Douglas Sirk

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Douglas Sirk
Born

Hans Detlef Sierck

April 26, 1897
Hamburg, German Empire

Died

January 14, 1987 (aged 89)

Lugano, Ticino, Switzerland

Years active

19341979

Spouse(s)

Hilde Jary (18991989)

Lydia Brinken (d. 1947)

Douglas Sirk (born Hans Detlef Sierck; April 26, 1897 January 14, 1987) was a Germanfilm
director best known for his work in Hollywood melodramas in the 1950s.
Contents
[hide]

1 Life and work

o

1.1 Early life and Career in Germany

1.2 Career in the US

2 Reputation
o

2.1 Contemporary reception

2.2 Later reception

3 In popular culture

4 Awards

5 Filmography
o

5.1 Feature films

5.2 Short films

6 See also

7 References

8 Further reading

9 External links

Life and work[edit]

Early life and Career in Germany[edit]
Sirk was born Hans Detlef Sierck on 26 April 1897, in Hamburg, of Danish parentage; his
father was a newspaper reporter. He spent a few years in Denmark as a child, before his
parents returned to Germany and became citizens. Sirk discovered the theatre in his midteens, particularly Shakespeares history plays. and also began to frequent the cinema, where
he first encountered what he later described as dramas of swollen emotions; one of his early
screen favourites was Danish-born actress Asta Nielsen. In 1919, he enrolled to study law
at Munich University, but he left Munich following the violent collapse of a short-lived Bavarian
Soviet Republic. Between stints at university, he began writing for his father's newspaper, not
long before his father became a school principal.[1]
Sirk continued his studies for a time at University of Jena before transferring to Hamburg
University, where he switched to philosophy and the history of art. It was here that he attended
a lecture on relativity given by Albert Einstein. A major influence in this period was art
historian Erwin Panofsky - Sirk was a select member of Panofsky's seminar group for a
semester and wrote a large essay for him on the relationship between Medieval German
painting, and the mystery plays; in his 1971 interview with Halliday, Sirk declared, "I owe
Panofsky a lot." To support himself while studying, Sirk began working as a secondline dramaturg at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. In 1922, substituting for a
director who had fallen sick, Sirk directed his first production, the Hermann
Bossdorf play Bahnmeister Tod("Stationmaster Death"), which became a surprise success,
and from that point Sirk was (in his own words) "lost to the theatre".[2] In addition to the theatre,
Sirk worked in many areas of the arts during this formative period - he painted, took a summer
job as a set-designer at a Berlin film studio, published his own German translation of
Shakespeare's sonnets, translated some of Shakespeare's plays, and published writings of his
own.
Schauspielhaus manager Dr Paul Eger offered Sirk a pay raise and the chance to present "one
of those crazy modern (i.e. Expressionist) plays" but Sirk declared that he only wanted to direct
"the classics" and took up an offer to become first director at a playhouse in Chemnitzin
Saxony. The post proved to be a baptism of fire for the new director - although the company
started out with classic works by Molire, Buchner and Strindberg, the season was disrupted
when the theatre's main financier and manager gave up and vanished overnight, forcing the
cast and crew to form a collective to keep the theatre going, and the program soon changed to
comedies and melodramas - "things that made money". Although Sirk later recalled the period
as "a pretty terrible time", it was here that he learned his craft, and how to handle actors in
"the most strained circumstances". This was during the period of runaway inflation in Germany,
and Sirk remembered that they after distributing money to the company, they would have to run
to the bank with their takings just before midday, because at 12pm the banks would close their
shutters and post the new dollar rate - "... if you got in too late, you had just a small percentage
left of what you had earned ..."[3]

By the 1930s Sirk had become one of Germany's leading stage directors, with a list of credits
that included a production of Brecht's The Threepenny Opera. Sirk joined UFA (Universum
Film AG) studios in 1934, where he directed three shorts, followed by his first feature,April,
April (1935), which was filmed twice (once in Dutch and then in German). His
exotic melodramas Zu neuen Ufern and La Habaneramade a star of the Nazi cinema out of
Swedish singer Zarah Leander.

Career in the US[edit]

Sirk left Germany in 1937 because of his political leanings and his Jewish (second) wife,
actress Hilde Jary. Still in Europe he worked on films in Switzerland and the Netherlands. On
arrival in the United States, he soon changed his given, German name to Douglas Sirk. By
1942 he was under contract to Columbia Pictures and directing the stridently anti-Nazi Hitler's
Madman for the exiled German ProducerSeymour Nebenzal.
Father of one son Klaus Detlef Sierck (1925-1944), he was born on March 30, 1925 in BerlinCharlottenburg, Germany. He was an actor, known for Kopf hoch, Johannes! (1941), Streit um
den Knaben Jo (1937) and Die Saat geht auf (1935). He died on March 6, 1944 in
Novoaleksandrovka, Kirovograd Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, USSR (now Novooleksandrivka,
Kirovohrad Oblast, Ukraine).
Sirk briefly returned to Germany after the War ended, but returned to the U.S. and established
his reputation with a series of lush, colorful melodramas for Universal-International
Pictures from 1952 to 1959: Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven
Allows (1955), Written on the Wind (1956), The Tarnished Angels (1957), A Time to Love and a
Time to Die (1958), and Imitation of Life (1959).
Despite the enormous success of Imitation of Life in 1959 (partially fueled by the scandal
surrounding the murder of Lana Turner's boyfriend by her daughter), Sirk left the United States
and retired from filmmaking. He died in Lugano, Switzerland, nearly thirty years later, with only
a brief return behind the camera in Germany in the 1970s, teaching at the film school,
Hochschule fr Fernsehen und Film, in Munich.

