Douglas Sirk

What I mean in the above post: There seems to be a thing with Sirk that goes "Hey its all trashy and melodramatic but he like subverts all that man!" As if he is mocking that whole style of storytelling. This allows highbrows to watch them without feeling guilty, because they, along with Sirk, can feel superior to it.

But I don't think Sirk buys in to all that, and I think its a serious misreading of his films to say that he does. The underlying sincerity is what makes his films great, not the sarcasm.

My point is that there is no way audiences could mistake "Imitation of Life" for anything but a film about race (among other things). The current film studies cant about Sirk being subversive has never convinced me. His best films are sincere, beautifully-crafted liberal melodramas. If I knew how to italicize "liberal" I would. And I'm not using it as an epithet.

It's frustrating that more of his movies aren't available to rent, besides the handful of big titles. Last weekend I rented some pirated VHS copies of ones I hadn't seen - Shockproof and Sleep, My Love. (They were both taped off TV, then transferred many times to tape - one seemed to be taped off something called "The Mystery Channel.") And they were so great! Kind of like "noir melodrama." Real b-movie noir type things, but with this incredible touch that somehow makes the characters and situations unusually moving and sympathetic, even when the proceedings are kind of stilted or cliched.

I really want to somehow see all his movies now. And, the thing is, even the movies that don't, as a whole, "do it for me" (I'm not too big on All That Heaven Allows; and Magnificent Obsession just sort of weirds me out, though it's pretty amazingly weird) have individual scenes or aspects that are just so effective and singular, in ways I can't fully account for (but which has mostly to do, I guess, with staging and performances). Fassbinder movies tend to strike me in much the same way, as it happens.

Besides the big, often-screened titles (Imitation of Life is one of my favorite all-time moves), others available on video that I particularly recommend are The Tarnished Angels and Lured (a pretty loopy and funny comedy-thriller with Lucille Ball).

charles taylor recently had an interesting article in salon about laughing at old movies.

and one reason i could never love Far From Heaven as much as a Sirk film was because i never sensed the sincerity there. maybe it's the idea of doing a deliberately outdated genre, and then adding modern touches, as if it was somehow improving or "updating" the women's picture? Why not make it modern, or in a modern style at least? does haynes fall into the subversive trap talked about above? i dont know. frankly i just found it boring and maybe im trying to justify that.

Contrast Far From Heaven with that Fassbinder flim that also played off All That Heaven Allows (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul?). Fassbinder's movie is very much a '70s German movie, and makes no attempt to play off the old "genre," yet it resonates, in a new and personal way, with Sirk's themes. That's the kind of thing I assumed Haynes was going to do, and was mystified to see this wooden Pleasantville kind of thing.

i wouldn't bother seeing tarnished angels in the pan-and-scan version that is available on video at the moment. in fact i wouldn't recommend seeing it at home at all. there's something about it that demands a big screen. it gets revived a lot--i've seen it in connecticut, nyc, boston, and chicago. incidentally, there's a moment in that film that is cribbed from schlussakkord.

(x-post)

Am, I'll look out for Schlussakkord. I've seen A Scandal in Paris, which I thought was cute, though not the greatest.

I've avoided most of his "war" movies (except A Time to Love and a Time to Die, which is heavy and really good), simply because I'm squeamish; but I'm gonna watch them now. There's this one, Battle Hymn, that sounds just heart-wrenching from the description on the back of the box.

i think sometimes "sirk films" have been so enshrined by contemporary film studies people, though, that we forget that he was working in a genre and working with screenwriters and cinematographers and producers that made many other films, some of them with many of the same qualities as sirk's great films. sirk was no doubt one of the great artists of the hollywood (and german!) cinema but the virtues of his films are not his alone, nor are they exclusive to films he directed. unfortunately because of the afore-suggested vicissitudes of film studies, women's pictures from this era not by name directors are rarely screened. (sometimes you can catch one on TCM.) i'd recommend for starters madame x starring lana turner, produced by ross hunter (sirk's most frequent producer in the '50s), shot by russ metty (sirk's collaborator on the big famous Universal melodramas), costumes by jean louis, etc. it's instructive to see what conventions were native to the genre, what aspects of the style might be attributed to metty et al, and--by contrast-- what makes sirk's contributions unique. most studies i've read of sirk don't take much trouble to frame him in that sort of context.

