#Imitation of Life

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oblique eagle
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Poll here: #unspooled-polls message

oblique eagle
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<@&961324191204925460>

ornate flame
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Got confused and watched the 1934 version instead of the 1959 one. The 34 was really good and enjoyed it. Will watch the 59 one tonight

tender meadow
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I haven't watched yet, but hopefully soon.

median furnace
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||With all the comparisons between Sirk and Paul Verhoeven, I was hoping they’d note the common thread of Dan O'Herlihy appearing in this film as playwright David Edwards as well as the “Old Man”, the CEO of Omni Consumer Products in RoboCop!
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hardy cove
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One I haven’t seen in ages that I’ll definitely have to rewatch as that utterly surrealistic scene of the passing character in the club has come to totally dominate my overall impression of the film.

oblique eagle
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I feel like I got the "cheat sheet" for how to watch this movie back in 2002 when I saw Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven, easily his most explicit Sirk homage. It takes most of the complexity and really ramps it up, plus adding more gay subtext along with the racial one. I also remember arguing with folks on the Rotten Tomatoes message boards who thought that movie was just a dumb melodrama, saying that you needed to observe the complicated argument it's making about sheltered 1950s housewives being unable to understand social issues but also how it wasn't entirely their fault.

Anyway, this might be spaceworthy, but I feel like I need to sample more Sirk to decide on that.

errant palm
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It's a myth that negative reviews of Starship Troopers didn't notice it was satire. Roger Ebert's clearly referred to it as such, it was just dumb satire. I am going to guess you can't find reviews of Imitation of Life at the time which did the same. Both have novels as source material, but Imitation of Life was also a remake of a John Stahl movie, and I'm guessing if Paul only just heard of this film he hasn't seen that. I watched all three Sirk movies remade from Stahl's, and in each case found Stahl's to be better & less melodramatic. https://thepopculturists.blogspot.com/2022/12/this-weekend-in-pop-culture-december-9.html#comment-6062875007

I find it odd that Sirk claims he left Hollywood due to feeling artistically constrained, when he lived long enough to make more movies (as a film professor) and things loosened up shortly after this film.

You can say it's "comical", but it really is the truth that having kids impacts women's careers in a way it doesn't for men. I also didn't find it that implausible that Mrs. Johnson would offer to work for room & board, which was more common in a poorer era (particularly the 30s, when the original film was made).

Isn't she a Broadway stage actress rather than a "movie star"?

There had already been an American director who made a movie titled "Imitation of Lilfe": John Stahl. He was born in the Russian Empire, but moved to the US as a child.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone bring up Douglas Sirks comedies, rather than his melodramas. Has Amy watched any of them?

I haven't seen Green Book, but I don't believe it claims the characters "solved" racism.

Johnson's daughter doesn't want her mother's help, she wants nothing to do with her mother that would connect the two.

This Weekend in Pop Culture: December 9-11

Welcome to the Weekend in Pop Culture! Let's examine what's coming out in theaters this weekend... Empire of Light The employees of a movie ...

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I watched three Todd Haynes film this week (including both Far From Heaven & Carol), partly because you were covering this, and his 50s period pieces were more restrained than I expected.

errant palm
oblique eagle
fickle mauve
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I hit on something Paul said at the end of the episode, summarizing that some of these older films have more going on than we first thought.

I’ve heard the 50s described as a dull time for Hollywood films (I think even by Tarantino), but I think it was a fascinating decade! I feel like every year I discover a few more prescient, brilliant films made that decade.

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I think it was a very conservative time in America, postwar, pre-60s rebellion, steady Eisenhower, the Red Scare. So a lot of artists were making great work, but it all had to be a bit more subtle.

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I think this film falls into that camp. Great stuff.

thin patrol
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Gotta say, if I hadn't heard/read what Amy & Paul said & what you're all posting here, hearing the movie's dialogue would have made me dismiss the movie and think that this is yet another '50s melodrama.
I'm drawn to think that Sirk not born and raised in the US gave him a different POV on what society was like during that time.
My extra surprise: Sirk released a movie every year from 1946 to '59!
That's more output than say, Diabolical Canadian director James Cameron (jk on the extra adjectives. It's a reference to Future Man the TV series)

tidal birch
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I think melodrama is a genre that rewards engagement, in that the first melodrama you watch feels over the top, and like it isn’t saying anything of substance. But the more melodramas you watch, the easier it becomes to see the subtext in all these films, and the more meaningful the movies become.
Some of my favorite movies are melodramas but I don’t often recommend them to friends because if you’ve never seen the style, I think it’s harder to enjoy.
Anyway, I love Imitation of Life, I think Douglas Sirk is a genius and one of his movies must be sent to space. I personally wouldn’t pick this one, I think Written on the Wind is his best, and All That Heaven Allows was the most influential, but I’d settle for sending any Sirk!

