Players Playing The Part Of Players

This is your life. A walking, unscripted film played out to the audience in your mind. Yes, the convention of imagining one's life as a movie is trite in this media-saturated culture. Any preening hipster on Rodeo Drive can attest to the fatuous belief that we are all the star of our own movie. Perhaps this is true, after all we can only know consciousness from within, looking out. We can only presuppose the consciousness of others, much like presupposing the reality -- how every briefly -- of the actors on the screen.

The ubiquitous nature of cinematic language means, by definition, that we all speak it. We have appropriated a host of cinematic terms to "frame" our lives. We live life "in slow motion" or "press rewind." We want to "fast forward" through the boring parts and live in the "limelight." Of course some of these terms originated with the theater, but what is film but theater filmed for the screen?

Perhaps this casts a favorable light on the new parlor game that recasts a famous film with your closest friends and loved ones as the principal protagonists. Some cutting-edge firms, like Yoostar and others, have developed the software to make this flight of fancy a reality. How would you fair in a turn as Rick Blaine in Casablanca? That's Humphrey Bogart's role, for the uninitiated.

As the Bard famously put it, more than four hundred years ago, life's a stage and we are but players. This certainly must be the case as we are compulsively preoccupied with the very private lives of celebrities -- it seems some people's stage are meant for multiple viewings. Now, of course, the terms is "celebrity" but the they are, by and large, actors. For such a low profession, it seems to enjoy the lion's share of media coverage. We seldom crave to know the private lives of investment bankers -- unless, of course, they're embroiled in some kind of scandal.

And so, dear reader, a new parlor games stands poised to thrill and delight the guests attending your next soiree. Yes, tap into your deepest desire to be famous and project yourself into a clip that will delight and amuse your friends and loved ones. Keep in mind, as you stumble through your lines and giggle your screen tip with Ingrid Bergman away, that life is a stage, and you put a player, playing the part of another player.