As long as there are people

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Movie
German title As long as there are people
Original title Imitation of Life
Country of production USA
original language English
Publishing year 1959
length 124 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Douglas Sirk
script Allan Scott
Eleanore Griffin
production Ross Hunter for
Universal Pictures
music Frank Skinner
camera Russell Metty
cut Milton Carruth
occupation
synchronization

As long as there are people (Imitation of Life) is a 1959 American film about racial prejudice and the compatibility of motherhood and career. The main role is played by Lana Turner , directed by Douglas Sirk . The film is based on the novel by Fannie Hurst and is a remake of the original film of the same name by John M. Stahl from 1934.

It was Douglas Sirk's last directorial work, who then returned to his native Germany. Although the film was a commercial success at the time, most contemporary critics felt negative about it. It is now widely rated as one of the best melodramas in films. In 2015, As long as there are people was included in the National Film Registry .

plot

1947, on the beach at Coney Island . Lora Meredith is a widowed white mother. The actress, who came to New York from the provinces, loses her daughter Susie in the beach fray and asks the photographer Steve Archer, whom she has just met, for help. She finally finds her daughter in the care of the Afro-American widow Annie Johnson, who has a daughter Susie's age: Sarah Jane. She is significantly fairer-skinned than her mother, almost white. Since Annie is in financial distress and has no shelter, Lora takes her in and the two women agree that Annie takes care of the children during the day while Lora strives for a career as an actress on Broadway . Lora goes out with Steve several times when he wants to marry her and asks her to quit an acting career at all costs, she decides on a potential career.

After a few failures, Lora made her breakthrough as a comedian. She becomes the mistress of the successful author David Edwards. Because of her ruthless ambitions, Lora not only loses the love of Steve, but also moves away emotionally from Susie, who finds a mother substitute in Annie. Sarah Jane, who is mistaken for white because of her lighter skin color, for her part increasingly denies her origin from a mother of color. Gradually she despises her mother, who is ready to forgive Sarah Jane any humiliation out of her basic Christian attitude.

Ten years go by. Lora lives in great luxury and each of her pieces is a success. But she feels an inner emptiness and is looking for a new task. She turns down David's marriage proposal and at the same time accepts the offer to make an artistically demanding film about love and the complexity of human relationships in Europe for a very small fee. At a party, shortly before leaving, she meets Steve again, who tells her to stay. Lora decides against it, but tells Steve to take care of Susie and Annie. Sarah Jane, meanwhile, is beaten up by her white boyfriend Frankie after he hears about her black mother. After these experiences, she breaks off contact with her mother and Lora and Susie and works as a show girl. Annie tracks her down and tries to get her to return. Sarah Jane denies her mother in front of her colleagues, breaking Annie's heart.

Lora has barely returned from Europe when the long suppressed conflict with her daughter breaks out. Susie falls in love with Steve and in a dramatic altercation accuses her mother of neglecting her. Lora is beside herself. She tells Susie how much money and luxury she owes her mother. In the end, Lora accepts Steve's proposal and Susie wants to go to college on the west coast. The situation comes to a head when Annie, who has been ailing since the falling out with her daughter, lies dying. On her deathbed, she asks Lora to take care of Sarah Jane. She gives final instructions for her funeral and dies. Lora is completely desperate, but fulfills Annie's last wishes. The funeral unites everyone who has come into contact with Annie and Lora over the years. After a gospel song, Annie's coffin is pushed into the hearse, which is pulled by four white horses, in front of which a large brass band is walking. As the train starts moving, Sarah Jane comes, tears the car open and throws herself on her mother's coffin. In vain, because apparently too late, she asks for forgiveness. The film ends with Steve, Susie, Lora and Sarah Jane sitting in a car that is following the carriage with the coffin. They are holding each other by the hand, but are all looking in a different direction. Sarah Jane nests her head on Lora's shoulder.

background

Producer Ross Hunter and director Douglas Sirk had been a well-established team at Universal Pictures since the early 1950s . Her specialty has been the opulent film adaptation of melodramas since the overwhelming financial success of The Wonderful Power of 1954. As early as 1934, John M. Stahl had filmed Fannie Hurst's novel Imitation of Life for Universal Pictures , at the time with Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers in the leading roles.

