Teachers Talk Sunset Boulevard

Teachers Talk Texts is BACK! After a brief hiatus, Clare is back in the recording chair, accompanied by new baby Scarlett, ready to talk texts. In this episode, she is joined by Ashleigh Cavalin to discuss one of the new films to the Year 12 text list - Billy Wilder's 'Sunset Boulevard'.
The conversation delves into the symbolism of the film, and how Wilder used this film as a mechanism to criticise and condemn the Hollywood industry of the time. From fancy cars to rats in the pool, listen in for some insights into a true classic.

To hear more from Ashleigh, check out her YouTube channel, and accompanying resources in her TPT store, Mrs Cavalin's Classroom. 

Transcript

Sunset Boulevard
[00:00:00] 
Clare: Ashley, thank you so much for joining me on Teachers Talk Text. 
Ashleigh: No worries. Thanks for having me. I really am excited to be here to chat about our text 
Clare: today. I'm excited too. Sunset Boulevard New on the text list. I feel I was sad. No, I was sad to see where a window go, but also understood that it was time.
Yes, 
Ashleigh: I feel like I was very much in the same boat. Yeah. But then seeing sunset come up and going, you know what, I can keep those vibes of rear window, but now I've got something fresh to work with and I'm excited for the kids as 
Clare: well. Yes. I think, you know I was talking with a teacher last year about this and this teacher was saying every year that you teach a text and the case of something like beer, it was on for six years, 
Ashleigh: I wanna say. Yeah. It was a while. 
Clare: It was a while. When you first start teaching it, You're not learning it with the kids, but you kind of are like, you are going through teaching it the first time and you spend.
 So much more time on the [00:01:00] foundational parts, but then each year you do it, , you kind of skim over the foundational elements a little bit and you almost assume the kids have more knowledge than they actually, 
Ashleigh: actually, yes.
I definitely just wanna get to the meaty stuff. Like, oh, there's so many great things, particularly in Sunset Boulevard. , I wanna unwrap all the layers of these really great seas. Yeah. Like, hang on a second. They're not sure on who's who and what's what yet. No. 
Clare: . It's potentially the first film of that, depending on the school and what was chosen in year 11.
And you hope, I guess, that you're planning ahead and maybe in year 11 you've done a text of a similar era that maybe is black and white. You know, maybe they've done all about Eve, maybe they've done another text that was be, has been on the list in that same . But not, not everyone has. So , it's a whole new 
Ashleigh: world.
Yeah, definitely. And I know our cohort, they're coming off the back of all about Eve, so they're really [00:02:00] well prepared for the era and some of the values of this tech, but they've looked at it and gone Yeah, like there's some great similarities, but some really significant differences here. 
Clare: There are indeed.
, I'm gonna throw you my first question, which is why do you love Sunset Boulevard? And I think you especially love Sunset Boulevard.
You've done some work with it already, which we'll talk about later, but yeah. What is it that you love about it? 
Ashleigh: I think I love for, it initially came from the fact that I'm not only an English teacher, but a legal studies teacher as well. I'm a real crime buff. And as soon as I saw the mystery element, that dramatic revelation at the beginning of the film where the narrator is revealed to be the deceased body in the pool.
Sorry for the spoilers. 
Clare: We should have already watched it before. We've listened to this, I think absolutely . 
Ashleigh: And I think that part of me wanting to know who killed Joe Gillis and [00:03:00] why. That had me. And I think that when my students saw it for the first time, that had them as well. Mm. But more than that, this film is such, it's so great that it's just more than that consumer driven who done it that you would see as a popcorn film.
You have that golden Hollywood era that it's that huge, beautiful backdrop and it's just so, so many layers of complexity that fame, the wealth, the deceit perception and misconception. And I think that that coupled with the mystery, it really had some of the kids looking past all this is a black and white film going, oh, this is a really cool black and white film.
Clare: It is a cool film, isn't it? And I think it's al it's one of those films that has been embedded into oh, there's a word for this and probably your, your brain will be better than mine given the baby in my lap. But you know that I'm ready for my close up, Mr. [00:04:00] Mr. Deville or Mr. Dil. That's something that is said in pop culture.
It's become, it's an intellectual reference that I knew of before I knew of the film, which I think is what, what makes I mean perhaps this is why we study these text is that not to understand these references, but there is something a little bit special about it. It is a classic. It's a sort of film that everyone, even if you haven't seen it, you're like, oh yeah, 
Ashleigh: I know that one.
