What's the Matter with Sara Jane
"Daughters and Mothers in Douglas Sirk's "Imitation of Life
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8905269 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Marina Heung (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1987 |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 21-21 |
| Publication date | 1987-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cinema Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0009-7101 • E-ISSN: 1527-2087 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1224906 |
| OpenAlex | W2322739256 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 5 |
Even at casual glance, Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life (1959) has considerable importance in the history of the Hollywood film. Fannie Hurst's novel' had already been adapted into film in 1934 by John Stahl, but Sirk's version achieved far greater commercial success than did its predecessor, earning it status as one of Universal's highest grossing films in history.2 Also, as Sirk's last work before his voluntary retirement, the film represents the culminating achievement of an important career. And, with the waning of the woman's film genre in the late fifties (to await its revival, with new inflections, in the early seventies), the release of Imitation in 1959 and its subsequent phenomenal success seem in retrospect to be a fitting summation of the genre, or, as Molly Haskell has said, one of its glorious-and subversive-last gasps.3 Yet, beyond its immediate historical context, Imitation has unique relevance to film criticism and feminist scholarship in the mid-eighties. Recent writings about the woman's film have drawn on the notion that, given the inherently patriarchal outlook of the typical Hollywood product, this particular genre represents a body of work that at least purports to assume a feminine point of view and to address the conflicts and aspirations of a predominantly female audience. As a sub-genre of the woman's film, the maternal melodrama, in particular, has received much attention. Finding in it a treatment of a topic often ignored in other genres (namely, the relationship between mothers and daughters), critics have been seeking further insight into the way the patriarchal code typically positions women in relation to the institution of the family. In light of its concern with mother-daughter relationships, and with woman's work and woman's place, Imitation is obviously a pertinent example. Its unique story structure is a rarity, even within the context of the woman's film, in that it explicitly develops a parallel between its two female protagonists, one white and one black. As a result, a discourse on race becomes a crucial complication of the prototypical themes of the woman's film. By juxtaposing Lora Meredith (Lana Turner), a white actress, with Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore), her black maid, and by counterposing the two women's relationships with their daughters, the film offers an opportunity to observe an unusual and revealing intersection of the issues of race, class, and gender. Ultimately, an analysis of the film in these terms yields an understanding of how the woman's
Art · Humanities · Imitation · American and British Literature Analysis · Cinema and Media Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,1 |
| Citation span | 1996 - 2002 (7) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |