Movie #37: Released in 1959, 125 minutes, directed by Douglas Sirk. New to me!

LetterBoxd score: 5 stars

This was one I had never heard of, and I didn’t have time to really research it ahead of time, so went in blind. For someone like myself who grew up in the USA, it felt in some ways like “a very special episode” where race issues are kind of grafted onto the story of some white protagonists. Maybe this trope became formulaic later – there hadn’t been anything taking on race quite so straight-forwardly in the movies I’ve seen yet.

But this movie defied my expectations again and again. I originally thought Lora would sleep her way to the top. But then… nope. Then I thought it would be a sad decline story, because she refused to sleep her way to the top. But then… nope. Then I thought Lora’s agent Loomis would sexually assault Lora but… nope. Same with the playwright.

Most importantly, it defied my expectations by being the best possible version of what it was trying to do. Mostly, it functioned for me as a peak example of cinema as empathy machine. It expertly chose little details for Sarah Jane (as a child) to say: “Mama, I’m so tired, I want to go home too,” and “Why do we always have to live in the back.” I found myself talking to the characters on screen. And at the end I wiped away a tear.

It’s also a pretty overt message movie, but done well. At a surface level, there’s the simple message that the life satisfaction you can get from professional success alone hits a ceiling. But more subtly, it also suggests a lot of good stuff is happening in Annie’s life that we, like the white protagonists, don’t see (“you never asked.”) The funeral is a sign of how good a life she lived though.

And I can’t help but also see the movie as a meaningful time capsule from a moment in history. We’ve come a long way from the issues depicted in this movie; a woman can have a career and a family now. You don’t have to be white to achieve professional success any more (though it still helps). And an unthinkable romantic relationship between white and non-white people is now commonplace. Loving v. Virginia is still 8 years in the future, when this is released.

Why would someone think it’s one of the ten greatest films ever made?

It’s a certain genre of movie operating at peak power, covering an important part of American history.

Next: Some Like It Hot