Douglas Sirk’s 1959 adaptation of Fannie Hurst’s novel Imitation of Life is one of those movies that endeavours to be socially conscious in a radical way but without going far enough in its pursuits to make any kind of a radical statement. It is a movie that came in the early years of the Civil Rights Movement with a genuine interest in speaking to that movement on themes of race and wealth, but is coming at it from a place of extreme whiteness (whether from the studio apparatus or the specific producers), and as such a certain ignorance of the themes it wishes to express. But then, it’s clearly a movie aimed at white audiences more than black, an early entry in the “teaching white people not to be racist” genre -which to it’s credit was at one time a useful one. At a time when segregation was still the way of life in many U.S. states, this was a movie that openly denounced it. While miscegenation was still a taboo in parts of the country and Loving vs. Virginia was still a decade away, here was a movie that insinuated an interracial relationship. And as the n-word was a freely used if uncouth denigrating term in polite company, here it is dropped with a simultaneous candour and venom that is outright shocking to witness -one of the earliest usages I’ve seen of it on screen. Perhaps the movie isn’t so mediocre as it initially appears.
Imitation of Life was at least provocative and affecting enough in its time to earn several accolades -two nominations in the Oscar Best Supporting Actress category, as well as a great deal of subsequent appraisal as pertaining to its place as the last movie by Sirk -the great melodramatic auteur of 1950s Hollywood. And certainly this was a movie benefiting from the time-sensitive nature of its conversations, however retroactively successful they may have been.
Indeed, 1959 was a far more crucial time for this kind of movie than 1934 had been for the last version of Imitation of Life -coming just a year after the book and starring Claudette Colbert. And yet that had in fact been a very successful film, one that the initial critics of this version unfavourably compared it to. However it was regarded at least by some to have not done justice to its black characters, specifically the mixed race Peola, one of the main figures of the story and the centrepiece of it’s most gripping plot-line -likely due to reasons stemming from the newly implemented Hays Code. By the late 50’s though, the Code had lost enough of its power that Sirk could make this subplot a much more prominent part of the film’s overall narrative.
That narrative is about two pairs of a single mother and daughter (most of the names from the book were changed for this second adaptation). White aspiring actress Lora (Lana Turner) and her young daughter Susie (Terry Burnham) meet Annie (Juanita Moore), a black woman recently arrived from the south, and her mixed race daughter Sarah Jane (Karin Dicker) -who can pass for white, at a Coney Island beach. Lora and Annie become friends and given the latter’s poor prospects the former invites her to live with them and hires her as a housekeeper. Susie and Sarah Jane also start getting along, though the relationship is fraught any time Susie brings up Sarah Jane’s blackness, something she is deeply ashamed and embarrassed of due to her observation of how black women are treated and a passionate desire for the privileges afforded being white. A perfect example of this comes in the form of Lora’s upward trajectory over the next decade, plagued though it may be by its own issues of gender and class.
The movie adopts a rather curious structure in how the first hour focuses almost exclusively on Lora’s story, only occasionally checking in on the frustrations of Sarah Jane and her relationship to her mother -before switching focus around and spending the bulk of the second hour on her and the race issue, while Lora is backgrounded in a minor subplot. The intent here seems to be to afford equal focus to the two personal struggles -one against classism in the theatre industry and institutional sexism, and the other against the politics of racial identity. The former is inferior but still with its interesting touches -Lora’s first meeting with her eventual theatrical agent Loomis (Robert Alda -yes, Alan’s dad) ending with him sexually harassing her and all but implying outright that sexual favours will get her ahead. It’s one of the few times in classic Hollywood where certain physical overtures by a man (touching, kissing a cheek) are clearly intended to be at the very least improper rather than romantic. He nonetheless manages Lora’s career as she steadily rises as a star in theatrical comedies -mostly written by her lover, Gavin O’Herlihy’s David, a slick, artistic contrast to romantic rival Steve (John Gavin) -a more straight-laced all-American type. It’s the very standard soap opera fare that by this time Sirk was well known and often dismissed for. But it also shows how much the Code had receded in prominence by this time (this came the same year as Some Like It Hot), by how Lora clearly has a relationship outside of marriage -two technically- and yet is never punished by the movie for it. And where past movies might have moralized her choice of profession and how it takes her away from domestic, maternal obligations, the consequence of her more distant relationship with Susie (grown up into Sandra Dee) is seen as unfortunate, but not beyond reconciliation. And the film never suggests she was wrong for her career path.