(x-post)

i liked far from heaven but my thoughts are far from (cymbal crash) clear on the subject. i don't think it was a simple gesture of condescension toward the '50s by any means.

Yeah, Am, that's a great point (re: non-Sirk films); I have, for a long time, wanted to see lots of old movies in, heck, not just Sirk's "genres," but all kinds of genres. (Having seen a fair amount of "noir," I feel comfortable noting what was unique in these noir-ish Sirk films I recently saw; but I'm sure Sirk wasn't the only one putting the focus on strong female "noir" protagonists in unique and compelling ways, either). I'm pretty ignorant on the scope of movie history in general, so I appreciate the suggestions (I'll seek out Madame X).

Oh, and I don't think that Far From Heaven was merely being condescending; but I do think that a big part of its "work" was ironic engagement in '50s stereotypes, which didn't really do much for me. (Before the crosspost, I wrote: "I mean: the way the kids acted and talked! the way dennis quaid acted and talked!") I don't remember the movie all too well... but I do remember thinking that most or all of the characters seemed like cutouts made for ideological purposes, rather than characters.

Coding wouldn't be the right word, but there's certainly a lot for gay people to identify with in Imitation of Life. And subversive isn't the right word for Written on the Wind, since making bad/destructive characters attractive and somewhat sympathetic is basic to interesting plots and characters (and the psychological explanations were, if anything, the opposite of coding, since a surfeit of outfront explanations and symbols were thrown into your face at every moment: e.g., SHE IS COMPENSATING FOR LACK OF PARENTAL CONFIDENCE AND ATTENTION BY BEHAVING AS WILDY AS POSSIBLE), but it's amazing the way the film follows the intensity of Dorothy Malone's wildness: she's dissatisfied, she'll taunt and tantalize, she's scooting around in her '50s sportscar and it's a bright color across your movie screen, taking us to trouble. You need the wide screen to illustrate her tantrums in all their energy and garishness.

and to call the films "subversive" is, as you suggest, to downplay the need for films to have an element of danger in them, and to make 1950s hollywood out to be much less pluralist and...liberal than it was. what distinguished some of sirk's films was not their political daring but their intensity and fluency in highlighting and sustaining the relevant plot points and emotion.

i'm still not sure if haynes understands this--i think he does, so i think people might be misunderstanding his project in "far from heaven" as a result of misunderstanding his relationship to sirk and the film that frank mentions, the reckless moment--another avowed influence. by the way that film was remade recently, as the deep end, which was ok.

i don't think the sign of the pagan reference in the long day closes was an auterist in-joke, especially since that film is hardly well-known today especially not as a "sirk film." i think it's just part and parcel of the love for movies of a certain period--hollywood movies and english movies--that suffuses davies' autobiographical films. and if anything the house of mirth (which i admire, but think was fatally flawed by miscasting) recalls ophuls' films more than sirk's big weepies--they don't have the bold color design and creeping vulgarity of the latter. but really it's the whole range of hollywood melodrama, in addition to art films like those of bergman and so on, that was davies' model.

Too bad it was moderated by this bearded film professor/Sirk expert who kept asking loaded questions that the actresses weren't much interested in, and interjecting his own (bland) opinions and readings of the movie. (At one point, after an awkward silence when neither of them could answer his question about who else had been tested for their roles, the prof moved along with the comment, "Well, I happen to know the answer, anyway.")

It turns out that Susan Kohner is the mother of those two "American Pie" guys (they stood up in the crowd and took a bow), which I thought was a fairly bizarre connection.

