3. IMITATION OF LIFE, dir. DOUGLAS SIRK, 1959
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watching our last film got me thinking about melodrama, perhaps terrain i wanted the lost weekend to fully enter.
the dictionary definition here feels shockingly biased --
melodrama: a dramatic form that does not observe the laws of cause and effect, and that exaggerates emotion and emphasizes plot or action at the expense of characterization.
can perhaps also be thought of as the linking of music and drama, to enter a new realm?
melodrama as a concept makes me think of the artist charlotte salomon, born in berlin in 1917, and creating 769 paintings before her death in auschwitz in 1943. the bones behind her work were inspired by the teachings of a man she called 'daberlorn', and his ideas regarding the elevation of life to a form of theatre, 'a form of existence in art that has more meaning than mere life.'
here, douglas sirk's most successful and last commercial film. i've never seen it, have you?
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