So, and I also think that once student studies something like this, it's something they're repertoire, it's something they can talk about and be a little bit intellectual with. And you know, there's so many, so many symbolic things in this text as well. And I love being able to pause scenes with my students and really look at, well, what does that mean?
What does that symbolize? If we're looking at things like Norma's Mansion itself or Joe's [00:05:00] car or just different things that you can unpack. I remember being online ones and I saw this meme and it was like English teachers and they're reading a passage and it says something about a blue door, and they're like, what does the blue door symbolize?
And the students like, it's just a blue door. And I just always keep coming back to that meme with my students going, let's unpack stuff. That's what literature's about. That's what good film is about. You know, it's okay to try and find deeper meaning in stuff, 
Clare: I think. Are we actually the same person?
Because I use that in my class all the time, and I, because what it's about, I mean, if we, if we're using kind of some literary theory here, this idea of the death of the author, you know, that a, a peasant or a text creator, a director, a writer, a poet can, can create a text, send it out into the world, and then they have no more control of it.
We, as the consumers of that text emboldened to make of it what we will. And so that blue door can mean whatever we want it to mean, and that, [00:06:00] I agree. That's the most exciting thing about being an English teacher, I think is, is hoping that students get to that aha moment. I lo you know, like, oh, I get that now.
The door is blue because it's, you know, the deep sadness of the protagonist or, or whatever. . So I feel like we should start by having a talk about like what, what you mentioned, they're the symbols of the film, the visual construction I guess of it. Because I think sometimes having read many a rear window essay students sometimes only refer to what is physi, what is actually said by characters.
But to appropriately engage with a film text, we need to be discussing also how meaning is constructed through the visual form and the auditory form, the music and the sound. Yeah. 
Ashleigh: Yeah. No, I completely agree. I think. It's so important to have additional viewings of the film where you can stop and pause and look at the visual features that Billy Wilder has used.
Mm-hmm. I know one of the first [00:07:00] things I noticed when I was watching Sunset Boulevard were the cars, the use of not only Joe's car, but Norma's car to really represent freedom and dreams and in some ways Norma's domination over Joe as well. We hear Joe say that the impending loss of his car was akin to cutting off his legs.
Clare: Yeah. And, and she puts that car in the garage and closes it, doesn't she at some point? Oh, no, she doesn't. The max does 
Ashleigh: absolutely. And he has this wonderful, modern looking automobile, which is. A real symbol of well to him of status and wealth and all of what he has gone to Hollywood to achieve and not quite made it apart from this car.
And this loss is just another indication to him that he hasn't made it. But Norma is so completely dismissive of Joe when his car is being towed away. And the [00:08:00] language used by the characters in this scene and immediately following the scene shows such a shift in that power dynamics in the relationship.
So it's great to see students talking about what Norma is saying and how Wilder is showing the car to represent. More than that, she says to Joe, we don't need two cars. Mm. Like she would take me for. And it just builds this whole picture of Norma taking fuller control of the relationship. And Joe's complete lack of autonomy, which all started with the car and is now spread further and further.
This huge 
Clare: web That's so interesting and interesting. Maybe too, if we're thinking about that era, we're thinking about the kind of socio historical cultural context, and even through to today, how much consumer culture drives that, that idea of what it means to be a man to maybe coming in there, perhaps not , what Wilder was necessarily [00:09:00] initially meaning, but my brain went straight there.
And this idea of maybe being made a bit impotent by Norma in a number. She does that in a number of different ways, but a car is extension of self too, which I know many people feel desiring a particular card. Yeah, it has a status. It says something about you. Oh, I really like that. Yeah. I really, really like 
Ashleigh: that.
Really. And I think deliberate or not, gender roles do come through quite predominantly in the film. Mm. And we see, again, the idea of mirrors and photos come through quite a lot. If you pause and look in the background, the idea of self-image and obsession is not necessarily stated at times, but it's just so prominent in the meison scene of so many of Wilder's constructions.
Clare: Norma just has self-portraits Right. In her living room. 
