Imitation of Life (1934)
A beautiful and beautifully felt movie. Claudette Colbert, in the same year as her legendary role in "It Happened One Night," shows the really sincere charm and natural presence on screen even better here. She's a wonder, as an actress, and her role as a young struggling single mom, idealized for sure, and her success as a mature woman, is terrific stuff. A great movie, with a great performance.
The director, John Stahl, who gets maligned in the bio on this site (go to Wikipedia for a more balanced and fair view), was indeed a man of mixed talents, but he pulled off several really first rate movies. This version of "Imitation of Life" is remarkably clear and forceful and subtle. It's not quite a formula movie even if it has some standard Hollywood tricks (of the passing of time, of handling the filming and the back projection, all very convincingly). And it has a story at its core that is really rather forward thinking for a mainstream movie.
There are those (I've heard them) who find the approach to race too cloying and timid, but I say, show me a better film that people actually watched about the subject from this year. Just to find a way to deal with the idea of "passing," which means a black person passing as white in order to avoid prejudice, is terrific and necessary for the times. (By the way, for an insider look on this, read the extraordinary 1929 short novel, "Passing," by Nella Larsen.) The story for "Imitation of Life" is written by a white (Jewish) woman (Fanny Hurst) and is clearly taking up the broad themes of the depression. Written in 1933, it nailed themes that probably echoed some of the bigotry against Jews of the time, as both blacks and Jews were largely assimilating into mainstream America.
Inevitably the remake of this movie will come to mind, and luckily they are very different movies. I love Douglas Sirk for his stylizing excesses, and his willingness to identify clichés and make them the substance of his 1959 movie (including the cliché known as a tearjerker!). I watched them both together this week (back and forth between them), and you can check out that review, too, if you want.
Stahl's version, closer to the book in time and feeling than Sirk's, is in many ways a better movie, once you remove pure style from the equation. There is less to love, but much more to really like here, in the sincerity of the characters, the sweeping defiance against a Great Depression (that is mostly invisible), and in sheer personality. Terrific stuff!
A beautiful and beautifully felt movie. Claudette Colbert, in the same year as her legendary role in "It Happened One Night," shows the really sincere charm and natural presence on screen even better here. She's a wonder, as an actress, and her role as a young struggling single mom, idealized for sure, and her success as a mature woman, is terrific stuff. A great movie, with a great performance.
The director, John Stahl, who gets maligned in the bio on this site (go to Wikipedia for a more balanced and fair view), was indeed a man of mixed talents, but he pulled off several really first rate movies. This version of "Imitation of Life" is remarkably clear and forceful and subtle. It's not quite a formula movie even if it has some standard Hollywood tricks (of the passing of time, of handling the filming and the back projection, all very convincingly). And it has a story at its core that is really rather forward thinking for a mainstream movie.
There are those (I've heard them) who find the approach to race too cloying and timid, but I say, show me a better film that people actually watched about the subject from this year. Just to find a way to deal with the idea of "passing," which means a black person passing as white in order to avoid prejudice, is terrific and necessary for the times. (By the way, for an insider look on this, read the extraordinary 1929 short novel, "Passing," by Nella Larsen.) The story for "Imitation of Life" is written by a white (Jewish) woman (Fanny Hurst) and is clearly taking up the broad themes of the depression. Written in 1933, it nailed themes that probably echoed some of the bigotry against Jews of the time, as both blacks and Jews were largely assimilating into mainstream America.
Inevitably the remake of this movie will come to mind, and luckily they are very different movies. I love Douglas Sirk for his stylizing excesses, and his willingness to identify clichés and make them the substance of his 1959 movie (including the cliché known as a tearjerker!). I watched them both together this week (back and forth between them), and you can check out that review, too, if you want.
Stahl's version, closer to the book in time and feeling than Sirk's, is in many ways a better movie, once you remove pure style from the equation. There is less to love, but much more to really like here, in the sincerity of the characters, the sweeping defiance against a Great Depression (that is mostly invisible), and in sheer personality. Terrific stuff!