The character of Sheldrake in Sunset Boulevard (1950) can be seen as a big-shot producer who has taken a liking to the main character of Joe Gillis and has come to take advantage of that. Sheldrake is quite friendly with Joe as he expresses that he is becoming broke and needs the money to keep his car, but Sheldrake attempts to set down the professionalism of their relationship. Although Sheldrake has a good relationship, he expresses his own priorities with Joe and turns away his idea; this interaction reflects Will Straw’s idea in “Small Parts, Small Players Dossier” of “everydayness” (p.79) as it shows that Sheldrake has his own life and priorities aside from Joe Gillis’ story. This idea makes the character of Sheldrake very natural and believable to the audience. The reading of “Small Parts, Small Players” also expresses that “part of a mass effect which drags them into a vast movement, a general design of which each extra is merely a segment, a piece a mosaic, sometimes just a single point” (p.80) that Sheldrake’s character is just a piece of the story that makes up the whole world; we could turn our attention away from the main character and have a story just about Sheldrake’s struggles and it would still appear on brand. Sheldrake’s rejection enhances Joe’s desperation to find a way to make some cash to keep him from falling and his rejection of Joe’s pitch drives his actions in the film to keep finding another way and eventually pointing him in the direction of the former-star, Norma Desmond. Sheldrake’s character represents the outside world of the main character’s story as well as a plot point for Joe Gillis to come across but also pushes the story in another direction once he can’t provide any stability for Joe.
Works Cited:
Straw, W. “Introduction.” Screen, vol. 52, no. 1, 1 Mar. 2011, pp. 78–81, https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjq057. Accessed 17 Dec. 2020.
Joséaugustosoares. “Sunset Boulevard (1950).” Internet Archive, 2 Mar. 2019, archive.org/details/SunsetBoulevard1950.
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