Reputation[edit]
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this
article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and
removed. (July 2008)

Contemporary reception[edit]
Sirk's melodramas of the 1950s, while highly commercially successful, were generally very
poorly received by reviewers. His films were considered unimportant (because they revolve
around female and domestic issues), banal (because of their focus on larger-than-life feelings)
and unrealistic (because of their conspicuous style).

Later reception[edit]
Attitudes toward Sirk's films changed drastically in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s as his
work was re-examined by French, American, and British critics. As Jean-Luc Godard wrote in
his review of A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958), "...I am going to write a madly
enthusiastic review of Douglas Sirk's latest film, simply because it set my cheeks afire." [4]
The major critical reappraisal of Sirk began in in France with the April 1967 issue of Cahiers du
cinma, which included an extended interview with Sirk by Serge Daney and Jean-Louis
Noames, an appreciation by Jean-Louis Comolli (The Blind Man and the Mirror or The
Impossible Cinema of Douglas Sirk), and a biofilmographie compiled by Patrick Brion and
Dominique Rabourdin.[5] Leading American critic Andrew Sarris praised Sirk in his 1968

book The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 19291968, although Sirk failed to
qualify for Sarris' controversial "pantheon" of great directors. From around 1970 there was a
burgeoning interest among academic film scholars for Sirk's work - especially his American
melodramas. The seminal work in this field was Jon Halliday's book-length interview, Sirk on
Sirk (1971) which presented Sirk as "... a sophisticated intellectual, a filmmaker who arrived in
Hollywood with a very clear vision, leaving behind him an established career in German theatre
and film".[6] Several major revival seasons of Sirk's films followed over the next few years,
including a 20-film retrospective at the 1972 Edinburgh Festival (which Sirk attended), which
also generated a book of essays. In 1974 the University of Connecticut Film Society
programmed a complete retrospective of the directors American films, and invited Sirk to
attend, but on the way to the airport, for the flight to New York, Sirk suffered a haemorrhage
that seriously impaired the vision in his left eye.[7]
Analyses of Sirk's work, with their emphasis on aspects of Sirk's formerly-criticized style,
revealed an oblique criticism of American society hidden beneath a banal facade of plotting
conventional for the era - Sirk's films were now seen as masterpieces of irony. The criticism of
the 1970s and early 1980s was dominated by an ideological take on Sirk's work, gradually
changing from Marxist-inspired visions in the early 1970s, to a focus on gender and sexuality in
the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Sirk's reputation was also helped by a widespread nostalgia for old-fashioned Hollywood films
in the 1970s.[8] His work is now widely considered to show excellent control of the visuals,
extending from lighting and framing to costumes and sets that are saturated with symbolism
and shot through with subtle barbs of irony. Film critic Roger Ebert has said, "To appreciate a
film like Written on the Windprobably takes more sophistication than to understand one
of Ingmar Bergman's masterpieces, because Bergman's themes are visible and underlined,
while with Sirk the style conceals the message."[9]

In popular culture[edit]
Sirk's films have been quoted in films by directors such as Rainer Werner
Fassbinder (whose Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is partly based on All That Heaven Allows) and,
later, Quentin Tarantino, Todd Haynes, Pedro Almodvar, Wong Kar-wai, John Waters and Lars
von Trier.
More specifically, Almodvar's vibrant use of color in 1988's Women on the Verge of a Nervous
Breakdown recalls the cinematography of Sirk's films of the 1950s, while Haynes' Far From
Heaven was a conscious attempt to replicate a typical Sirk melodrama - in particular All That
Heaven Allows - but with a more obviously ironic take on the material. Tarantino paid homage
to Sirk and his melodramatic style inPulp Fiction, when character Vincent Vega, at a '50sthemed restaurant, orders the "Douglas Sirk steak" cooked "bloody as hell." Aki
Kaurismki alluded to Sirk as well; in his silent film, Juha to Sirk, the villain's sport car is named
"Sierck".

