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CHALLENGE #6

Sunset Boulevard
Directed by Billy Wilder
1950 - United States - 110 min

Summary:
"This boy...and this girl...were never properly introduced to the world we live in." With this superimposed opening title, director Nicholas Ray inaugurates his first feature, They Live by Night. Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell play a "Bonnie and Clyde"-type fugitive couple, who in trying to escape their past are hell-bent down the road to Doom. Despite their criminal activities, Bowie and Keechie are hopelessly naive, fabricating their own idyllic dream world as the authorities close in. The entrapment -- both actual and symbolic -- of the young misfit couple can now be seen as a precursor to the dilemma facing James Dean in Ray's 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. This was the first film version of Edward Anderson's Depression-era novel Thieves Like Us (adapted again a quarter-century later by Robert Altman). It is one of the most delicate and heartbreaking noirs ever made.

 

POEMS FROM THIS CHALLENGE:


NORMA DREAMING
By Cleveland Wall

Cast out this wicked dream
which has seized my heart…
That I should live to see the foolish young man
who could mistake for even an instant who I am!
A queen exiled, a queen forgotten, a queen once made
remains a queen forever in light or shade.
In shadows old selves gather about me, face
the screen where many Normas in sequence race
past the projector's hot lamp.
She lights the candle, makes a wish,
and I am she, the ingénue, not this
ugly spider waiting, but a proper vamp.
Salome, yes! It is I—who else could play the girl?
What do these chattering starlets know of the ruthless world?
Cigarette smoke snakes through the projector's beam
Swirling like the veils of my fatal dance.
Rising in the light, I cast a backward glance
at my old lover and true, who projects
my image ever onward, poor thing,
who remembers all of the Normas I have been
and loves me still.
Ha! Used to be big? I am big. I will
return to the silver screen—as Salome—
and I will have your head upon a tray—
I, whom you were fool enough to spurn!
You think I won't? Well, just you watch and learn.

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TENDER EYELIDS
By Elizabeth Rivers

Tender eyelids
refract
shadows,
reels
of night-white,
charcoal,
noir.

Old idols
stalk
thin screens,
flick
inner walls.
Two small
closed rooms.

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CHANGES
By Barbara Wagner

L.A.'s not the same
as it was when it belonged to me,
when cruising the strip on a Friday night
could lead me wherever I wanted to go
without going anywhere,
when the Greek Theater played to tree people
and the balcony of the Pantages
saw more action than an Encino motel.
Buildings weren't as tall when I was high,
friendships were deeper when I was low,
and dreams glowed like man-made gold.
L.A.'s not the same
as it was when it belonged to me.
I'm not the same as I was
when I belonged.
Cruising leads nowhere now
and the tree people are gone
like the stars who paraded
through the doors of the Pantages
in search of immortal applause,
like the girl shedding days
onto sidewalks adorned
with names trampled by feet
scurrying toward
the next best thing.

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NORMA
By Lynn Blue

Suffocating loneliness
Created by self absorption
And preoccupation with physical beauty.
Self worth contingent
Upon fickle admiration of
Fans, social acquaintances, strangers
No sincere connections
Admiration that lacks substance and fidelity
And binds mindless envy
Yet good enough for the vanity
That self-centeredness encompasses
Illusive, insubstantial, misleading
Nonetheless welcomed
For its instant gratification
Fleeting gratification that
Cringes at the pain of betrayal
And harbors denial
To maintain a sheltered existence
An existence that negates the present
Allowing the mind to venture consistently
Back to yesterday
Avoiding the reasons for isolation
Contradicting truth by blaming today
For all forgotten yesterdays
Ignoring change
That does not maintain
The desired past Back into yesterday
Where the triviality
Of self worth animated only by external beauty
Governed... successfully.

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SUNDOWN
By Fred

Shadowy Flower
Trying to recapture youth
Light, no longer kind

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I WISH TO HEAVEN
By Joanne Leva

I wish to heaven
I never did it;
with all that could happen
to a girl.

All night
I've been worrying
like my Aunt Mae.
Part of the time
I worry that
I'll fall in love
with someone like Joe
and defy Max,
and run off with him,
and then realize
I made a mistake.

And part of the time
I worry
that what happened
to Norma
will happen
to me—

Sometimes I'll be sitting
in the garden
and everything
will take on a dreamlike quality:
people, the room, everything,
like it isn't
really happening.

At first, I could snap
out of it immediately,
but then a couple
of times it hit me,
and I couldn't shake it.
A feeling of terror
came over me,
and I didn't know
what to do.
I sat panic stricken
for no reason
at all.

People around me
would go about
their business.
I don't think
they even knew
I was having
a problem.
And then it would pass.

No one will mind
if I try, quietly
to fit in here.
Everything seems so insignificant,
when I think about it.

Are yours bigger than hers?
Are theirs rosier
than yours? Meanwhile,
the guys will be thinking—
Well, you know what they'll be thinking.
And their wives will know what they're thinking.

And the women will look at their husband's
saying yeah, and what are you gawking at?
And the guys will go,
I'm not gawking.
this is art—I'm having
a moment here.
Swear to God.

And yes, honey,
I really do
like yours best.

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