Trapped in the '50's

To understand and appreciate the revisionist genius behind Far from Heaven, directed by Todd Haynes, one needs to appreciate the cinematic impact of Douglas Sirk (1900-1987), a  director whose jaundiced view of American life played out in a series of films in the 1950s that have been rightly celebrated for their panache.

Born in Denmark, Sirk moved to Germany as a teenager, and eventually became an accomplished stage director. Movies followed, and he was on his way to a successful film career when the Nazis came to power. Sirk had always been left-leaning in his politics, and since his second wife was Jewish, he left, eventually landing in the U.S.

His American career proved successful (not, at first, with the critics), but he never was able to get over his sense that something was not quite right in this country. He came to regard America as morally complacent, inclined to ignore its developing class system, its racism and sexism, and its penchant for greed. He returned to Germany in the early 1960s.