Melodrama: IMITATION OF LIFE

Jun 23, 2016

(Douglas Sirk, U.S., 1959, 125 min)

Co-presented with Three Dollar Bill Cinema

Hosted by The Lady B, performer/activist

Happy hour in the lobby at 7:00pm

Soap opera-esque in the absolute best sense, Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life is one of the great melodramas of the ‘50s, steeped in the race and class politics of the era. A white single mother in show business struggles to maintain her relationship with her daughter as she strives for stage fame; the African-American widow with whom the aspiring starlet shares an apartment has a light-skinned daughter of her own who, to her mother’s dismay, longs to pass for white; the film follows the two mother-daughter relationships as they develop over several years.

<Back to Calendar