Literary template

Fannie Hurst's story about the two widows Bea Pullman and Delilah Johnson is a socially critical analysis of racial prejudice and the problem of women, work and family. During a trip she took with the Afro-American writer Zora Neale Hurston , Hurst experienced firsthand the deeply rooted prejudices of her contemporaries against Afro-American people. Her resulting book, Imitation of Life , was published in the spring of 1933 and made it to number 9 on the New York Times' list of best-selling books by the end of the year .

The material offers two basic possibilities for female self-realization: on the one hand Delilah, a woman who consciously decides for the family and against success in her job. Delilah has discovered a recipe for waffles, but she entrusts her white friend Bea to market it. She would rather dedicate herself entirely to her daughter Peola and the young Jessie, Bea's daughter. On the other hand is Bea, a young woman who is obsessed with just one desire to become successful. She is a young midwestern widow who makes every sacrifice for her dream, only to end up with emotional emptiness and a domestic dilemma.

The story is based on the question of one's own identity. Peola wants to be something that she can convey to the outside world, because her skin color is very light, which - as the daughter of an Afro-American mother - however, due to the current racist prejudice, she will never be: a white woman. The book shows the racism with which whites encountered their Afro-American fellow citizens, which was still everyday at that time.

History of origin

Ross Hunter had already made the plan in mid-1956 to tackle a remake of Imitation of Life as a musical . The first plans were to give the lead roles to Shirley Booth and Ethel Waters . The plan was dropped and the studio tried to get Deborah Kerr and Richard Egan to star. The choice of Lana Turner as a sorrows mother was favored by a spectacular incident in the actress' life. In April 1958, Lana Turner's daughter Cheryl Crane stabbed her mother's lover, gangster Johnny Stompanato. According to Turner, her daughter wanted to repel a physical attack by Stompanato on her, Lana Turner. The investigation and trial dragged on for months, and in the end Cheryl Crane was acquitted of self-defense.

A few years earlier, such an event would have endangered, if not destroyed, the careers of those affected, but now the audience was more enlightened, and Turner already had the reputation of a woman with a turbulent private life. She was nominated for an Oscar for best actress for her appearance in Embers under the Ashes , the greatest success of her career so far, for her portrayal of a single mother .

Lana Turner was initially reluctant to take on the role, but her tight financial situation forced her to do so. She agreed on a contract with the studio that guaranteed her a percentage of the box office, which turned out to be the right decision. The role of Sarah Jane was cast with Susan Kohner , the daughter of Turner's agent Paul Kohner and his wife, the Mexican actress Lupita Tovar .

For the important role of Annie, the studio tested over 40 actresses, including such famous names as Pearl Bailey and the opera singer Marian Anderson . In the end, in consultation with Douglas Sirk, Hunter decided on 43-year-old Juanita Moore , who until then had worked almost exclusively for television. The first choice for the role of Susie was Natalie Wood , but the studio then gave the role to Sandra Dee , who was already under contract with Universal. Dee was already a well-known actress of carefree teenagers, and the success of As Long There Are People made her a star. Later that year she appeared in Summer Island , one of the most talked- about films of the year, which brought taboo subjects like adultery and teenage pregnancies straight to the screen and made even more money than While There Are People .

The choice of John Gavin was based on the studio's plan to make Gavin the successor to Rock Hudson as a top male star. Under Sirk, he had already worked alongside Liselotte Pulver in the adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's eponymous anti-war novel, Time to Live and Time to Die, last year .

The theme song, Imitation of Life, with music by Sammy Fain and lyrics by Paul Francis Webster , was sung by Earl Grant . The famous singer Mahalia Jackson sings the gospel song Trouble to the World at Annie's funeral .

