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Douglas Sirk |
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Director |
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1900 - 1987 |
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Born April 26,
Hamburg, Germany |
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Key
Production Country: USA
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Key Genres: Drama,
Melodrama, Romance, Adventure, Family Drama, War Drama |
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Key
Collaborators: Alexander
Golitzen (Production Designer), Ross Hunter (Producer), Russell Metty
(Cinematographer), Frank Skinner (Composer), Rock Hudson (Leading Player), Russell Schoengarth (Editor), Joseph Gershenson (Composer), Milton
Carruth (Editor), Bernard Herzbrun (Production Designer), William Reynolds (Leading
Character Player) |
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Highly
Recommended: Sleep
My Love (1948), Magnificent
Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955)*, There's Always Tomorrow
(1956)*, Written on the Wind (1956)*, The Tarnished Angels (1957)*,
Imitation of Life (1959)* |
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Recommended:
Shockproof (1949), Thunder
on the Hill (1951), Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952), All I Desire
(1953), Interlude (1957), A
Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)* |
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Worth a Look: Final
Accord (1936), Hitler's Madman (1943), A Scandal in Paris (1946), Meet
Me at the Fair (1952), Take Me to Town (1953) |
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Approach with Caution:
La Habanera (1937), Sign of the Pagan (1954), Captain Lightfoot (1955),
Battle Hymn (1957) |
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* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section. |
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Links:
[
Amazon
] [
IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Senses
of Cinema: Great Directors ] [
Film Reference ]
[
Bright
Lights Feature on Sirks' Imitation of Life ] [
Images
Feature ] [
Henry
Sheehan Essay ] [
Bright
Lights Film Journal Feature (2005) ] [
Boston Phoenix Article ] [
Chicago Reader
Article (2006) ] [
Screening the Past Article (2007) ] [
Moving Image Source Article (2008) ] |
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Books: [
Melodrama
and Meaning: History, Culture and the Films of Douglas Sirk ] [
Sirk
on Sirk ] [
Imitation of Life ] |
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"Most of
the projects assigned to him were unpromising in content and
miniscule in budget. He was often forced to contend with
ridiculous scripts, ranging in genre from thriller to maudlin
soap operas. That he managed to overcome the handicap and end up
with a good number of thoroughly enjoyable films is a tribute to
his personal taste and the formal excellence of his visual style." -
(The
MacMillan International Film Encyclopedia, 1994) |
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"Time,
if nothing else, will vindicate Douglas Sirk as it has already
vindicated
Josef von Sternberg.
Formal excellence and visual wit are seldom as appreciated at
first glance as are the topical sensations of the hour. One big
obstacle to an appreciation of his oeuvre is an inbred
prejudice to what Raymond Durgnat has called the genre of the
female weepies as opposed to the male weepies. -
Andrew
Sarris (The American Cinema, 1968) |
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"Though
the erudite Sirk worked in the intellectually disreputable realm
of the melodrama, his alertness to the injustices underlying the
American Dream and his commitment to underdog characters made
for heart-rending, thought-provoking cinema." -
Geoff
Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999) |
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"Stylish melodramas form the core of Sirk's reputation, but he
lensed suspense films, costume dramas, comedies, and even
Westerns with flair." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
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"So slowly
in my mind formed the idea of melodrama, a form I found to
perfection in American pictures. They were naive, they were that
something completely different. They were completely Art-less."
- Douglas Sirk |
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"If I can
say one thing for my pictures, it is a certain craftsmanship. A
thought which has gone into every angle. There is nothing there
without an optical reason." -
Douglas Sirk |
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Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director that we
haven't seen include
Summer Storm
(1944), Lured (1947), Slightly French (1949), Mystery Submarine (1950),
The First Legion (1951), The Lady Pays Off (1951), Weekend with Father
(1951), No Room for the Groom (1952), and Taza, Son of Cochise (1954). |
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"No
other director has been more closely associated with the
concept of melodrama in cinema than Douglas Sirk… While
popular with audiences, Sirk’s films were often condemned by
contemporary film critics as examples of the sensationalism
and sentimentality of popular cinema. However, in France,
the critics of the influential Cahiers du Cinèma,
notably
François Truffaut and
Jean-Luc
Godard, praised Sirk’s distinctive visual style.
In the early 1970s a new generation of film scholars,
notably Thomas Elsaesser, Paul Willemen, Geoffrey Nowell-Smith,
and Fred Camper, ‘‘rediscovered’’ Sirk’s films, hailing them
as supreme examples of a subversive critique of postwar
American society expressed through stylized mise-en-scène
drawing on irony and Brechtian alienating devices. Sirk’s
work has influenced many subsequent filmmakers including
Rainer
Werner Fassbinder,
Martin Scorsese,
John Waters,
Pedro
Almodóvar,
Jonathan Demme, and
Todd Haynes."
-
John Mercer, Schirmer Encyclopedia of
Film |
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●
Top 250 Directors |
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●
The
Far Side of Paradise |
| ●
100 Essential Directors (Pop
Matters) |
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●
Fred Camper's Top 10 Directors |
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●
501 Movie Directors: A
Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers |
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See Also |
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