Awards[edit]

1985 Bavarian Film Award, Honorary Award [4]

Filmography[edit]
Feature films[edit]

April, April! (1935)

The Lady Pays Off (1951)

Das Mdchen vom Moorhof (1935)

Week-End With Father (1951)

Sttzen der Gesellschaft (1935)

No Room for the Groom (1952)

't Was n April (1936) (Dutch language version of April, April)

Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952)

Schluakkord (1936)

Meet Me at the Fair (1953)

The Court Concert (1936)

Take Me To Town (1953)

All I Desire (1953)

Taza, Son of Cochise (1954)

Magnificent Obsession (1954)

Sign of the Pagan (1954)

Captain Lightfoot (1955)

All That Heaven Allows (1955)

There's Always Tomorrow (1956)

Written on the Wind (1956)

Battle Hymn (1957)

Interlude (1957)

The Tarnished Angels (1957)

A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)

Imitation of Life (1959)

La Chanson du souvenir (1936) co-director (French language

version of Das Hofkonzert)

Zu neuen Ufern (1937)

La Habanera (1937)

Accord Final (1938) (uncredited)

Triad (1938)

Boefje (1939)

Hitler's Madman (1943)

Summer Storm (1944)

A Scandal in Paris (1946)

Lured (1947)

Sleep, My Love (1948)

Shockproof (1949)

Slightly French (1949)

Mystery Submarine (1950)

The First Legion (1951)

Thunder on the Hill (1951)

Short films[edit]

Zwei Windhunde / Zwei Genies (1934)

Der eingebildete Kranke (1935)

3 x Ehe (1935)

The Christian Brothers at Mont La Salle (1941)

Sprich zu mir wie der Regen (1975) co-director with group of film students

Sylvesternacht (1977) co-director with group of film students

Bourbon Street Blues (1979) co-director with group of film students

See also[edit]

Far from Heaven (2002) directed by Todd Haynes was largely inspired by Sirk's work
especially All That Heaven Allows.

Polyester (1981) directed by John Waters was, according to Waters, informed by Sirk's
Universal melodramas.[citation needed]

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Angst essen Seele auf) (1974) by Rainer Werner
Fassbinder transposes All That Heaven Allows into contemporary Germany, with Rock
Hudson's Thoreau-esque man of the soil recast as a Moroccan "guest worker".

Out There in the Dark (2006) by Wesley Strick features a protagonist called "Dieter
Seiff" loosely based on Sirk.

Drachenfels (1989) in this gothic fantasy novel by Kim Newman (who penned it under
the pseudonym Jack Yeovil) the protagonist is a young thespian and dramatist
named Detlef Sierck, who receives the task of writing a piece about a renowned epic deed
by the same prince who accomplished it twenty years before.[clarification needed]

References[edit]
1.

Jump up^ John Halliday and Douglas Sirk, Sirk on Sirk (Faber & Faber, 2011)

2.

Jump up^ John Halliday and Douglas Sirk, Sirk on Sirk (Faber & Faber, 2011)

3.

Jump up^ John Halliday and Douglas Sirk, Sirk on Sirk (Faber & Faber, 2011)

4.

Jump up^ Godard, Jean-Luc (1986). Godard on Godard: Critical Writings by JeanLuc Godard. New York: Da Capo Press.

5.

Jump up^ [1] Tom Ryan, "Douglas Sirk", Senses of Cinema]

6.

Jump up^ [2] Tom Ryan, "Douglas Sirk", Senses of Cinema]

7.

Jump up^ [3] Tom Ryan, "Douglas Sirk", Senses of Cinema]

8.

Jump up^ Klinger, Barbara (1994). Melodrama and Meaning: history, culture, and
the films of Douglas Sirk. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

9.

Jump up^ :: rogerebert.com :: Great Movies :: Written on the Wind (xhtml)

Further reading[edit]

Douglas Sirk Bibliography (via UC Berkeley)

External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has
media related to Douglas
Sirk.

Douglas Sirk at the Internet Movie Database

"Douglas Sirk" Yahoo! Movies

"Douglas Sirk" MSN Movies

"The Films of Douglas Sirk: The Epistemologist of Despair", by Fred Camper

[hide]

Films directed by Douglas Sirk

European films

American films

't Was n April (1936)

The Court Concert (1936)
To New Shores (1937)
La Habanera (1937)
Boefje (1939)
Hitler's Madman (1943)
Summer Storm (1944)
A Scandal in Paris (1946)
Lured (1947)
Sleep, My Love (1948)
Shockproof(1949)
The First Legion (1951)
Thunder on the Hill (1951)
No Room for the Groom (1952)
Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952)
Meet Me at the Fair (1953)
Take Me to Town (1953)
All I Desire (1953)

Taza, Son of Cochise (1954)

Magnificent Obsession(1954)
Sign of the Pagan (1954)
Captain Lightfoot (1955)
All That Heaven Allows (1955)
There's Always Tomorrow (1956)
Never Say Goodbye (1956)
Written on the Wind (1956)
Battle Hymn (1957)
Interlude (1957)
The Tarnished Angels (1958)
A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)
Imitation of Life (1959)

Authority control

WorldCat
VIAF: 14911756
LCCN: n79063051
ISNI: 0000 0003 6863 8230
GND: 11883181X
BNF:cb13178855m (data)
NDL: 01040279

Categories:
1897 births

1987 deaths

English-language film directors

German film directors

German-language film directors

German people of Danish descent

People from Hamburg