Jane Wyman is a repressed wealthy widow and Rock Hudson is the hunky Thoreau-following gardener who loves her in Douglas Sirk's heartbreakingly beautiful indictment of 1950s small-town America. Sirk utilizes expressionist colors, reflective surfaces, and frames-within-frames to convey the loneliness and isolation of a matriarch trapped by the snobbery of her children and the gossip of her social-climbing country club chums. Criterion is proud to present this subversive Hollywood tearjerker in a new Special Edition.
Supplements
A half hour of excerpts from Behind the Mirror: A Profile of Douglas Sirk, a 1979 BBC documentary featuring rare interview footage with the director
"Imitation of Life: On the Films on Douglas Sirk": an illustrated essay by filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder
A collection of vintage lobby cards and production stills
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