As refreshing as a lot of this may be though, it’s not very compelling material: another white woman ultimately succeeding in the American Dream. The flip-side of the movie concerns those for whom that is impossible. It’s the far more intriguing plot, if it is also much messier with its core tenets. Because despite the love and support she receives from her mother, Lora, and Susie, Sarah Jane grows up to be even more resentful of her heritage –played now by Susan Kohner, a white-Latina actress. Secretively, she engages in a succession of pursuits while hiding her black identity, to the disapproval of her mother when she finds out. The movie illustrates both the tactic in this –her boyfriend assaults her and she loses her job because of her race- and the harm of hiding her identity on her moral character and relationship to her mother. At one point she outright mocks Annie’s manner and accent in an exaggerated display that slyly calls attention to the stereotype of how black women were portrayed in popular media unironically even up to that time; though also unintentionally drawing attention to how much Annie conforms to this image. Moore delivers a really sweet performance that is honestly the highlight of the movie, but she is still playing a Mamie archetype, from her occupation to her gentility and manner of speaking. Likewise, Sarah Jane, pursuing work in clubs and in dance halls –coded occupations for sexual availability, is very much the typified image of the lascivious mixed-race girl, another common trope hailing from the Antebellum-era. While Sirk may bring to the fore new conceptions of mixed-race identity and a modern context of discrimination, he does little to subvert these old character types.
Even in its virtues though, the movie is flawed. As it showcases the struggle of mixed-race identity, it has nothing in fact to say about black identity –never does Annie sit down with Sarah Jane to teach her her heritage or dissuade her ingrained ideas of white supremacy. She merely watches her daughter’s self-hating spiral. And the movie has no interest in embodying a black perspective either –on the contrary it alienates the audience from Sarah Jane as much as possible by highlighting her intense stubbornness and contempt for virtually everyone around her. She is seen as ungrateful and impulsive, the architect of every unfortunate thing that befalls her. While Lora may never be punished for any of her “transgressions” (beyond a minor plot beat involving Susie developing a crush on her man Steve), Sarah Jane absolutely is –with the estranged death of the mother she never appreciated the final nail in the coffin. While the movie imparts a theme on the ills of racial discrimination and at least pays lip service to the acceptance of black or mixed race identities, it seemingly has a hard time not upholding some hallmarks of age-old white supremacist judgements and tropes.
All this considered, Sirk presents it in a striking way, not just structurally -which was explicitly designed in a way to put more emphasis on Annie and Sarah Jane- but also visually. The film is vividly colourful as all hell, as close as an American movie from this age could get perhaps to Jack Cardiff’s collaborations with the Archers in the U.K. And it is definitely a priority for Sirk. The only other movie of his I’ve seen is Written on the Wind, a melodrama that could pass as a 1950s episode of Dallas, but a movie that is extremely pretty and evocative to look at. And it’s not just the colours but the lavish details of his sets and the costumes -indeed the altercation in Lora’s plot to making her an actress (she was a restaurateur originally) was primarily to capitalize on Lana Turner’s glamour and give her an assortment of fine, fashionable dresses to wear. But Sirk demonstrates here just as much interest in capturing with elegance the lower classes as he does the elites in something like Written on the Wind. One of the nicer moments of the film is a Christmas setting, where Annie reads from the Bible to the young Susie and Sarah Jane. A humble scene, even if within a home of its own privilege. And I’m caught too on the final funeral procession, where Sirk for the first time showcases a population of black people -epitomized somewhat in Mahalia Jackson singing for the congregation. The way he shoots their expression, especially as Sarah Jane arrives in mourning and guilt, is full of a curious subtext. Sirk seems fascinated by that, and I don’t doubt that had he continued making movies, his interests in such marginalizations would have been reflected.
Imitation of Life is a fascinating case study in the evolution of social consciousness in Hollywood, in a way that’s not too dissimilar from something like Gentleman’s Agreement from about a decade prior. It reckons with culturally sensitive issues around race as best an innately white production of the 1950s knows how -which can be appreciated, even if its oversights are more stark as a result. Sirk’s direction is impeccable as are a couple of the performances -and there is a thrill to seeing a movie of this era address these certain themes. But it’s not a staple of that era. In the end, it really does live up to its title: for all characters and representation concerned, it is a highly subjective Imitation of Life, but not Life itself.
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