Character Analysis
Down on His Luck
It's hard times for Joe Gillis. When we first meet him, he's got, well, nothing. Nothing but his car, and he's barely got that. His career and ambitions have stalled and he has nothing left to do but stumble, half-knowingly, toward his own doom, which takes the form of deranged Silent Screen Queen, Norma Desmond.
Actually, if we're gonna get technical about it, when we first meet Joe, he's already dead. Talk about really having nothing. His murdered corpse floats in Norma Desmond's pool, but his voice, sadder and wiser—though he was pretty sad and smart to begin with—reflects on his demise from beyond the grave, rewinding to the beginning, from which he charts his path toward destruction.
It's flashback time.
Before he meets Norma, Joe's down on his luck. Although he's apparently written and sold screenplays before, he's hit a dry spell. He's too hard-up to fully entertain the dreams of Hollywood success that have apparently motivated him in the past. Now, he just wants to make his car payments—since repo men are trying to take his car—and get a three hundred dollar loan to cover his expenses.
We get the sense that he has few people he can really count on in the world. His producer friend, Sheldrake, can't advance the loan or even find him any hackwork or re-writing to do, and his agent insists that Joe's poverty is a good thing, since it'll force him to create. He's got nowhere to go—except back to Ohio. Bummers all around.
Understandably, Joe feels totally ashamed and embarrassed at his predicament—though he's not about to cry about it. He knows he's about finished and plans on ditching L.A. and its promises of riches and fame (or as much fame as a screenwriter can realistically get) to head back to the Midwest—Dayton, Ohio, to be exact—to the newspaper for which he used to write. At least it's a paycheck.
Love for Pay
So that's Joe when we meet him: utterly defeated but still self-aware and with a sharp, self-deprecating sense of humor.
But, of course, he's not destined for the copy desk in Dayton. We know that from the pool. When the repo men chase him early on in the flick, he pulls into the driveway of Norma Desmond's decaying mansion and his story takes off from there. He's still slouching toward doom—but at least it's more interesting than mere screenwriting failure.
While living at Norma's "grim sunset castle" he becomes a chorus, objectively observing and recounting Norma's already significant decline and fairly inevitable fall. For instance, he sees how empty her life is when she throws a serious funeral for her pet monkey:
JOE: There was something else going on below: the last rites for that hairy old chimp, performed with the utmost seriousness—as if she were laying to rest an only child. Was her life really as empty as that?
Joe latches himself to Norma because he thinks she can give him the things he's always wanted—money, security, and a pool. He thinks that he's going to convince her to let him edit her god-awful screenplay—which he does. But rather than taking advantage of Norma's need for an editor, he finds that he's no match for her scorched-earth manipulation tactics. When someone's willing to attempt suicide in order to guilt you into sticking around and sleeping with them—you could say that's a bridge too far.
Like a Bat Out of HelL.A.
So Joe, while objectively observing Norma's chronic self-delusion, simultaneously becomes her paid boyfriend. This feels more than a little humiliating, not to mention deeply awkward when he runs into his old friends at Schwab's drugstore, his former hangout. When he tries to break out of this role and get with Betty Schaefer—an ambitious script-reader and aspiring screenwriter at Paramount (oh, and also his friend Artie's girlfriend)—Norma flips out. Her phone call to Betty ends up forcing Joe to invite Betty over, where he shows her the truth of the situation and tells her to go marry Artie. Betty, very upset, leaves, and Norma thinks she's won Joe for herself.
But that's not what's happened.
Joe's had a realization—he has to escape the warped world of L.A. altogether and go back to the simple, honest life of Dayton, Ohio. He sees that the illusions of celebrity poison everything and result in madness. But, being doomed, he doesn't get the chance to act on this revelation, since Norma shoots and murders him when he tries to go. And that's why we see his corpse in the swimming pool at the beginning of the movie.
Wit for Days
It's no wonder he's a screenwriter. One of Joe's most central characteristics is his aptitude for witty repartee, which is constant throughout the movie. For instance, consider this exchange between Joe and Betty:
BETTY: Sheldrake likes that angle about the teacher.
JOE: What teacher?
BETTY: Dark Windows. I got him all hopped up about it.
JOE: You did?
BETTY: He thinks it could be made into something.
JOE: Into what? A lampshade?
BETTY: Into something for Barbara Stanwyck. They have a commitment with Barbara Stanwyck.
This is pure Joe Gillis, exemplifying his self-deprecation and cynicism about the movie business. Of course, Betty doesn't share his cynicism, and her drive to make a serious movie with an important message—a study of the lives of schoolteachers—seems to catch Joe in its own momentum. But, again, as was made clear at the beginning, he's a doomed figure, and this brief ray of sunshine proves illusory.
Joe Gillis's Timeline