Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirkwas a German film director best known for his work in Hollywood melodramas in the 1950s...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth26 April 1897
CountryGermany
believe fired german-director producer thunder
Only on Thunder did I have a producer who was interfering with my work. He was the only one at Universal. After that film I believe they fired him.
german-director hunter
Ross Hunter was my assistant on Take Me to Town, He was a young man, an actor before that, and learned a lot on the picture. During shooting, Goldstein left, and Ross was most pleasant. He never interfered.
german-director great
I think the great artists, especially in literature, have always thought with the heart.
german-director hard
But I always wanted my characters to be more than cyphers for the failings of their world. And I never had to look too hard to find a part of myself in them.
attended began german-director physical remained remains suggested theory
And it really began with Einstein. We attended his lectures. Now the theory of relativity remained - and still remains - only a theory. It has not been proven. But it suggested a completely different picture of the physical world.
art create trying war
The war was the end of an era, in art as well. And we were trying to create a new philosophy.
anarchism art became marxism rosa time
At the same time, of course, Marxism arose - Rosa Luxembourg, Leninism, anarchism - and art became political.
bought came far german-director land piece tiny
When we first came to America, I bought a tiny piece of land far out in the country. But there was no place to live on it, only a shed.
average ideas people
My idea at this time, which was slowly developing, was to create a comedie humaine with little people, average people - samples from every period in American life.
dirty hands land
For a house, somewhere near Los Angeles I found an old church. Very old, no longer used. So we moved the church to the land, and I took off the steeple, and I got my hands dirty.
art style common
There arose a belief in style - and in banality. Banality encompassed politics, too, because it was a common belief that politics were not worthy of art.
character home wife
I was making films about American society, and it is true that I never felt at home there, except perhaps when my wife and I lived on a farm in the San Fernando Valley. But I always wanted my characters to be more than cyphers for the failings of their world. And I never had to look too hard to find a part of myself in them
real reflection expression
There is a wonderful expression: seeing through a glass darkly. Everything, even life, is inevitably removed from you. You can't reach, or touch, the real. You just see reflections
art ideas perfection
So slowly in my mind formed the idea of melodrama, a form I found to perfection in American pictures. They were naive, they were that something completely different. They were completely Art-less.