Christ, Film Forum audiences can be the worst. I remember a critic in the Voice once complained that a screening of The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, of all things, there was marred by audience laughter. I saw The Beast of Yucca Flats there about ten years ago, and damn, while it IS a famously godawful film, it's more of a venal, depressing, crawl-into-a-ball-and-die kind of godawful rather than a riotous and spirited kind of godawful (cf. Showgirls, The Apple), yet the whole audience was forcing the laughter out of their lungs at even the most entropic scenes. (And it was definitely forced rather than spontaneous laughter: a little too loud, high, staccato, and fast.)

And don't get me started on the time I saw Grey Gardens...

And at one point at this very screening Wed. night - this was at L.A.'s Egyptian Theater - a guy on the other side of the theater erupted at some laughers: "Will you shut up and give the film a chance!? It's STYLIZED!" I was bemused, as there wasn't too much laughing, really, and it was more or less at "appropriate" points in the movie. (There is quite a lot that's funny in it, mostly "intentionally," I guess I would say. I was laughing at stuff, and exchanging glances with my girlfriend, who had never seen it before.)

It seems to be universal that every crowd viewing "Imitation of Life" will burst into laughter and applause when Sandra Dee says, "Oh, mother! Stop acting!" Gets 'em every time.

on the one hand, it can be a kind of honest reaction, on the other, it seems often above all a controllable social reaction, somewhat forced. (but so are so many reactions to films, and other things.)

my snobbishness (or whatever it is) often gets the better of me, although i don't really regret that. the worst experience i had of this kind is during a screening of "ordet," when the crucial moment came and a few people behind me were chortling. i felt imposed upon (especially since i was crying my eyes out at the time), as though this person or persons had decided that a scene of resurrection was simply too silly to countenance, and--perhaps i was being paranoid--i took this to mean that he was thinking that dreyer, and the many sympathetic audience members the film has found in 50 years, are all somehow beneath his chastened view of things.

when i see a moment of extremity, extreme stylization, whatever, in a film, i often sort of let out an unanticipated grunt of awe, which can even resemble a laugh, but it's a laugh of being so impressed as to be beside myself. i find those sort of moments in films produce several reactions at once and i seem to make different sorts of sounds depending. that's not the same as howling laughter though.

pedantic sirk critics are many, unfortunately; not many critics that i've read seem to have really looked at the films for themselves. tag gallagher is one who has, i'd recommend his essays on sirk (though he prefers "scandal in paris" to any of the late universal pictures, oddly enough).

favorite moment in "imitation of life": "look, a falling star!", which i find to be totally inexplicably moving *and* funny, one of those moments where i tend to smile widely and/or make strange little noises in appreciation.

this was in boston ca. 2000. i think most of the audience was sympathetic.

i guess the way i view it, despite myself perhaps, is that that guy--for example--failed a test. it's not a good way to view things, because it can lead to a vision of cinema where directors are vying for the most patience-testing, most extreme forms. i.e. a world of von triers. there are other and better ways to go about making art. but i think crucially that neither sirk nor dreyer were ever after any sort of prize for extremity, quite the contrary. and it's the evident sincerity of their respective films (though i esteem dreyer much more, i should add) that makes me appreciative, and have so little patience for those who don't have any patience or imagination face to them.

reading many reviews of the passion showed a lot of critics determined to NOT be moved by something--and it makes me wonder how much an emotional reaction to art is voluntary.

I do this too. : \

i gotta see imitation of life! it's my mom's favourite movie!

'so please, no flash, no necking in the pew,
or snorting just to let your neighbour know

you get the clever stuff, or eyeing the watch,
or rustling the wee poke of butterscotch

you'd brought to charm the sour edge off the sermon.'

[...]

also Rock Hudson’s cool besties who catch lobsters & have key parties w the local townfolk? so down

the son & daughter from All That Heaven Allows are all-time assholes, i want to fight them every time i watch the movie

― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl),

all-time villains. I want to defenestrate the son and ensure he falls in hot tar.

when that fkn piece of shit son buys her a goddamn tv set and doesnt come home for christmas i’m googling his college to send a hit squad to his dorm room

forgot about this but now I'm pissed off all over again!