The film was Universal's biggest financial success of the year, grossing over $ 6.4 million in the US alone. It was Douglas Sirk's last US directorial work that his health forced him to withdraw permanently. With this, Ross Hunter's attempt to realize a remake of Madame X with Lana Turner in the lead role under the direction of Sirk in 1960 also failed .

Differences between the versions

The two film versions of the book sometimes differ considerably.

Version from 1934

In John M. Stahl's 1934 version, the heroines are called Beatrice Pullman (Claudette Colbert), also known as Bea, and Delilah Johnson (Louise Beavers), mostly just Aunt Delilah. Bea is an entrepreneur who comes to wealth and social recognition with a waffle recipe that Delilah voluntarily gives her for commercial exploitation. Delilah renounces any kind of profit-sharing, withdraws completely into the domestic environment and takes care of Bea's daughter Jessie and her own daughter Peola, who is portrayed by the African-American actress Fredi Washington .

The relationship between the different races is portrayed in the film with a certain hope for the future and for change. After Georg Seeßlen is the film

“A reflex to the liberal mood of the New Deal. History is heading towards the idealization of a harmony between the races based on insight and human understanding. [...] The voluntary standing together of the two mothers refers to the typical New Deal ideology propagated in many films of the time (e.g. in the comedies of Frank Capra ) between rich and poor and between men and women has been."

At the same time, however, the strip also shows that

“Transition of another stereotypical character, the black mammy, from a rather comical characterization to a human dimension. The black mammy becomes a kind of mother figure, whose understanding could never be raised by the white woman. "

Version from 1959

In the 1959 version, the main character, who is transformed from a businesswoman into a glamorous actress, is very much tailored to Lana Turner. Lora Meredith's rise from a chance encounter with a photographer on the beach to a famous star is said to have parallels to Turner's own career. She is said to have been discovered in a branch of Schwab's Drug Store while she was drinking lemonade. Turner also had a reputation for being one of the best-dressed women of the time. To take this into account, the figure of Lora was surrounded with great luxury. The then well-known fashion designer Jean Louis was hired for the film, and Turner had no less than 34 different ensembles to switch to. At the same time, the actress only wore real jewels, which had a total value of $ 1,000,000. The strained relationship between Lora and her daughter has parallels with Turner's own life and the scandal over the death of her lover and the role that her daughter Cheryl Crane played in it. In addition, the 1959 version reinforces the aspect of mother-daughter rivalry for the same man. The film borrows from Solange a heart beats from 1945, in which Ann Blyth, the daughter of the heroine Mildred Pierce, played by Joan Crawford , seduces the mother's second husband, i.e. her stepfather, and shoots him after being rejected.

At the same time, the basic attitude of the film is far less optimistic. Seeßlen says about the final scene:

“At present there is always that other America, the America of the dream that Sirk, like many others, had hoped to find; [...] it is there when Mahalia Jackson sings in 'Imitation of Life', the longing for the redemption of everyone, really everyone in the voice. It is there, but it is no longer useful. "

synchronization

The German dubbed version was created in 1959 by Berliner Synchron under the direction of Volker Becker.

role actor German dubbing voice
Lora Meredith Lana Turner Tilly Lauenstein
Annie Johnson Juanita Moore Elf tailors
Steve Archer John Gavin Horst Niendorf
Susie Meredith Sandra Dee Marianne Lutz
Sarah Jane Johnson Susan Kohner Uta Hallant
David Edwards Dan O'Herlihy Friedrich Schoenfelder
Allen Loomis Robert Alda Klaus Miedel
Sarah Jane (8 years) Karin Dicker Heidi Ewert
Susie (6 years) Terry Burnham Hinzelmann rehab

Reviews

While a huge box office hit, As long as There Are People did not go down well with critics in 1959. Bosley Crowther in the New York Times found unkind words:

“It's the most outrageous stirring thing in a number of years. [...] The script by Eleanore Griffin and Allan Scott [...] is full of clichés. [...] The funeral of the black mother, which is the emotional climax of the story, is an imposition of tasteless boasting and sentimentality. [...] Directed by Douglas Sirk, Miss Turner and everyone else involved act without reference to reality and exaggerate. [...] They imitate acting as it was practiced 25 years ago. "

