Character Analysis
Can't Let Go
You can't possibly know the meaning of loyalty—we're talking deluded, die-hard, crazy loyalty—until you meet Max.
Max von Mayerling (Erich von Stroheim) is Norma Desmond's steadfast butler—and the man who feeds her illusions. He never challenges her crazy whims, and even goes so far as to forge fake fan letters to help beef up her idea of her own celebrity.
What's his game? Why go so far to prevent Norma from seeing reality? Well, for one thing, he doesn't want her to be destroyed by the truth, which he doesn't think she can handle. (To be fair, she probably can't handle the truth, given her history of suicide attempts. Although, also to be fair, she might not have ever reached that point if von Mayerling hadn't been buffering her delusions all along.)
But there's a whole 'nother sordid layer to this weird dynamic. Midway through the movie, we learn a super-creepy truth about Max. He was Norma's first husband (she had three) and also the director who discovered her and made her a star. Even after they got divorced, Max couldn't get over her and decided to give up his directorial status to become her servant and keep her illusions alive. Oof. Talk about pining.
He reveals this truth to Joe:
MAX: I directed all her early pictures. There were three young directors who showed promise in those days: D.W. Griffith, C.B. DeMille, and Max von Mayerling.
JOE: And she's turned you into a servant.
MAX: It was I who asked to come back, humiliating as it may seem. I could have gone on with my career, only I found everything unendurable after she divorced me. You see, I was her first husband.
Max's devotion shows that he suffers from the addictions of glamor and celebrity, although he knows it. He just can't unhook himself, can't escape Desmond's orbit. May we recommend years of therapy?
A Faithful Servant to the Bitter End
One of the strangest mysteries of Sunset is the nature of Max's attitude toward Joe. Is he jealous that Joe is becoming Norma's new favorite? Probably not. If anything, he seems to look at Joe with a kind of pity—like, "Here's the next person getting sucked into this whirlpool of illusion—like me. Poor sucker." At the same time, he's been in the same place Joe's in, and given that he's still devoted to Norma, he probably wouldn't mind trading places with him. At least Joe gets some lovin'.
To the very end, Max pampers Norma's illusions. He just can't bring himself not to. When Joe tries to shock her out of her delusion, telling her that there won't be any DeMille comeback, Max refuses to admit that Joe is telling the truth:
JOE: You tell her, Max. Come on, do her that favor. Tell her there isn't going to be any picture—there aren't any fan letters, except the ones you write yourself.
NORMA: That isn't true! Max?
MAX: Madame is the greatest star of them all... I will take Mr. Gillis's bags.
When Norma finally loses it and thinks that she's actually acting in the DeMille-directed version of her movie, Max solemnly steps behind the news cameras and plays the role of DeMille, filming the final consequences of Norma's madness as she gets ready for her close-up. He dutifully keeps Norma's desperate dreams alive, while at the same time pitying her in her peak moment of insanity. Ain't that just the saddest thing?
Disconcertingly, the man who plays Max, Erich Von Stroheim, really was a famous director of the 1920s and really did direct Gloria Swanson (the actress who played Norma) in silent film roles. When Gillis and Desmond watch an old movie starring Desmond, they're actually watching a real Swanson movie, Queen Kelly (1929), directed by Von Stroheim himself. Weird, right?