It would be easy to dismiss the films of Douglas Sirk (1897-1987) as
brilliant examples of mid-century melodrama with little to say to the
contemporary world. Yet Robert Pippin argues that, far from being
marginal pieces of sentimentality, Sirk's films are rich with irony,
insight and depth. Indeed Sirk's films, often celebrated as classics of
the genre, are attempts to subvert rather than conform to rules of
conventional melodrama.
The visual style, story and characters of films like All That Heaven
Allows, Written on the Wind and Imitation of Life are explored to
argue for Sirk as an incredibly nuanced moral thinker. Instead of
imposing moralising judgements on his characters, Sirk presents them as
people who do 'wrong' things often without understanding why or how,
creating a complex and unsettling ethics. Pippin argues that it this
moral ambiguity and ironic richness enables Sirk to produce films that
grapple with important themes such as race, class and gender with real
force and political urgency.
Douglas Sirk: Filmmaker and Philosopher argues for a filmmaker who
was a 'disruptive not restorative' auteur and one who broke the rules in
the most interesting and subtle of ways.
