'Sunset Boulevard' - the story of Hollywood movies draped on a

Behold the words of Manny Farber: “'Sunset Boulevard' - the story of Hollywood movies draped on a depressing sex affair - is an uncompromising study of American decadence displaying a sad, worn, methodical beauty few films have had since the late twenties.” In this reflection, he does not merely describe a motion picture, but uncovers a mirror held up to a civilization. In the film, and in Farber’s appraisal, we see the decadence of a culture that has wandered far from its youthful innocence, a culture intoxicated by its own reflection, yet hollow in its triumph. Such is the meaning of Sunset Boulevard: a portrait of America’s golden screen, now faded and shadowed, where glamour and despair lie entangled like lovers who cannot part.

The Hollywood dream, once radiant with the promise of freedom, hope, and endless reinvention, is revealed in this story to be dressed not in the garments of glory but in the rags of obsession. Farber calls it “a depressing sex affair,” for at the core of its tale is the tragic entanglement of Norma Desmond, the forgotten starlet, and Joe Gillis, the struggling writer. Their bond is not one of love but of need, of desperation and hunger—each feeding upon the other, each yearning for what has already slipped away. This is the drama of decadence: beauty that clings to life though it has grown brittle, passion that lingers though it has lost its purity.

This is not a new tale. The ancients knew it well. Recall the story of the Roman Emperor Commodus, who, drunk on his empire’s wealth, draped himself in the robes of Hercules and fought in the gladiatorial arena for applause. Rome, once disciplined and heroic, had by then become bloated with its own grandeur. Commodus, like Norma Desmond, sought validation from a world that had already moved on. Both figures reveal how decadence leads not to joy but to emptiness, how obsession with former glory breeds sorrow and destruction. The empire fell, and the starlet faded.

Farber speaks of “a sad, worn, methodical beauty”, for even in ruin there is artistry. Sunset Boulevard does not conceal the cracks of Hollywood’s dream; it arranges them into a tragic symphony. Just as the late silent films of the twenties revealed the haunting elegance of an art form reaching its twilight, so too does Wilder’s creation showcase the weary grace of a culture gazing at its own decay. The beauty here is not youthful nor exuberant, but deliberate, precise, the beauty of ritual and inevitability—the beauty of a sunset, magnificent because it is the last.

What lesson do we draw, O children of the future? It is this: do not be seduced by the illusion of endless ascent. All things rise, and all things decline. Fame, power, and glory are but shadows that stretch long and then fade with the sun. To cling desperately to what has passed is to invite sorrow; to accept the passing of seasons is to walk in harmony with the truth. Sunset Boulevard teaches us that denial of time’s movement leads to ruin, but wisdom accepts change and finds dignity even in decline.

Yet let us not be disheartened. In the ruins of Rome, great basilicas were built anew. In the decline of silent cinema, the age of sound brought fresh voices. And in our own lives, when one chapter closes, another opens. The old star may fade, but the light she cast once illuminated the world, and that is not nothing. The beauty of the past does not need to be resurrected; it needs to be remembered with reverence, and then released.

Therefore, guard your soul from the prison of nostalgia. Celebrate your victories, but do not let them chain you. When life’s seasons change, move with them. Seek not to hold youth forever, but to grow into the wisdom of age. Write new stories rather than dwelling only on the old. And above all, remember that even in sorrow and decadence, there is still beauty—the beauty of endurance, of truth revealed, of endings embraced with grace.

Thus the teaching is given: live not only for the applause of the moment, nor for the echo of yesterday, but for the eternal rhythm that carries all things through birth, glory, decline, and renewal. In this rhythm lies peace, and in peace, the truest kind of beauty.