Stack & Malone in Written On The Wind

I think it was Robin Wood who suggested that these two become sympathetic figures as the movie goes on, and Hudson and Bacall are seen as self-righteous scolds.

also Rock Hudson’s cool besties who catch lobsters & have key parties w the local townfolk? so down

― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, September 29, 2024 4:25 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

seriously, been on the lookout for this crew irl ever since i saw the movie

you know who else i've wanted irl since i saw the film all that heaven allows dir douglas sirk (1955)?

rock hudson

I think it was Robin Wood who suggested that these two become sympathetic figures as the movie goes on, and Hudson and Bacall are seen as self-righteous scolds.

― Halfway there but for you,

Yep. David Thomson too.

I think it was Robin Wood who suggested that these two become sympathetic figures as the movie goes on, and Hudson and Bacall are seen as self-righteous scolds.

― Halfway there but for you,

Yep. David Thomson too.

Well, the term is relative. The daughter in Magnificent Obsession redeems herself by the halfway point of her film too.

I didn’t realize or remember, until Sirk mentioned it in that interview, that James Dean had an early role in a film of his… Has Anybody Seen My Gal?

― Wooly Bully (2005 Remaster) (morrisp), Sunday, January 7, 2024 1:54 PM (nine months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Kino put out a Blu this year that I picked up in their most recent sale and screened this afternoon. It's the most subdued '50s musical, modest little production numbers spread out in a confectioner's choice satire of pre-Depression small town (pre-suburban) mores. The jerk son from ATHA & TAT plays a nice guy! An endearing deep cut, and yeah, James Dean has bit role that he totally owns. Kid was going places.

Comp of his German films coming up from Eureka.

Saw that, very tempted

It’s interesting to me that All That Heaven Allows was so influential; whenever I watch it, I find it somewhat difficult to engage with. Even the “forbidden love” plot feels so thin, bc Hudson’s character isn’t really anybody. If anything, I guess the movie feels most about Wyman’s character taking control of her own life, and the romance story feels like a fairly rickety mechanism to express that theme.

It is a little funny how Hudson seems like the least outdoorsy outdoorsman ever… that never-been-worn jacket, lol (just found this interesting web page on his wardrobe).

To put it another way, the film feels to me like a somewhat rote contrivance – as opposed to the hugely creative, audacious, and deeply involving contrivance of something like Written on the Wind.

Had the very same reaction at a screening of it last year. The Hudson character in the first part of the film simply isn't believable. The reformed version of him is believable, but that's as you say a contrivance. (I initially read "rote contrivance" as "role contrivance" and I guess both are accurate).

whereas it's slowly become my friend, in part because the domestic scenario -- the tensions between Wyman and her awful, awful kids -- convinces me. Wyman deserves credit for its believability.

*become my favorite lol

Hudson is totally unbrlievable yes but I don't see why a wish fulfillment fantasy dreamboat in a melodrama should be realistic!

All That Heaven Allows is def my favourite Sirk too, not least because the film preserves in glorious colour midcentury modern American furnishings, decor and design, and has good mean fun observing the television set invading and colonising the domestic space. It's a contrivance of mise en scene.

Had the movie ended with the scene where Wyman sits entombed in front of her new TV set it would've been perfect.

Hudson is totally unbrlievable yes but I don't see why a wish fulfillment fantasy dreamboat in a melodrama should be realistic!

― a ZX spectrum is haunting Europe (Daniel_Rf), Monday, May 12, 2025 2:06 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah what's missing in this revive is this is a very gay movie for gay men. the rock hudson fantasy may as well be a mythical foundational text in that world. same with the wyman arc. she is basically standing in as a gay man who leaves her suffocating family life for authentic love and a somewhat cozified and denatured masculine fantasy with size queen tendencies (though i would argue still drawn with enough depth that it retains its vitality - the thoreau stuff and the hippie friend group helps).

what is understandably cheese and caricature in the eyes of many is, for me, a very brave and quite beautiful expression of idealism. not without its blind spots of course. a lot of gay butch fantasy is in a similar zone for reasons. tom of finland is another example.

