Sunset Boulevard
Prince Charles Cinema7 Leicester Place, London
Tue 10 Nov · 18:00 · £14.50
About this event
"I am big. It's the pictures that got small." Billy Wilder's venomous, funny and endlessly quotable Hollywood nightmare remains one of cinema's most dazzling acts of self-destruction. Gloria Swanson is unforgettable as Norma Desmond, a silent-screen legend entombed in her decaying mansion and dreaming of a comeback that the world has long since forgotten. When struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis stumbles into her orbit, admiration, desperation and delusion become impossible to untangle. By turns gothic melodrama, noir thriller and savage industry satire, Sunset Boulevard is a film about fame's afterlife, the stories we tell ourselves, and what happens when reality refuses to match the script. We could not resist screening this absolute classic before our upcoming run of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma , Jane Schoenbrun's slasher-reboot satire, in which Gillian Anderson gives a truly glorious, Norma Desmond-inspired performance as the reclusive final girl Billy Presley.
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If this is your kind of night, these are other ways in: a collection this venue belongs to, traditions it works in, and similar cinema still playing in London this week.
This venue’s world
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Traditions this room works in
Tags on the venue. Other London rooms carry the same lineage. Not a claim that this film invented the tradition.
Also playing this week
Same kind of night (cinema) in London. Spread across the week, not a ranking.
A different kind of night
Same city and close on taste. A different discipline, on purpose.
