Capítulo 13 de 19 · 4'07"
Norma Desmond drives onto the Paramount lot expecting a hero's welcome, and the studio does not even recognize her name. She insists she built the place, while DeMille's staff plot to 'give her the brush.' What she wants is respect; what she gets is a chair and a polite promise to make a call.
Norma Desmond Returns to the Paramount Gate
The Studio Debates What to Do with Norma
Norma Desmond and Joe Gillis arrive at Paramount to see Cecil B. DeMille about her script. At the gate she is met with 'Norma who?', and only her old acquaintance Jonesy lets the car through. On the set, DeMille is rehearsing; his aide offers to turn her away, but DeMille invites her in and promises to look into it.
This is a homecoming that turns into an audit of fame. Norma believes her name still opens doors, but the studio greets her with 'Norma who?', and even a sympathetic doorman has to remind a colleague who she was. Her boast that 'without me, there wouldn't be any Paramount Studio' is not vanity so much as evidence: she has become a monument to a past the business has written off. DeMille, who remembers her kindly, jokes that 'she must be a million years old,' then catches himself: 'I could be her father.' When his aide proposes to 'give her the brush,' DeMille answers with the line that says everything — 'Thirty million fans have given her the brush. Isn't that enough?' The scene is about what a legend is owed when no one remembers who she is.
A1–C2 es la escala MCER. Las tarjetas por encima del nivel elegido se atenúan y la reproducción no se pausa en ellas.
“Tell him without me, he wouldn't have any job, because without me, there wouldn't be any Paramount Studio.”
She inflates one person into the foundation of a whole studio, grand and a little tragic.
Informal
“I hate to think where that puts me. I could be her father.”
He winces at her age and immediately turns the joke on himself to soften the room.
Informal
“Thirty million fans have given her the brush. Isn't that enough?”
He hides behind her own fans and lets a question carry the cruelty.
Informal
“You know, a dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit.”
He frames overpraise as slow damage, one calm line doing the work of a whole lament.
literary
“It's your script. It's your show. Good luck.”
Three short lines hand over the work with grace and make a quiet exit.
Neutral
“I remember waving to you. I was dancing on a table.”
A polite little wave followed by table-dancing captures her exactly in two beats.
Informal
Siguiente · 14nothing would please me moreLa escena: Norma Desmond's Comeback Falls ApartShe has been away so long that the younger staff does not know her. Her name, once a password at every studio, now means nothing at the front gate.
He remembers her fondly and feels the studio owes her something. When his aide offers to turn her away, he instead gives her his chair and says he will look into the script.
She believes he snubbed her by sending an assistant named Gordon Cole instead of calling her himself. DeMille does not even know who Cole is, which makes her more suspicious.
It means to dismiss or brush someone off politely. The aide proposes to 'give her the brush,' and DeMille answers that thirty million fans have already done exactly that.
Someone on set calls Norma a million years old, so he turns the joke on himself and his equally old career. He is easing the awkwardness, not insulting her.
