Imitation of Life (1959)
Directed by Douglas Sirk

Film Review

Imitation of Life is the crowning achievement of Douglas Sirk's glorious career in Hollywood, the last film he made in the United States before ill health led him to retire to Switzerland, where he spent the rest of his life in comparative obscurity.  The film was based on a novel by American writer Fannie Hurst, which had previously been adapted in 1934 by John M. Stahl, with Claudette Colbert in the leading role.  It would be the inspiration for a series of similar but inferior weepies made in the 1960s.

This was to be Universal Pictures' most successful film ever at the time; grossing over six million dollars, it helped the studio through a period of great financial difficulty.  Generally, the film was ill-received by the critics, many of whom dismissed it as an overblown soap opera.  Following a major reappraisal of Sirk's work in the 1970s, the film soon came to be regarded in a far more positive light and is now considered by many to be Sirk's masterpiece.

In common with many of Douglas Sirk's opulent Hollywood melodramas, Imitation of Life is a richly textured and subtly subversive film.  Beneath its lush surface gloss and overplayed heart-wrenching sentimentality, the film is a scathing piece of social criticism that attacks the failings of American society in the late 1950s.  Its central underlying theme is the threat that materialism poses to the nuclear family and the happiness of the individual.  It also examines the race issue, and far more directly than most films of this era.

Through the two main characters in the drama, Lora and Sarah Jane, Sirk satirises the attitudes of modern white and black Americans, in what can be interpreted as a bleak parody of the American dream.  Both women are compelled to live a life that is a sham.  Lora's life is a cheap imitation and she knows it.  She is willing to sacrifice truth and love to achieve fame and fortune.  Sarah Jane, meanwhile, detests the way in which black people are treated and believes that she will have a better life by cutting herself off from her black origins.  She sacrifices her family and her friends to try to win a better place in society, only to end up performing lewd dances in tawdry nightclubs.  Both Lora and Sarah Jane have a false idea of what happiness is and the tragedy is that neither woman is capable of realising this fact.

Annie Johnson, by contrast, would appear at first sight to represent some kind of ideal.  She knows her place in the world and accepts it.  She is content to bring love and support to those around her, expecting nothing in return.  But her life is perhaps the falsest of all.  She surrenders her freedom because this is what American society at that time expected of women of her colour.  Hers is a life of thwarted self-interest and self-inflicted pain, her consolation being the better life that is to come after her death.  The irony of all this is at once apparent in the grandeur of Annie's lavish funeral at the end of the film.  The American dream may not have benefited Annie Johnson in her life, but it provided her with the best send off a suitcase full of greenbacks can buy.

Film Synopsis

When she loses her 6-year-old daughter Suzie on a crowded beach, Lora Meredith is relieved to find her in the care of a friendly black woman, Annie Johnson.  With nowhere to stay and no job, Annie persuades Lora to let her work as her housemaid, in return for a room for herself and her daughter, Sarah Jane.   Lora is an actress who has been struggling to find work since her husband died.  Finally she gets a break, a small role in a stage play, but by taking this on she loses her boyfriend, Steve Archer.  Over the next ten years, Lora rises to become a major stage actress.  She has wealth and celebrity, but lacks one thing - love.  Then, one day, Steve re-enters her life and their former passion is rekindled, but not for long.  Lora is offered a part in an Italian film and when she is away her daughter starts to take an interest in Steve.  Meanwhile, Annie's daughter has grown up, only to be ashamed of her black origins and runs away from home.  Annie is desperate to find her and bring her back home, but Sarah Jane is determined to make her own life, as an ordinary white girl...