the Buzz

Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face

"Cinema has encouraged people in unprecedented numbers to imagine what it would be like to be someone other than themselves. This can be, and has been, positive. But it can go the other way too, conjuring the fantasy of filling the shoes not of the characters on the screen, but of the actors playing them.

"So the dream became first to be a movie star, then merely to be famous. Now it’s simply to be seen. I am seen, therefore I am. This is the message of Facebook and the ubiquity of camera phones. This is the buzz of the limelight."

Thomas Hodgkinson, The Spectator 10/6/12