Love and Life: A Song
By John Wilmot Earl of Rochester

All my past life is mine no more,
The flying hours are gone,
Like transitory dreams giv’n o’er,
Whose images are kept in store
By memory alone.

The time that is to come is not;
How can it then be mine?
The present moment’s all my lot;
And that, as fast as it is got,
Phyllis, is only thine.

Then talk not of inconstancy,
False hearts, and broken vows;
If I, by miracle, can be
This live-long minute true to thee,
’Tis all that Heav'n allows.

Lovely posts, map.

I'm an outlier, and I think, based on our conversations about Sirk, dear Morbs was another: I accepted my three or four beloved Sirk films the same the 1950s public did, i.e. as expert melodramas. Career-best performances by actors, shrewd manipulations of interior design, creative lighting, etc. My response to Written on the Wind when I saw it in 1996 at the height of the Sirk reappraisal was, "This rules!"

No one's wrong about watching them as allegories, though, as melodramas reflect the rules of the society game as written at the time of their release.

How do y'all rate Magnificent Obsession? I may have only seen that once (twice at the most), back when I was first exposed to these films – which, yes, was in '96/'97 (in school).

Saw it again last week; a notch below the two I've mentioned. I like Wyman the less she does.

I probably asked before but has anyone read Born to Be Hurt?

Magnificent Obsession has that batshit speech early on that makes you feel like you're watching a scientology video or something. Doesn't have the same emotional resonance as All That Heaven Allows for me but I admire its weirdness (plus ofc it looks gorge).

I should check it out again, when the chance arises... looks like it's not streaming anywhere right now.

Magnificent Obsession has that batshit speech early on that makes you feel like you're watching a scientology video or something. Doesn't have the same emotional resonance as All That Heaven Allows for me but I admire its weirdness (plus ofc it looks gorge).

LURED and SHOCKPROOF both on TCM right now and leaving at the end of the month. Never seen either.

Lured is pretty good... not sure if I've seen Shockproof

I caught Thunder On The Hill on Criterion Channel before it left last month: it gets labelled as a Noir, but it's closer to a minor Hitchcockian Thriller--with NUNS!

Ann Bylth--non-Sirk asshole kid Veda from Mildred Pierce--plays the condemned but possibly innocent murderess whom Sister Claudette Colbert races against the clock to save.

Lured is wonderful.

I caught Thunder On The Hill on Criterion Channel before it left last month: it gets labelled as a Noir, but it's closer to a minor Hitchcockian Thriller--with NUNS!

Ann Bylth--non-Sirk asshole kid Veda from Mildred Pierce--plays the condemned but possibly innocent murderess whom Sister Claudette Colbert races against the clock to save.

_Lured_ is wonderful.

Lucille Ball, George Sanders, Boris Karloff, and Cedric Hardwicke -- how eclectic can you get?

I said TCM but I meant Criterion. Trying to watch SHOCKPROOF sinced I can watch LURED elsewhere. So far so good,

since

Shockproof is pretty good, marred by a stiff villain and some very obvious studio interference with Sam Fuller's (!) script.

Literally just got done with Lured, which effin' rocked.

Made you post this? In every old British movie ever

Yes.

Very good, sir!

Stiff, non-menacing villain somehow added to the Sirkiness of it all. Seems like that guy was mostly a television actor who appeared on almost every single show during his heyday, at least according to his Wikipedia article, although nowadays he is pretty much forgotten.

Would have been a different movie if that guy was played by, say, Cagney or Widmark, by Dan Duryea or Robert Mitchum.

The new-ish Criterion Blue-ray of WOTW is luminous.

In the included featurette Robert Stack surprised me with his subtlety and intelligence.

Yeah, I remember thinking the same thing about hin.

Him even

I remember the Airplane guys saying that of all the old school stars they worked with Robert Stack was the one who TOTALLY got what they were up to.