Ashleigh: Her home is just essentially a museum [00:10:00] of her previous life. Yeah. Yes. And her stardom is just reflected through these images of herself that in her home, she continuously plays her own films. Yes. And Jo Josephs openly, it's all she wanted to see.
and it just constructs this idea of self obsession. Mm-hmm. and I particularly ask students not just to focus on the images of her, of herself, but also Wilder's use of mirrors throughout the film as well. They're dominant in the landscape of her home and she hyper focuses in on her own face. Mm-hmm.
She tries to establish, well, sorry, Wilder tries to establish that this is an aging star who is quite fearful of their outside world. And again, we can see that rather than being told that, and it's great, your students can pick up on how that was constructed rather than said. And 
Clare: I think sometimes students will know that implicitly about the film because [00:11:00] we as the generation of kids coming through now, as with previous, like maybe the previous generation, not the one before that who've been reading film since we were.
Able to see basically, mm-hmm. . And so students might just know, they might, I find, might say Norma is incredibly self obsessed and then move on. But it's about making that next step and, and what you are saying about connecting it explicitly to, and, and trying to use one of those terms like Ms on scene, like , within like , the use of cinematography or the placement, the positioning, all those elements, using some of that metal language to discuss and prove why that is the case.
Because you and I know and the student knows, everyone knows that that's true, but it's just about being really, really explicit in how that evidence , proves a point. Cuz it, it does need to be supported. My brain went to also, the thing, I noticed and, and I've come to, I've, my preparation for today was I watched Sunset Boulevard.
[00:12:00] It was my first, it was my first time I was, I had not watched it. Somehow I missed it. And I love that when that happens, when you miss a text, when you've studied a lot of texts, but, and you find a real gem. Yeah. I even did cinema studies at uni and did Citizen Kane all that anyway, but didn't do Sunset Boulevard.
So. The door, her front, the front door to Norma's house just stood out to me so much in that this idea of her being tr well her being trapped or trapping Joe, I was kind of oscillating between the two. She's trapped in her own fantasy in that idea. Like I feel like that doorway's like a clanging jail cell, but also that Joe, when he moves into the main home, becomes also trapped within that.
Ashleigh: He does at one stage he even uses the word prison. Yeah. And I think that that's so, such a powerful word choice to negate that this situation has become so toxic. And Mansion itself is such an incredible piece of cinematography to look at. Just this [00:13:00] mansion being a personification of herself and her celebrity.
And he notes as soon as he walks up that this is a neglected house. It's got an unhappy look. And it's just so unkempt in disrepair and he makes the assumption that it's almost somewhat abandoned, which I immediately connected once I'd finished watching the film going, well, abandon like Norma abandon, like her relationship with Paramount and her relationship with Dil.
And we do see that mansion and even the pool itself start to turn around and look different as that relationship with Joe becomes more and more central to her life. And it's very interesting to see it return to that original grandiose form. And just the irony of the pool itself that, oh, there's so much that we could 
Clare: talk about so much.
Well, yeah, so she feels the pool for Joe because. She says, at some point I'll fill the pool for you. And then it just happens. And then that also [00:14:00] marks the place of his death. 
Ashleigh: Mm. And he had those, all those wonderful quotes from the beginning of the film where he was alluding to himself saying, you know, he always wanted a pool.
And the price turned out to be too high. Showing that Joe himself saw the pool as a symbol of making it big and grandeur and fame. And I think one thing that probably freaked me out a little bit as well is when Joe moves. Temporarily into the home and he casts his eye across the pool and it's filled with those rats congregating at the bottom.
Yes. Constructing, I think in my eyes, this dark foreshadowing of what the pool probably will represent. Mm-hmm. And the rats, you know, ill, 
Clare: yeah, but, well, even that something is rotten or that there's some dark underside of, of fame. I mean, do you think Wilder, cuz he is making a commentary about the Hollywood [00:15:00] kind of system too.
That's important for students to know, for context coming into this film that the big studios would have actors, I guess signed to them, wouldn't they, for a se a sequence of films. And you couldn't, it's not like now where an actor will go up for a part and they could do one film with Paramount and the next film with Mira Max and the next film with.
Another big, I'm trying to think of another big film studio in America and I'm, I'm, I don't have it, but they'd be contracted. Yeah, definitely. And just have to do the films that they're given. Right? 
Ashleigh: Yeah. It was really one of the first films that cast a light on Hollywood itself. And Wilder is saying a lot, he's saying something that's really complex about the industry that, yes, behind all this beauty is this kind of dark underbelly that I'm, I'm going to kind of expose.
