Douglas Sirk was a German film director who fled Nazi Germany in 1937 and became known for directing melodramas in 1950s Hollywood. He is best known for six Technicolor melodramas at Universal in the 1950s that typically addressed social issues through the lens of family dynamics. While commercially successful, Sirk's films were dismissed by critics as "women's weepies" but his reputation was revived in the 1970s as his works influenced many later directors. The document discusses Sirk's background and career, defines his style of social melodrama, and compares his approach to melodrama with other genres and directors like Stanley Kramer.

1. THE FIRST LEGION
DOUGLAS SIRK, 1951
UCLA Restoration
Screened at Emory University, February 15, 2017
Introduced by Marc Bousquet,

2. DOUGLAS SIRK, REFUGEE
 Born in Hamburg, 1937. Studied law in Munich
1919; fled the Bavarian Soviet Republic
 Worked primarily in theater until 1934; began film-
making in Nazi Germany; fled 1937 after first wife
denounced him for second marriage to a Jewish
actress
 Only son killed on the Eastern front, 1944
 Best known for directing 6 Technicolor melodramas
for Universal in the 1950s
Publicity still for Sirk’s Hitler’s Madman (1942)

3. SIRK DEFINES FAMILY & SOCIAL MELODRAMA
 Sirkian melodrama typically addresses one or
more social evil, such as racism, class domination,
alcoholism, poverty, religious or social
conservativism, and sexism.
 Commonly the plot unfolds in the context of a
family, which serves as a pressure-cooker
intensifying the emotions and conflict.
 Women play larger, more complex and leading
roles than in many precursor films

4. SIRK’S RECEPTION
 His major films succeeded commercially but were
dismissed by contemporary critics as women’s
weepies
 Retired to Switzerland after Imitation of Life (1959);
Stanley Kramer continued to make similar family
and social melodramas through the 1960s
 Reputation revived in the 70s; influenced
Almadovar, Fassbinder, Lynch, Waters, etc
Katherine Hepburn and Beah Richards in Kramer’s
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

5. KRAMER’S AMERICAN GOTHIC

6. “YOU MADE HER—I JUST MET HER”
38:30

7. MELODRAMA BEFORE & AFTER SIRK
 19th century melodramatic stage genres all have
corollaries in Hollywood/global cinema, from
origins to the present day: Westerns, action
adventure,crime mystery, suspense, apocalyptic
dystopia, science fiction, magic & fantasy, etc.
 Characters embody good vs evil (black hats vs
white hats); heroes and/or victims generally don’t
change (much) internally; are usually
epistemological dramas of revelation (mystery
solved, mistaken identities cleared up, hero’s virtue
finally acknowledged by authority); catharsis is
completely satisfying (bad guys killed or
imprisoned; Death Star blown up; racist fired, etc)

8. WILL THE VILLAIN BE FOILED AGAIN?

9. WHITE HAT, BLACK HAT—IN BOARDING SCHOOL! IN SPACE!

10. REVERSE BLACK HAT!

11. BLOCKBUSTER=MELODRAMA

12. BAD HOMBRES & WARS AGAINST EVIL
1.39:35

13. SOCIAL MEDIA REPLIES… USING MELODRAMA

14. SIRK VS STAR WARS
 Sirkian melodrama: Evils are both social & individual
 Sirkian melodrama: Catharsis is incomplete
 Sirkian melodrama: Psychological realism
 Both focus on psychologically tormented families
 Both rely on sudden revelations and reverses
 Both rely on stereotypes, extreme situations and
heightened emotions
 Both find a way to convey social, political, psychological
and sexual ambiguities despite limited grammar
 Both address crises of belief in modernity
 Both feature subcultural spats between men in robes
Most serial television is influenced by one or
both kinds of melodrama. See these bullies at
the OK Corral in Freaks and Geeks, episode 1.

15. THINGS TO WATCH FOR
 How would you describe the family dynamic of the Jesuit community?
 How is the theme of traditional authority vs youth & modernity resolved?
 The tension between secular Enlightenment-rationalist modes of knowing and traditional belief systems
embracing unresolvable mystery.
 Competition over the nature of virtue