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Library of Congress Film Essay: All That Heaven Allows (1955)

Wills, John (2020) Library of Congress Film Essay: All That Heaven Allows (1955). . Internet. (KAR id:84848)

Abstract

The rich visual texture, using glorious Technicolor, and a soaring emotional score lend what is essentially a thin story a kind of epic tension. A movie unheralded by critics and largely ignored by the public at the time of its release, All That Heaven Allows is now considered Douglas Sirk's masterpiece. The story concerns a romance between a middle-aged, middle-class widow (Jane Wyman) and a brawny young gardener (Rock Hudson)—the stuff of a standard weepie, you might think, until Sirk's camera begins to draw a deeply disturbing, deeply compassionate portrait of a woman trapped by stifling moral and social codes. Sirk's meaning is conveyed almost entirely by his mise-en-scene—a world of glistening, treacherous surfaces, of objects that take on a terrifying life of their own; he is one of those rare filmmakers who insist that you read the image.

Item Type: Internet publication
Uncontrolled keywords: All That Heaven Allows, Douglas Sirk, National Film Preservation Board
Subjects: E History America > E151 United States (General)
N Visual Arts > N Visual arts (General). For photography, see TR
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of History
Depositing User: John Wills
Date Deposited: 18 Dec 2020 13:41 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Feb 2021 14:17 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/84848 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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