And I think in achieving [00:16:00] his purpose, I found it really interesting when I did more research on the film and the casting that Norma's character, who is this replaced actress from the silent era was then. Played by Gloria Swanson, who was from the Silent era as an actress herself. Really. So yeah.
So kind of the idea of, oh, I love that. I'm actually gonna cast a silent era actress who's out of date, out of fashion. Let's put her in this role almost, you know, life imitating art. Yeah. And you have the idea of dil, who is one of our central characters, actually played by himself. The real director, dil is in there.
Mm-hmm. . So I think that his deliberate casting shows that this is more than just a film. He's essentially taking real elements of Hollywood, adding his creative license to construct his message that, you know, not [00:17:00] all is glitz and glamor in Los Angeles. There is something more meaningful 
Clare: here and something that needs to Be discussed and be, and be talked about.
And it's, it, it interests me too that, I mean, obviously I appreciate Joe dies, so maybe this doesn't land so well. But I, the, the, the inference I think is that women really did find themselves the worst off in this structure, I guess, or this, this way of, of structuring businesses because they were so valued for their aesthetic beauty and for their youth, , the life of their career was relatively short.
Which is why I think Norma spent, like you mentioned, is so self obsessed and spends so much time and money on her face and on different people coming to do different things to her face and putting face masks on and all sorts of mm-hmm. Because there is that gendered, I always like to find the feminist argument.
I'm not gonna lie, I think, you know, feminist reading. 
Ashleigh: No, I agree. I think if you look at her [00:18:00] character against Damil, who is significantly older, but has had this long, illustrious career, which has never been challenged in Hollywood, that he's still able to sit in his director's chair and call the shots.
Yet when Norma reappears at the lot, there are comments about, oh, well I thought she was dead. Yeah. We can really see that double standard play out in real time here that Norma has been forgotten yet. Dil has never missed a beat. 
Clare: Yeah. I felt really sorry for her in that scene. Oh, that's, I 
Ashleigh: really, that's my favorite.
Mm. Why? Oh, look, I like, again, that complexity of the construction in this scene is so important. And I take it from the moment that she arrives at Paramount's lot. Mm-hmm. From her very first interaction with the security guards, where only the oldest security guard Joanie [00:19:00] knows who she is. Mm-hmm. And I say to students, pick up on those things.
Yeah. It's so important that in terms of constructing the idea of time past. So I like to pick up on those things. The scene is, there's so many things I can talk about . The fact that the assistants brush her off. And I like to look at Demi's language in the scene as well, where he speaks to her using a lot of falsities.
Yeah. And I asked the students going, okay, let's look at what DIL has. Versus what we think he means based off his body language. Yeah. And his tone. And I said, all of these things matter. Do we believe that he's being genuine? And they're like, no. And I'm like, why? How is that being portrayed? Hmm. And that wonderful part of the scene where Jamil places her and the director's chair and the lighting hand shines that three point lighting onto her to emphasize this fleeting moment of return, which is only to be shut [00:20:00] down by Jamil, who goes turn that light back where it belongs.
And we read between the lions that, okay, this, this really is it for her career, yet she doesn't see it yet. No. And so I love that part of being the audience and realizing that when she hasn't realized that yet, 
Clare: that dramatic irony. And we know as well because we realize that the reason. She was being called was they wanted to use her card, weren't they?
Yes. And we know that because they tell Max, do they, max and Joe, but, but she doesn't know that. So that evokes pity, I suppose, in, in us as the audience for her. Mm-hmm. Where at the start, maybe up until that point, maybe I hadn't felt pity for her. I'd felt judgment, a little bit of judgment, thinking she was a little bit , self obsessed and bizarre and that she didn't, her behavior was Yeah.
Was bizarre in some way. But then that, you're right, that seems quite a pivotal turning point I think in our [00:21:00] relationship with her as the audience. I agree. 
Ashleigh: And especially when I contrast that against the first time we see Norma, and to me, I think that was almost the biggest put off of the film. .
The scene where Joe arrives and is mistaken for the undertaker and Norma leads him up to her room where there's this dead chimpanzee in the mansion. And at first I'm just going, this is bonkers . I'm like, what is this supposed to be? Where am I? What an earth is happening? What does this even mean? Yeah.
