Magnificent Obsession (Sirk, 1954): Regent Street Cinema, 1pm
Time Out review:
Douglas
Sirk directed a number of films which say an awful lot about '50s
America. A European who saw Americans more clearly than most, he found,
in the 'women's weepies' producers often gave him, a freedom to examine
contemporary middle class values. This one (from a novel by Lloyd C
Douglas) has a preposterous plot: playboy Hudson takes up medicine again
after being indirectly responsible for the death of a philanthropic
doctor and directly responsible for his widow's blindness. Assuming the
dead man's role, Rock Hudson starts practising the same kind of
secretive Christianity, but has to resort to an alias to win the widow
herself. Sirk turns all this into an extraordinary film about vision:
sight, destiny, blindness (literal and figurative), colour and light;
the convoluted, rather absurd actions (a magnificent repression?)
tellingly counterpointed by the clean compositions and the straight
lines and space of modern architecture. Sirk's films are something else:
can Fassbinder even hold a candle to them?
Chris Peachment
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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