the Nazis, Wilder barely spoke a word of English when he arrived in Los Angeles. Lubin recounts an anecdote where Erich Pommer, a successful producer, offered Wilder money to jump into his pool, completely dressed, during a party. Wilder, too broke for pride, dove right in. He was, like Joe Gillis at the start of “Boulevard,” the clothed, desperate man floating in a pool.
Similarly, as Lubin illustrates, Gloria Swanson’s career was an uncanny mirror to Norma Desmond’s. During the silent-film era, Swanson was arguably the biggest star on the screen; Lubin recounts how her fame essentially launched fan journals that fed the country’s insatiable desire to know who she was dating and what she was wearing. But when sound broke the silence, just like Desmond, it broke Swanson, too. Prior to “Boulevard,” she hadn’t appeared in a film in nearly a decade. Her dreams had become a distant memory to both her and the factory that helped bring them to life.
Told with colorful, incisive detail, “Close-up” is a page-turning account of one of the greatest movies about movies ever made. Lubin’s analysis of “Boulevard” is razor-sharp, and it only serves to deepen the history, and power, of this cinematic masterpiece.
