Douglas Sirk

only to realise that she has gained nothing from doing so. In a picturesque ending, however, Cary realises her mistake and finds herself back with Ron. A deer wandering in the snow outside their window silently approves of her choice as the credits roll. Falling under the melodrama genre, ‘All That Heaven Allows’ features elements that are characterised as excessive. The spectator experiences the story through the eyes of Cary and as such mimic the same emotions of anguish that she presents. Using mise-en-scene, Sirk externalises the internal emotions of the characters so much so that the viewer is overwhelmed and bombarded by it. However, just as the superficiality of the narrative and mise-en-scene can be unravelled so can the assumptions of gratuity. In accordance with the argument of Williams, it’s clear to see how ‘All That Heaven Allows’ attempts to problem-solve issues of sexuality and patriarchal society. Cary’s sexuality is silently and subtly explored by Sirk through her wardrobe and the symbolic bodies of her suitors,…

The beautiful film All That Heaven Allows directed by Douglas Sirk shows the struggles women faced in the 1950’s and how gender norms limited women from having an independent and safe surrounding, all through the story of a rich widowed woman who falls for a young man. Sirk uses the set of the film to its maximum potential with his experience with mise-en-scène. With mise-en-scène Sirk can place any visual object in order gain emotion from his audience and in the film All That Heaven Allows he…

In the film, Imitation of Life, director Douglas Sirk utilizes the visual elements of mise-en-scene to affect viewers emotionally when presenting them with life’s limits of race. Throughout the film Sirk provides the viewer with a particular perspective of American life during the 1950’s. There are specific conventions and mise-en-scene devices that Sirk employs which are conducive to displaying the limitations of race. An example being, the scene where Annie and Sarah-Jane first arrive at…

unequivocally authentic engagement with German identity politics and will further argue that his film Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) specifically embodies his exploration into the themes of authority, racism, exploitation as well as class identity and class struggle within the highly politicized space of post-war Germany. Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul tells the story of two outwardly incompatible individuals, one Emmi Kurowski, a 60-year-old widow and a young Moroccan immigrant, known…

The Lincoln-Douglas debates, also known as the Great Debates of 1858, were a series of seven debates between two politicians running for the senate seat of the state of Illinois. The politicians were the republican nominee, Abraham Lincoln, and the democratic nominee, incumbent Stephen Douglas. The debates covered a series of topics, the most pertinent being the issue of slavery and its expansion into the newer western territories. The idea of the debates came forth after both Lincoln and…

Theory X and Theory Y by Douglas McGregor, summarizes a difference between management styles in that Theory X is an authoritarian style which assumes employees are naturally unmotivated, and Theory Y is a participative style and assumes that employees are self-motivated and enjoy working with greater responsibility (Mindtools, n.d.). In my workplace, I am more partial to Theory Y. I think that unless personally observed, managers should not just assume that otherwise mature, responsible adults…

land operations and securing bases of interest for the US (75). Being the first true proponent of these concepts, it took some time before they caught on with the leaders in Washington. However, there were many men scattered throughout the Corps, such as Earl Ellis, who truly believed in Lejeune’s proposal. Ellis did everything he could to help ensure that Marines became a landing and expeditionary force, such as writing the Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia, which predicted and outlined…

The Battle of Leyte Gulf took place in the Philippines and pitted Japanese and the United States naval forces against one another for command and control of the western Pacific region during World War II. The Philippines, to the United States, was another stepping stone closer to striking at Japan’s home island and also a vital staging point to wage war against Japan’s merchant supply line of valuable resources such as oil and fuel. Japan was required to defend the Philippines in the interest of…

“He had a way of touching your elbow or shoulder, upping his chin with a slight jerk and crowding into his eye such a warmth of blessing… he made you feel you’d contributed a boon to the whole human race” (“Douglas MacArthur” 1). MacArthur came from a background of a strict military upbringing. His father and grandfather were both generals and being raised on a military base MacArthur was destined to be a part of the United States military. His life was shaped and structured, but he had a…

He is quoted as stating that the original reason behind the conceptualisation of this movie was a direct response to his rejection for the title role in the movie Ben Hur, released just one year earlier. It was the decision of William Wyler, the director of this movie that the leading role would go to Charlton Heston, with Douglas offered the secondary part of the eventual villain, Messala. Douglas rejected the lesser role, and went on to admit in later years that his goal with Spartacus was to…