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Simply right now, I rewatched “Sundown Boulevard.” Clearly, Norma Desmond is murderous. We begin off with the voiceover from her sufferer. Because the film progressed, and perhaps as a result of I’m older since I noticed it final, I see her, and similar with Alex, as such tragic figures the place they had been becoming themselves into all of those expectations of them—how you can be a star, how you can be a profitable impartial lady within the America of the Eighties. After which they grow to be so fragile as a result of they’re stretching themselves so skinny with all of this that when the time comes with that push, with this one man that they’re obsessive about, they go off the rails. And it doesn’t make me hate them as characters. It makes me actually really feel for them. So, I might agree with Glenn Shut. I believe Alex is a very sympathetic character.
You coated so lots of my favourite motion pictures within the e-book. And one which I used to be notably joyful to see as a result of it’s not very well-known is “Feminine” (1933) with Ruth Chatterton as a girl who heads an vehicle firm and sleeps with the good-looking males who work for her. However that character was solely doable within the pre-Code period.
Effectively, there are such a lot of motion pictures that I may point out, however I needed to particularly carry that one to consideration, as a result of generally now we have this faulty notion that all the pieces was a lot worse prior to now, and silent Hollywood and outdated Hollywood feminine characters had been very strict, very conservative, they didn’t have company, they didn’t have any energy. And that’s not true.
Watch these movies, particularly the pre-Code ones like “Feminine,” just like the Mae West movies. Anybody watching Mae West movies—“I am No Angel,” for instance—watching now and considering, “That is outrageous, even by 2023 requirements. How is she getting away with this?” And the identical with “Feminine.” , you take a look at Shiv Roy in “Succession” now. It’s as a result of it’s a portrait of company ambition, proper? Of financial ambition, of climbing the social and financial ladder. But it surely appears nearly extra provocative now that it’s a girl that prioritizes cash and monetary success over relationships.