All those questions went through my head as a first time viewer and I've gone, okay, let's unpack this. And do you think 
Clare: the chimpanzee means anything? I think it does. I want it to like my, the English wanted to, but yeah. Look, 
Ashleigh: when I look at this in the elaborately stage, boudoir, I just see this chimpanzee from being, being from this, a different era of filmmaking.
Mm-hmm. , just like [00:22:00] Norma, a completely different era, which is no longer appreciated again, showing that passing of old Hollywood. and also just highlighting the eccentricity of Norma herself and her bizarre ability to clinging to the remnants of the past. Yeah, I feel like , the film wouldn't be complete without this scene, and I think it really set me up as the viewer to go, this is gonna be a real cookie.
Clare: So, so maybe it's purpose then is to disorient us slightly, to make it very clear that this film is, is going to be something a little bit different that we aren't, it isn't, you know, about the modern, 
Ashleigh: and always appreciating where Norma is coming from as well. That it isn't where either the audience watching in the 1950s was from, nor us as the modern viewer.
Yeah. So that there's, you know, I've never watched a film with a live chimpanzee . 
Clare: No. Well, yeah, [00:23:00] the Lion King, I think maybe the live action one, but I mean, for different, that's a, that's different to how the chimpanzees and other animals were used in silent film era, I think. Yes, 
Ashleigh: exactly. So I think that just that appreciation that this is from a completely different time and Norma's from a completely different time.
Yes. That's, I got outta that scene apart from a moment of complete madness 
Clare: and that yeah, that Joe's so mistaken. And that leads this leads us maybe nicely to talk about Max, who I feel like we need to talk about in any discussion of Sunset Boulevard. Yeah. Because I think his character is so interesting and unique and I'm ra I'm still kind of wrapping my head around how he wa went from her husband and director to her.
I mean, effectively servant and I have so many questions. Is he paid? How does the relationship work? Why is he doing it? Anyway, I would love your thoughts on this because I only have questions. [00:24:00] I have no answers. No, I 
Ashleigh: think it's a very interesting. Part of the film. I know when watching this with my class, that moment where it's revealed that Max is the first of her three husband, and he gives that tale about being the former talented director, and that he was alike to dil.
It just, it, it opens so many questions, which is great for the creative task, but so good. All I can just think of is his loyalty. It's on display. She's intimately seducing Joe in this tango in one part of the film, his refusal to tell Norma about Joe's nightly escapades, him sending the letters 
Clare: and, yes.
Ashleigh: Yes. All I can think of is that this is a complete act of self-sacrifice for people that we love. Mm. That perhaps it is beyond understanding love as a concept. Yeah. And that [00:25:00] maybe even in Hollywood, it's difficult to deduce real affection from their world, which is full of manipulation. And we see other relationships which are manipulative in the text.
And Max just has this such pure love for Norma that he seems willing to do anything even right up to the end of the film where he honestly cares so much about her that he sets up this grand production to get her down the stairs and into the awaiting police car. I think that it's a really complex relationship, and I don't really think there's gonna be a concrete answer as to why he does.
Clare: Well, I mean that's exciting though cuz you're right for the creative, but also if students wanted to focus on sunset for their analytical response in the exam mm-hmm. Which I know it feels a long way away. I shouldn't say the E word just yet, but it, you know, in a minute it'll be upon us.
But that it does therefore open up some possibilities in analysis [00:26:00] that 
Ashleigh: definitely I think to also discuss it against other relationships in the text is a particularly interesting discussion. Yes. When you have a relationship like Norma and Joe's, which is essentially toxic , the unstable older actress uses a younger man to bolster her own insecurities 
Clare: and he allows it to happen.
Yes. He allows for financial remuneration. 
Ashleigh: Exactly. The emotional black male on both sides is. Huge. Particularly with her continual threats of self harm and things like this as well. It's such a complex and toxic relationship in contrast to the Max Norma relationship. And then you've still got other relationships in the text, like Joe's relationship with Betty and I know a few of my students became really obsessed with this being the most wrong relationship in the text.
Yes. Cause I'm not sure that that's what Wilder had meant for it to be. 
Clare: Betty is [00:27:00] married to or engaged to Joe's friend. 
Ashleigh: Yes, correct. And they have this peer like and jovial tone to their early relationship, which they have this conversation at Artie's party intertwined with nonsense. And we see this connection building and.
