Sunset Boulevard

The character arc in the cinema occurs within Joe Gillis. He realizes throughout the entire film that his initial fantasy about Hollywood was always a delusion that he could triumph against the studio system -- a delusion that would not go away because day-to-day life demanded that he continue to pretend that he was a believer and a player. He is anticipating a return to dreary reality in the midwest when he comes under extreme pressure from both Betty and Norma to swear allegiance to the fantasy once more. He explodes and mercilessly humiliates both of them. Joe walks out by the pool to leave both women when Norma abandons her last ounce of sanity in order to re-assume the personality of her most famous film character. “For the rest of the earth’s organisms, existence is relatively uncomplicated. Their lives are about three things: survival, reproduction, death—and nothing else. But we know too much to content ourselves with surviving, reproducing, dying—and nothing else. We know we are alive and know we will die. We also know we will suffer during our lives before suffering—slowly or quickly—as we draw near to death. This is the knowledge we “enjoy” as the most intelligent organisms to gush from the womb of nature. And being so, we feel shortchanged if there is nothing else for us than to survive, reproduce, and die. We want there to be more to it than that, or to think there is. This is the tragedy: Consciousness has forced us into the paradoxical position of striving to be unself-conscious of what we are—hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones.” ― Thomas Ligotti, "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race"