History Creator / DouglasSirk

!! Selected Filmography

* ''Schlußakkord'' (1936)

Douglas Sirk (April 26, 1897 – January 14, 1987) directed several {{melodrama}}s that defined, for some, TheFifties at its [[TastesLikeDiabetes kitschy]] worst: they were set in stereotypical StepfordSuburbia, had plots with the worst melodramatic cliches, and usually featured the most boring and obvious {{Happy Ending}}s. They were also huge box-office hits at the time, but even when FilmNoir and TheWestern became VindicatedByHistory, people thumbed their noses at Sirk for not being TrueArt. That changed -- gradually, of course -- thanks to the help of edgy directors like Creator/JeanLucGodard and Creator/RainerWernerFassbinder, who picked up on the subtext of his films and realized that there was MoreThanMeetsTheEye, that the real story was in the MeaningfulBackgroundEvent and the visual style of the film rather than the plot that was mandated by censorship.

He was born Hans Detlef Sierck in Germany and became an associate of the German artistic community in the '20s and '30s. He knew the likes of Max Brod, Creator/BertoltBrecht, Kurt Weill and several others. He was a major intellectual who knew his Euripides and Creator/WilliamShakespeare well. To put it simply he was already a master of PlayingWithATrope way before it became cool. The rise of Nazism caused personal trauma for him. His first wife was a Nazi and his second wife was Jewish; his first wife consequently won custody of their son and Sirk was barred from seeing him. He stayed in Germany even during the early years of the Third Reich in the vain hopes of rescuing his son but ultimately, he and his wife had to be smuggled out of Germany to France and then to America. His son, sadly, died in the Russian front.

* ''Taza, Son of Cochise''(1954)

Douglas Sirk (April 26, 1897 -- January 14, 1987) directed several melodramas that defined, for some, TheFifties at its [[TastesLikeDiabetes kitschy]] worst: they were set in stereotypical StepfordSuburbia, had plots with the worst melodramatic cliches, and usually featured the most boring and obvious {{Happy Ending}}s. They were also huge box-office hits at the time, but even when FilmNoir and TheWestern became VindicatedByHistory, people thumbed their noses at Sirk for not being TrueArt. That changed -- gradually, of course -- thanks to the help of edgy directors like Creator/JeanLucGodard and Creator/RainerWernerFassbinder, who picked up on the subtext of his films and realized that there was MoreThanMeetsTheEye, that the real story was in the MeaningfulBackgroundEvent and the visual style of the film rather than the plot that was mandated by censorship.

He was born Detlef Sierk in Germany and became an associate of the German artistic community in the '20s and '30s. He knew the likes of Max Brod, Creator/BertoltBrecht, Kurt Weill and several others. He was a major intellectual who knew his Euripides and Creator/WilliamShakespeare well. To put it simply he was already a master of PlayingWithATrope way before it became cool. The rise of Nazism caused personal trauma for him. His first wife was a Nazi and his second wife was Jewish; his first wife consequently won custody of their son and Sirk was barred from seeing him. He stayed in Germany even during the early years of the Third Reich in the vain hopes of rescuing his son but ultimately, he and his wife had to be smuggled out of Germany to France and then to America. His son, sadly, died in the Russian front.

In Hollywood he made his mark directing UsefulNotes/WW2 propaganda before making a series of melodramas in the 50s that starred Rock Hudson. They remain the star's best performances and Sirk felt that the latter was very underrated. He quit film-making after 1959's ''Imitation of Life'' (which would be Creator/{{Universal}}'s biggest box-office hit until ''Film/{{Airport}}'' a decade later), and in his retirement became TheMentor for several young film-makers including Creator/RainerWernerFassbinder, who made several films in homage to him. He would later influence filmmakers like Creator/DavidLynch, Creator/QuentinTarantino (Travolta orders the "Douglas Sirk steak," which can be served burned or bloody, in ''Film/PulpFiction''), and Creator/ToddHaynes.

* ''Written on the Wind'' (1956)