Sirk, Douglas, 1897-1987

Douglas Sirk (born Hans Detlef Sierck; 26 April 1897 – 14 January 1987) was a German film director best known for the film melodramas he directed in Hollywood during the 1950s. However, he also directed comedies, westerns, and war films. Sirk started his career in Germany during the Weimar period as a stage and screen director, but he left for Hollywood in 1937 after his Jewish wife was persecuted by the Nazis. In the 1950s, he achieved his greatest commercial success with the films Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind, A Time to Love and a Time to Die, and Imitation of Life. While those films were initially panned by critics as sentimental women's pictures, they are today widely regarded by film directors, critics, and scholars as masterpieces. His work is seen as a "critique of the bourgeoisie in general and of 1950s America in particular", while painting a "compassionate portrait of characters trapped by social conditions". Beyond the surface of the film, Sirk worked with complex mise-en-scène and lush Technicolor to underline his statements.