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@errant palm re your point about Sirk’s comedies, I haven’t seen many of them, just Has Anybody Seen My Gal? and it’s good. As comedies go it really isn’t anything special, but even in a silly comedy, Sirk is making points about class and sexual repression.

tender meadow
tidal birch
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God this really was such a great episode! I do think The Notebook is a melodrama and I’m glad Amy caught herself wanting to “stick up” for the notebook and say it isn’t a melodrama—as if melodrama is a bad thing and good movies that we love can’t be melodramas. I was thrilled to hear a conversation about why melodrama is worthy art too, not just sudsy nonsense. For me, the over the top Feelings in a melodrama sometimes facilitate an emotional experience for me that I don’t think I’d have otherwise. By having this characters with huge performances, I can lock into that emotion too, which I guess some people find manipulative, but which I love.
Douglas Sirk already put it best with his quote “there is a very short distance between high art and trash, and trash that contains an element of craziness is by this very quality nearer to art.” In a way, the fact that a lot of people don’t like melodrama may be the point. It’s crazy trash that is, in the hands of the right director (Sirk, Waters, Almodóvar, Haynes, Bollywood director Karan Johar) becomes high art

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Also a fun fact, Lana Turner was discovered in high school by Henry Willson, an agent who also represented Rock Hudson (who made 9 movies with Sirk) and Troy Donahue who played the racist boyfriend in this movie! And yes, all three of them were given new names, which was Henry’s signature move.

oak totem
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What initially drew me to this podcast was that it'd force me to see a bunch of stuff I always "meant" to see. I'm glad they're still doing that, and occationally toss in old weird movies like Imitation of Life. I'm glas I saw this movie... I will not watch it again however. I didn't enjoy it. The directing was great. But the story was dumb and the acting was ridiculous. The only part I was drawn to was the story of Annie and her daughter trying to pass as white. If it wasn't so Schmaltzy I'd probably like that part... Still I'm thrilled this pod gave me the excuse to check out this movie and learn a bit more about movie history.

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Anyway I prefer Gidget.

runic dagger
fickle mauve
ornate flame
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We got a chance to watch the other night. Got to say I enjoyed the 1934 version better. I get that the 59 version is playing off of the real life drama and putting a lens on Hollywood at the time. The main difference between the two is for me the focus of the 34 version on female autonomy and becoming a successful woman in her own right. While there was help from a man to expand beyond a pancake restaurant, Claudette’s character remained the powerhouse of the business and CEO. Deliah, the poc that lived with them, was much more than a maid which made the daughters story more compelling. The 59 was much more male centric in that the woman depended on the men to be successful. All in all I think it’s telling of how women were treated in society during the time periods that they were made. It was jarring to see women taking a step back over 20 years

runic dagger
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TBF these are two filmmaker’s fictitious representations of women’s place in society. Not necessarily accurate in either case and either could be overly optimistic or pessimistic compared to actual society at the time.

tender meadow
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I haven't seen the 1934 version, so no comments on that. I thought this version was compelling and I teared up at the end. The performances are old fashioned but very good. Some of the shots are great and I can see why directors would really like it.

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I do believe remakes need to justify their existence more than other movies. It feels that there was a desire to update it from the civil rights movement. I think this story could probably be told again, though so many dynamics have changed, so there would need to be a lot of updates.

tender meadow
tender meadow
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I think he may also have been talking specifically about the studio system.

errant palm
tender meadow
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I can only speak to what they said: that the plot about taking a black woman's waffle/pancake recipe and using it to get rich (as she turns down a percentage) was thought to not be as appropriate after Brown v. Board.

errant palm
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they BOTH get rich

tender meadow
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She's offered 20% and she refuses. Either way, that's not really the point.

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There were other factors to making Laura a actor. First was to engage in critiques of Hollywood. Second was it creates excuses for Laura to disappear to put more focus on the two actors of color. (Again, that's according to others, not my interpretation)

errant palm
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two actors of color?

tender meadow
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If you didn't know who I was talking about, it was Juanita Moore and Susan Kohlner. If it did know who I was talking about, then I'm not interested in having an argument of the "racial status" of Mexican Americans in the United States.

errant palm
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the original actually cast an actress with a background matching the character. i'm not going to give any credit to the remake for casting an actress without any black ancestry in the role, and who regularly played white characters