Sunset Boulevard: The Viewer Experience

Film has a unique way of infiltrating the lives of its viewers. As a girl I remember that my mother and my Nan (her mother) would both sometimes say, “I’m ready for my close-up.” They would laugh, or cackle rather, and look at each other knowingly. Of course us kids would look at them like they were crazy, but eventually, as we grew up, we started using the phrase too. We didn’t know where it came from, or why they said it like they did, but it was part of our world regardless. When the line echoed through the screen while we watched Sunset Boulevard, a lot of things started happening in my mind. Initially, I was instantly and inexplicably excited to realize where the line that we had been using all of these years really came from. I was finally in on the joke legitimately. Additionally, all of these fond memories from my young life flooded my brain and I found my self smiling, despite the reality that the part of the movie where Gloria Swanson (Norma Desmond) says this infamous line is actually sad, or at least disturbing. 

In this case, film had infiltrated its way into the two most immediately preceding generation before mine in my family, inadvertently passed into our generation and tied all three together in a sense. While literature can sometimes have this effect, and in more “cultured” or elegant families works of art of the opera perhaps might, nothing really does this like film. My sister and I have dozens, if not hundred of movies that we might quote, appropriately or obscurely, throughout conversation. They have become part of our personal dialect and culture. If we meet somebody that doesn’t understand our references it becomes our immediate mission to show them these films and bring them up to speed. 

We are not unique in this tradition. Many people I meet have their own lines and movie references that have become part of their friendship or family dynamics. When making new friends the conversation about what movies are your favorite and why is on the list of must talk about. And this connection extends even further when it is a complete stranger who hears a movie reference and gets  it. I might find myself sharing a high-five with this absolutely unknown human being. All because of the movies.