All About Lies

One of my favorite movies of all time is All About Eve. There are many reasons to love the film: Bette Davis, witty banter, costumes by Edith Head; none of these reasons make my love for it appropriate to this blog. All About Eve is about misguided trust, about the ease with which a pretty girl can get anything she wants through lies and treachery, about the difference between acting and lying. The best actors (or is it the best liars?) seem to catch on to Eve's deceit early in the film, but the non-actors are more naive and thus truly shattered by the revelation of her lies. Eve only speaks in truth when she talks of acting in front of a theater:

They want you. You belong. Just that alone is worth it.

A running trope of life-as-play runs through the film, but it seems that only Eve takes the idea seriously. Eve's an actress from the start whose life is a fictional play. She wins because she has no life separate from her act; she nullifies any true self to fake her way into the theater, to "belong" at any cost. 

I've not done this film justice in my discussion, but I doubt this will be the last time I have something to say about this film and others like it. I encourage commentary.