Ready for His Closeup

WE'RE ALL FAMILIAR WITH THE OSCAR WILDE'S ASSERTION THAT "LIFE IMITATES ART," BUT IT IS A NOTABLE ARTWORK INDEED THAT PRESAGES LIFE BY 75 YEARS.  

“Notable” hardly begins to describe the layers of meaning—and foreshadowing—Dr. David Lubin (C’72) saw in the seminal 1950 film, Sunset Boulevard. 

Lubin, one of the country’s preeminent art historians, recently retired after a distinguished career that spanned over 40 years and included roles at Oxford, Wake Forest, and Colby College, as well as fellowships from Harvard, Stanford, Yale, the National Gallery of Art, and others. Over that span, Lubin published eight books and was awarded the Smithsonian’s Charles Eldredge Prize for “distinguished scholarship in American art.” 

His eighth book, Ready for My Close-Up: The Making of “Sunset Boulevard” and the Dark Side of the Hollywood Dream, heralded by reviewers as a vital and unflinching look at one of American cinema’s seminal works and named to The New Yorker’s Best Books of the Year list. In its depiction of demonstrates the multidimensional ways the classic film (one of AFI’s top 20 films of the 20th Century) is relevant and resonant today.