Over the weekend I watched the new Blu-ray for Billy Wilder’s Sunset Blvd., which arrives in stores on November 6 ([amazon asin=”B008VNIBFO” text=”buy it here”]) and every time I watch it this opening shot of William Holden face down in Norma Desmond’s (Gloria Swanson) pool is such a stunner, it captures your attention for the film’s duration.
Outside of an immaculately restored Blu-ray image, the disc doesn’t include anything more than what was found on the 2009 Centennial Edition DVD, outside of a short deleted scene from the New Year’s Eve party scene, but I did poke around the features a bit and was reminded of how they shot this opening scene.
When the film was made they didn’t have the ease of shooting underwater as we do now and the opening scene had to be shot from above using mirrors. The water, it turns out, had to also be temperature controlled to no more than 40 degrees to prevent distortion.
It is interesting, however, to take note of how it was shot and then notice a few curious lines in the lower half of the image above.
Here’s a look at the scene in its entirety.
NOTE: The capture above is from the DVD, not the new Blu-ray.