In some ways, you're like, yes, you want them to end up together, but in many other ways, particularly my students are very critical of them saying, that's wrong. She's engaged to another man, she shouldn't kiss him. This is a worse deceit than what else is happening. And I think they're taking a very modern view of that relationship.
Clare: It's interesting, you think that the well the stereotype would be that the modern view would be quite okay with her, with Betty playing the field and that, you know, the 1950s audience would be more, more critical. Do we know what the reception was like? I just feel like I, I could have done some research, but what the reception was like for that when the film first premiered, was that a problem for audiences or were they quite 
Ashleigh: particularly things?
So [00:28:00] I think because in the end, Betty doesn't essentially get her man either. That, so it's all okay. Yeah, I think that it's all okay. And we never really get a resolution for Betty either. And I think that that opens so many doors for other creatives and other ways of thinking as well that what could've happened, what would've happened.
What does Betty do next? Does she run off and marry Artie like he wanted her to? I have so many questions about Betty and I really wish that that had been resolved. 
Clare: It's the fun thing about this, this job, right? That there's always, there's always questions and unfortunately no one can , resolve them for us.
But we, that's why the creative is such a fantastic task, and it's the last year that we get to experience it in its current iteration and yet a brand new text to happen. So I'm wa so what would you, you know, you are at the moment teaching this in your classroom, which is so what a beautiful privileged position to be in and students are writing creatively on Sunset.
What do you think? Would you like, if you had some tips, [00:29:00] if you wanted to give some, someone some tips, what is it that would make you happy as a teacher? I feel like maybe then all your students will listen to this and take notes. That's not the point of why I'm asking. I'm saying generally what, because it's, I think it's hard to cr to convert or to take a film text and do a written creative, not impossible.
Ashleigh: Yeah, no, I understand. One thing that I keep trying to promote to my students is just because it's a film text doesn't mean there isn't language. Yeah. I've really encouraged students to get a hold of the script and start to look at the way each character speaks and the things that make them themselves and try to bring that through in their writing when they're trying to replicate character.
Mm. For instance, we were reading an extract today where. The character was writing about me, me, Norma Desmond, and just that reiteration of the word me, the way that Norma had done in the text [00:30:00] was really powerful in establishing her voice as a character. So I really encourage students to look at the language.
Clare: Even in the script. 
Ashleigh: Yeah, even in the script itself, just to really convey, especially for that first criteria about textual understanding that you can do that. Also, I think that it's a really easy, with a creative to get sucked into writing something really simple like an alternative ending. And my key advice to students is, would your piece of writing seamlessly fit into the world of Sunset Boulevard as it is?
Yeah. Where can you expand to give new information rather than go something that will not fit with the world of the text as we know it. For instance, I had a couple of students talking about Max taking the blame for Norma's murder [00:31:00] of Joe, and I've just gone, while that fits with Max's character, I'm not sure you're going to be able to write the best creative piece about that.
Try and find something within the world of the text where you could slip in more easily. Yeah. So I think that that's probably my advice for students tackling the creative going, if this wouldn't slide into the script, maybe it's not. The way to go for the creative. 
Clare: Mm-hmm. And I think it can be, like you mentioned, I want, I don't want, I, I don't like to use the word derivative with student work because it seems a little bit critical and, you know, creative writing at uni.
Mm-hmm. But it can be really easy, especially if you take another character's perspective to just simply rewrite the film that we already know. From that perspective, you, you kind of wanna have something, a nugget of something, an insight that isn't in the original film to answer, like you said, to answer a question that hasn't, has not yet been answered.
And that's where when you read those creatives and the hair stands up on the back of your neck and you think, oh, that's so brilliant. You [00:32:00] know that should have been included in the original, you know, they're the best ones. 
Ashleigh: Mm-hmm. , and I think by what? Rewatching key scenes and taking detailed notes, as I said, of language.
Yeah. Of the key features like the cars and the, the mirrors and things like that, that you can bring through your piece. You'll start to create something that's special. Yeah. On the topic of pieces that are special I know that it's been a real hot topic in education at the moment around chat, G p T.
