By Trent Lakey
What a title. What a lovely film. Who knew Hollywood was capable of such beauty? Douglas Sirk’s 1955 masterpiece All That Heaven Allows may be the finest film to usher in autumn and winter. Orange leaves and snowflakes fall in equal proportion, just as romance and tragedy swell against the seasonal backdrop. Yet the frames are never bare, as winter often is, allowing for vistas and edifices that capture the hearts of characters and viewers alike.
The story follows Cary (Jane Wyman), a middle-aged widow of privilege, who falls in love with her gardener, Ron (Rock Hudson), a younger man with little money to his name. Their burgeoning romance and desire to marry soon collide with outside gossip, opinion and judgment. Ron and Cary’s relationship acts as open defiance against the traditions of their community, as they eschew the uniformity of small-town American ideology. The film is as much about the transcendent power of love as it is about individual expression. Ron is a figure rooted in the earth, growing trees and living in an old mill in the woods; Cary, left with two children in college and an empty suburban house, finds in him a life less bound by conformity. About halfway through the film, Cary reads a passage from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Though Ron has not read the book, she observes that “he lives it.” For Sirk, Thoreau’s call for self-reliance and attuning oneself to nature is the film’s true subject. The romance serves as its vessel.
The society of others becomes the central question of the film. Two separate societies are offered: The first is the town’s, where residents gather at country clubs and cocktail parties to exchange gossip between martinis. The second is Ron’s — a group of genuine individuals, young and old, artists and laborers alike. They gather in true joy and mirth, partaking in wine, cakes, lobster and whatever confections are known to humankind. Their smiles are genuine, and goodwill abounds. Relating the story back to Thoreau, the society of others is not necessarily the problem; the problem lies in failing to cultivate one’s curiosities and desires, in failing to cultivate oneself as an individual. A true society can only be happy when each of its members is an individual, where uniformity is not treasured and upheld. Tragedy occurs when people attempt to conform their actions and desires to the expectations of the group.
Sirk’s melodramas of the 1950s remain among the most prescient of their time. Magnificent Obsession (also with Wyman and Hudson) and Written on the Wind are equally worth seeking out. While his influence may not match that of Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford or Howard Hawks, it is still felt today. His films had a great impact on German auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder, whose 1974 film Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is a loose remake of All That Heaven Allows. Todd Haynes is the contemporary master of melodrama, and his 2002 film Far From Heaven revises Sirk’s film for another era with equally satisfying results. Yet none are as sublime as the work of Douglas Sirk.
All That Heaven Allows begins screening Thursday, Oct. 2, as part of IPH’s Centennial Icons series.