In the Federal Republic of Germany, contemporary reviews from film-dienst and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung also rated Annie Johnson's funeral scene negatively. "Tighter direction and more neat dialogues would have done her good," said the film-dienst . The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung criticized Susan Kohner's “one-sided” character, while Juanita Moore in the role of Annie (a “ Mater dolorosa ”) and her teammates “[...] deserved the film's real success [...]” . The overall impression is "[...] ambivalent, not to say tiring. The script lacks dramatic conflicts that push for a consistent solution in hard arguments. Instead, a lot is painted carefully and in all possible moods, but without giving an authentic reflection of the customs and traditions of those circles into which the film strives to lead the audience, ”says the FAZ.

However, the reception of the film has changed since the 1970s. A BBC survey of film critics voted 2015 As Long As There Are People 37th of the best American films of all time. A survey by the film magazine Sight & Sound listed the film in 2012 at number 93 of the best films of all time.

For Rainer Werner Fassbinder , a staunch supporter of Sirk, the verdict was clear:

"A great, insane film of life and death."

Even Günter Giese field was enthusiastic:

"Sirk's masterful actor management, his exactitude in the furnishing of (interior) rooms and the staging of gestures, (camera) movements and props make it clear that Hollywood's narrative patterns can develop their highest expressiveness in the 'mythical realism' of melodrama."

The American critic Richard Brody of the New Yorker ruled:

"For his last Hollywood film, released in 1959, German director Douglas Sirk unleashed a melodramatic whirlwind of anger at the corrupt roots of American life - the unholy trio of racism, commerce and puritanism."

The lexicon of international films was less enthusiastic:

“A narrative, intertwined mother-child drama about glamorous lies in American everyday life; Douglas Sirk directed his last film in Hollywood in his own melodramatic style, bordering on the penetrating touching piece. "

Awards

Golden Laurel 1958

  • Award for best film drama

Golden Globe Awards 1959

The film went to the 1959 Academy Awards with two nominations , without winning any of the awards.

In 2015, As long as there are people was included in the National Film Registry .

literature

  • Lucy Fischer (Ed.): Imitation of life. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick NJ et al. 1991, ISBN 0-8135-1645-5 ( Rutgers Films in Print 16), material collection.
  • Clive Hirschhorn: The Columbia Story. Hamlyn, London 2001, ISBN 0-600-59836-5 .
  • Barbara Klinger: Melodrama and Meaning. History, Culture, and the Films of Douglas Sirk. Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN et al. 1994, ISBN 0-253-20875-0 .
  • Georg Seeßlen , Jürgen Berger: Cinema of feelings. History and mythology of the film melodrama. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1980, ISBN 3-499-17366-2 ( Basics of the popular film 6 = Rororo 7366 rororo non-fiction book = program Roloff and Seeßlen ).
  • Turner Classic Movies .

Web links

Commons : As long as there are people  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see Imitation of Life - Collection of materials by Lucy Fischer
  2. ↑ See Overview for Imitation of Life (1959) , on Turner Classic Movies. (English)
  3. ↑ Seeßlen p. 193f
  4. ↑ Seeßlen p. 194
  5. ↑ Seeßlen p. 132
  6. ↑ As long as there are people at the German Synchronous Database
  7. ↑ As long as there are people . In: film-dienst 38/1959 (accessed via Munzinger Online ).
  8. ↑ As long as there are people . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , October 1, 1959, p. 15.
  9. ↑ BBC "The 100 Greatest American Films"
  10. ↑ BFI "Sight & Sound"
  11. ↑ Volume 2, p. 347 Filmklassiker, Stuttgart, Reclam, 1995 ISBN 3-15-009416-X
  12. ↑ Richard Brody's review of "Imitation of Life"
  13. ↑ As long as there are people at the Lexicon of International Films