Imitation of Life (Stahl, 1934): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6pm
This screening, part of the Melodrama season at BFI Southbank, will be introduced by Ellen E Jones, film and TV journalist and author of Screen Deep: How film and TV can solve racism and save the world.
Chicago Reader review:
The first version (1934) of Fannie Hurst’s elaborate soap opera about a
working girl who promotes her maid’s pancake recipe into a fast-food
empire, and the trials and tribulations of the maid’s daughter, who
tries to pass for white. Douglas Sirk’s famous 1959 remake was pure
metaphysics; this version emphasizes the social content, particularly in
its Depression-era attention to class nuances. Director John Stahl was a
notable visual stylist (although this film contains few of his
characteristic flourishes) and was possessed of the prime asset of the
melodramatist, the ability to take his material seriously and make it
play. It seems racist now, of course, but it was earnest in its time.
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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