Mm-hmm. I've even had a play around as well and trying to create text in chat g p t that are creative and special. It was actually very limiting and I showed a few of those samples to some of my students today. And it was very clear that the person, well, it's not really a person, is it , the AI intelligence that had written it, couldn't convey that language and there was just something missing.
from that writing that showed that you didn't have an in-depth understanding of Sunset [00:33:00] Boulevard. Mm-hmm. . And that was really interesting to read those samples and go, yeah, you've missed the first criteria here. There's something missing, missing. So make sure that you've got that real strong text connection and make sure that you are looking to try to bring voice and style.
Clare: I'm so glad you actually, you brought that up. Chat, G b T. We were talking about that. I was talking about that with some, very briefly with some other teachers I work with and it's, I think it's a conversation we're going to keep having, but this idea that the craft of writing and the act of writing and crafting a text takes time.
It's a bit painful. It hurts your brain. You word and reword, you scribble, you cross out, you add, and it isn't the way chat, G p D does it with that, you know, when little curse comes, I goes like, and then just the words just like prop out. And I think it just doesn't, it, it can't have that sparkle of beautiful [00:34:00] creative writing that we so aspire, we aspire to achieve it for our students.
Right? We want our students to, to write at that level. It's a bit dead. The lang, you know, the, because it is not alive, because ai, I mean, I, I know it's alive but not alive, you know? Yeah. They, 
Ashleigh: they, we felt from reading the samples, it didn't actually capture Norma's eccentricity, right? It didn't capture Max's devotion to Norma.
The word choice just wasn't there. And in some cases it was blatantly wrong. Where Wow. Described Max as having a motherly relationship with Norma and the students got a bit of a laugh out of that going, no, this is no romantic, this is intimate, this is personal. . 
Clare: And I mean, if anything, if you're gonna write Max's relationship, you might write that it's a little bit creepy.
A little bit. You know, he's a little bit obsessed with her. . Yeah, I'm, I'm actually, I'm looking forward to spending more time with chat g p t to see what it can do. But what we're saying to students [00:35:00] is don't, don't be tempted to just go and say, write a creative piece from the perspective of, because it just, it's not gonna cut the mustard.
And your teacher will know this is the thing we know. We know what AI script, it, it's just something. It's just something. And when it, the way it reads, I can't put my finger exactly on it. But your teacher will, you. Be able to pick it and it's just not gonna do, it's not gonna get you the score that you want, I think.
Ashleigh: Yeah, absolutely. And particularly with a creative task, which requires you to write a statement of intention explaining your author choices. Yes. If you haven't made the author choices, it makes it a little bit difficult to then talk about construction and how you have added elements of the text and revealed something new and embodies the tone and voice of those characters.
Yeah. So it's a really great task to get students starting to write something that is really, for lack of a better word, creative . 
Clare: Yes. . It needs to be, we want it to be [00:36:00] creative. I wonder. I mean, we've kind of answered this, this question throughout our, our discussion, but one of my favorite questions is what do you think Wilder was intending to achieve through Sunset?
We've kind of, we've dabbled in it, but what, what do you think if he had, can you summarize his purpose? 
Ashleigh: I really think that Wilder aims to illuminate would be the word that I would choose Illuminate. And I think he tries to illuminate the issues that were happening in Hollywood during the time that he was screenwriting and directing, and really bring forth the idea that this world had a dark side to it.
Yeah, I think that that's the crux of what he wanted to do. and I think that he wanted to make it real and in some ways at the sacrifice of his own reputation and own career he's making almost an anti Hollywood film [00:37:00] and presenting it in Hollywood . 
Clare: Yeah. Right. So he is kind of putting himself out on a limb, but there was a few different directors and riders at the time who were kind of anti-establishment and, , wanting to take, take everyone down.
Why do you think, well, why do you think the V C A A chose it to go on the text list? 
Ashleigh: Look, I struggled with this question a little bit, but I just kept coming back to why I think this text would resonate with students. Mm. I think at the heart of it, it's really a story about truth and reality.
and that students can take this context and apply it to their own lives. Yeah. Like it's been watching it today, I'm going, the dangers of obsession myself and linking that to TikTok and Instagram and everyone wanting to be Insta famous I think that that is still a real connection that students can make between this film that was made 70 [00:38:00] years ago and themselves and the unorthodox and fictitious lives of celebrities.
And I think that being able to analyze what is. , I suppose, printed in the media and being critical and looking at celebrity's lives and saying, well, perhaps they're not all the glitz and glamor that are presented. Perhaps there's more to this story. Yeah. I think that our students can resonate with that because they live this life.
They have access to so much technology and so much social media and so much celebrity gossip that yeah, perhaps it's still relevant to them today. And I hope that that's part of the reason that V has picked it, because it's so interesting to look at analytically. So interesting to look at it creatively.
And there's just so many layers to this film that yeah, it's something that our students will hopefully find really interesting. 
Clare: I really like that. I like, listen, we all love a [00:39:00] text to world connection. Look at us for doing what we take the students to do, but you're right, and that there is this dark side of fame.
Maybe something everyone wants, but what are we willing to sacrifice? Who to achieve it? What was Joe willing to sacrifice? It's interesting too, you know, sometimes when I think, when I'm thinking about a text and thinking about what an author or a director is trying to tell me, you can look at kind of what happens to the characters and are they punished in some way?
And I mean, Joe is punished because he's, he's dead. That's pretty much the, the ultimate punishment. So there's something there that wild is telling us about the way that Joe operates and what happens in his life and the way, what he values what he, if some integrity, maybe Zack biased throughout. And that, that ultimately leads, leads to his death.
And are you willing to die maybe for fame, literally or metaphorically? 
Ashleigh: Yeah, I think Joe is. A character that I don't think I [00:40:00] ever decided if I loved him or hated him. Mm-hmm. , and I think I still continuously sit somewhere in the middle going, yes, he did some immoral thing, but did he, does the punishment fit the crime?
And I think that's a really interesting point that students love to discuss this, their sense of moral justice. Absolutely. And whether or not what he did to Norma was, I suppose, bad enough to warrant his ending. His 
Clare: ending. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that's what's gonna make reading essays about this so interesting because students will come in, we hope, with a clear perspective on.
The text. Even if that, even if that perspective changes depending on the essay, at least the essay, each individual essay hopefully will have a clear kind of position on these issues and feel confident about whether or not, you know, we, we, do we pity [00:41:00] Norma? Do we pity Joe? Who was right? Who was wrong?
Whose fault was it? Yeah. 
Ashleigh: The idea of not just whose fault is it, is the idea of Paramount or the idea of Hollywood as its own character. Yeah. Where they are to blame. I think looking at their overarching constraints on both Norma and Joe and Jamil are they just a product of the type A product of society that they live in?
Mm-hmm. and I, that's really interesting to get them to look at going. It goes beyond the 
Clare: individual individual. Yes. The criticism is broader than that. Mm. Wow. Thank you so much for talking to me today. 
Ashleigh: That's all right. I really appreciate it. I love talking text. I love talking Sunset Boulevard in 
Clare: particular.
Well, yes. Tell me now. I know. Just a spook here, everyone because the wonderful Ashley has her own YouTube channel. Yes, 
Ashleigh: it is [00:42:00] called Mrs. LAN's classroom. Essentially it is just short help videos for students on particular texts. I've focused heavily on Sunset Boulevard, photograph 51, my brilliant career, the women of Troy and a couple of classic texts like Romeo and Juliet. Just to start getting a bit of a Vic curriculum, V car vibe, rather than a lot of the videos that come from the US or the uk.
Mm-hmm. . And that kind of led me to adding some hard copy resources that accompany those on my teachers pay teachers account. So everything kind of comes as a bit of a bundle and, you know, if you're looking for something just to get started, particularly on a text that's new like Sunset or a text, like my brilliant career, which is relatively new as well, and you want a fresh take I just wanted to put them out there and yeah.
Start some great discussion on some great tech. 
Clare: Brilliant. I love that. And my brilliant career. Well, maybe, maybe we can talk about that too at another time. But thank [00:43:00] you so much and thank you for sharing your thoughts. And I'm, I'm always so grateful that teachers are willing to come on and, I mean, sometimes teach me, you taught me things today because I've come in and gone.
I watched the film. Let's talk about it. But you have such beautiful insights already and I'm sure that there are many students and teachers out there in Victoria who'd be very grateful for, for all of these ideas. And people, yeah, people write in on the Instagram and tell me, oh, you know, I chose that one point and it led to an entire great class discussion.
So that's what we want. We wanna share and help each other out, I think as educators. But yeah, thank you so much. 
Ashleigh: No worries. Thanks 
Clare: for having me.